To keep making this dinner

[Soitis83]

So, once a week I'll make a pasta and the sauce I make by myself. I roast loads of veg and blitz it in the blender with coconut milk. My two year old loves it, I love it and my husband loves it. Problem is, my 4 year old (who used to devour the whole plate) has now decided he hates it and refuses to eat it the last two times I've made it. Do I stop making it as it makes dinner time so stressful, or do I carry on making it as everyone else enjoys it and it's healthy? Making two separate dinners is just not an option as I also have a 3 month old and cooking dinner is hard enough as it is!

I'm not a fussy eater at all but even I would draw the line at pasta with blended roast veg and coconut milk. It sounds rank. Respect to your 4 year old!

Well, I'm sure somebody has pointed out that, while on the face of it, pasta and coconut milk seems an odd combination, if you think of all the noodle based meals with coconut, it's not such a stretch, is it? So to those rather sneery sounding posters, where's your imagination and logic, eh?

That and the fact I've and others have stated over and over, you can't taste the coconut! It's just a creamy pasta bake really

My 4 year old doesn't need respect, he needs to eat his bloody dinner.

There is some hilariously childish behavior in this thread about fussy eating.

Weirdly not things you might expect. Both like leak and ham pie, egg-related dishes and lasagne. Tomato soup is popular with child 2 and tolerable from child 1. Sausages also fine with both.

I now try and not do separate meals if I can help it but rotate things each like so they at least eat very well every other evening even if they pick at a non-preferred meal. I also try and make sure there’s at least something they’ll eat so they won’t starve but it drives me crazy.

It may have been said (sorry I didn’t read all the thread) but if my dd didn’t want the dinner, she would have plain pasta with a selection of cherry tomatoes, cucumber, frozen peas (she preferred them frozen, the texture is a bit like fudge) that she could help herself to. There were no other options. That way I knew she was having something healthy and we didn’t have the meltdown a row would provoke. So those items would be on the table for everyone to have if they wanted, along with the sauce.

Leak and ham pie is great considering they're fussy! Neither of mine like pastry. They'll both rip the pastry off a sausage roll and just eat the sausage!
Sausages are one of their shared favourites too, sometimes I make a sausage and potatoes cream (not coconut before I get battered) bake and that usually goes does a treat. But, it's hard isn't it! The worst part of parenting for me is cooking the meals!

I'd serve it all separately. Pasta in the bowl and use small cups/bowls/dishes to serve the sauce and cheese or whatever. Probably would add a side salad or garlic bread just to give a bit more options. My 5 year old likes to add her cheese herself so I serve it in an old GU pot. The 3 year old couldn't give a fig as long as there is cheese. Send solidarity it's a PITA when they go off something that was previously a safe food to serve.

You are saying YOU can’t taste the coconut. I am pretty sure most people though could tbf.

Sounds lovely. Pasta tastes like noodles to me anyway.
Easy meal is pasta mixed with a bit of marmite and grated cheese. With the essential cherry tomatoes and cucumber.

Serve pasta and sauce in different bowls, and ignore if the sauce isn't eaten.

It’s the combination of preferences that makes it hard. If I just had either of my children it would be pretty easy- especially my eldest but them having polar opposite preferences is just annoying. I’m hoping this phase will pass eventually.

I've not long had my tea and felt a bit peckish reading the description, might give it a go, i have a tin of coconut in the cupboard that I was going to use in a home made korma but this sounds yummy

I’m not on the ‘coconut milk is the devil’ bandwagon (I wouldn’t eat it, but it’s no worse than most British pasta dishes - ‘spag bol’ is unknown in Italy, as is chicken or cream in pasta, but that doesn’t stop most MNers), however this is silly. An onion, a carrot, a pepper, a courgette and a tomato are certainly five vegetables, but they’re not five servings of veg for more than two people. More like 1.5, even.

There isn’t ‘loads’ of veg in this. There’s some. Which is fine.

Why on earth do people like you bother responding to things? If you can't help, stand aside and let others have a go. Did you think the snark was funny or clever?

No, it is not five a day. One tomato for 4 people. Two diffferent types of onions. Heated up. If you think this is five a day then I am
not quite sure what to say.

It is absolutely fine, it’s not that, but it’s not five a day.

We used to have a policy of they had to have three tastes and if still no they could leave it. I cooked a lot and many different recipes. My kids now eat pretty much anything. Except for mushrooms for one child, randomly. Especially as he's travelled a lot and eats all sorts when there.

It is silly. But also a bit concerning if OP genuinely believes this.

Oh good grief.

I'm assuming the four year old, who this post is about, has neither hormonal issues or a need to build muscle

I can always taste the coconut in things.

Serve him the pasta, sauce and cheese on three separate bowls,

I'd keep making it if everyone else still loves it, and the 4 year old who has decided he doesn't like it anymore (kids 🙄😁) I'd serve plain pasta and maybe some grated cheese over it.

Coconut milk does not go with pasta. Absolutely not.

Please never go to Italy and say this.