Vegetable recipes for a fussy 2yo please!

[m1m1rie]

DD2 is a fussy eater and a complete carnivore. She happily eats fruit, but barely touches vegetables. Hates.....Lettuce, cucumber, carrots, onions, peas, sweetcorn and baked beans. Not mad about any other veg I have tried to get her to eat. DD1 was easy, all I had to do was mash everything up together and she would eat it, but this one refuses to eat anything mashed up. I need inspiring ways of cooking vegetables to encourage her to eat them, but they can't be mashed up. She is 2.9. HELP ME!!!!

Mine only ate fruit for years but thrived. They ate loads of grapes, raisins, strawberries, apples, bananas etc. Must admit aged 15 n 13 they still eat very few veg. How about cherry tomatoes?

A friend of mine has lent me this book called `Finger food for babies and toddlers' because I have a similar problem with ds2. He usually won't touch any veg, mashed up or otherwise, and very little fruit. Today he scoffed spinach and cheese-filled filo parcels. Quiche goes down well too - I make broccoli quiche (cut the bits of broccoli up small otherwise he picks them out). There are lots of other ideas in this book so I am going to get cooking!

Butternut squash risotto goes down really well here (look a recipe up on BBC Food etc, or Annabel Karmel does one), very sweet & easy to eat, I've fed it to varioius friends of DS & they were happy with it. What about peas in the pod or carrots/peppers/snow peas with hummus etc, don't have to be cooked. I did sweetpotato & carrot soup today (Annabel Karmel again) and I don't think he would have known it was vegetables, I didn't mention them, called it orange soup
There's a book called the Art of Hiding Vegetables, which had some good ideas (like cutting them up really small & hiding in bolognaise sauce etc/lasagne), made 5-7 portions a day seem achievable! I don't like veggies, so I take the same approach for DS that I take for myself, I grate carrot on my hummous & use that as a sandwich filling etc.

I do a veg filling for jacket potato (annabel karmel recipe) and dd seems to like it

floret of brocoli
floret of cauliflower
1 tomato
1 potato
butter
cheese
milk

steam the veg for until tender, meanwhile cook potato and then take out (leave skins to one side) mash with butter milk and cheese (leave some for sprinkling later) remove skin then finely chop tomato, one veg is cooked chop finely and add to potato with the tomato, spoon back into the skins sprinkle cheese over and stick under grill till cheese is golden brown

I have just found this recipe on the BBC website which looks like something a child might eat without too much fuss. Thought it looked very nice

Char-grilled sweet potato medallions with cauliflower cheese

Serves 1
Preparation time less than 30 mins
Cooking time 10 to 30 mins

Ingredients
For the sweet potato
½ sweet potato, peeled and cut into 6 1cm/0.5in thick rounds
1 tbsp olive oil
For the cauliflower cheese
3 egg yolks
50ml/2fl oz double cream
100g/3½oz grated cheddar
50g/1¾oz cauliflower florets, blanched
salt and freshly ground black pepper

Method

1. Preheat the oven to 200C/400F/Gas 6.
2. To make the potato, in a large bowl toss the potato rounds in the olive oil and season well.
3. Heat a griddle pan until smoking.
4. Char-grill the potato medallions for two minutes on each side. Transfer to the oven and roast for 10 minutes.
5. Remove from the oven and place on an ovenware dish.
6. To make the cauliflower, in a large bowl mix together the yolks, cream, cheese and cauliflower. Season with salt and freshly ground black pepper.
7. Place the mixture over the sweet potato and return to the oven to cook for a further five minutes.
8. Serve in the ovenware dish.

Could you try giving him something like a carrot stick or other veggies in a dip that she likes? My ds really likes humous and will happily eat it with pitta. However, if I give him carrot sticks and nothing else to dip in, he will use them and often eat abit of carrot as well. (devious trick )

I have also just started buying these for him here The ingredients look fine to me - dehydrated apple, preservative (sulpher dioxide) and citric acid and they are equivalent to 1 of the 5 a day portions. Taste nice too.

muffins with finely grated veg, such as carrots and courgettes, DS falls wonderfully for this one, I usually put some raisons in too as a decoy. Decoys are great, I mix DS's mush with a bit of tom pure and hide it under cheese on a pizza base then put olives and little tomatoes on top, he labouriously takes of all the tomatoes and olives and then eats the pizza mush and all...ha