Wish you all a very happy Children’s
day! On this occasion of this special day, I want to focus on the topic of
feeding vegetables to your little one, especially when he/she is a fussy eater.
In general, kids will be picky when it comes to the option of healthy foods
such as milk, lentils, grains, veggies, fruits. It will be a big ‘YES’ if it is
junk.
Does your dining area turns into
battle field during lunch or dinner time always? Does your little one resist
for the food that you serve every time!? It is the case with me and my son. I
tried various suggestions and tips available on this topic! Few works out fine,
some do not suit to our case. Being a parent, we will be conscious about our
kids’ nutrition intake and we tend to insist them on the food practice that we
follow. If they accept it, it is fine. But there are many cases that look
completely different. Reason for which are many! Whatever, few tips from my
side which I tried are,
- Early introduction of kitchen activities to the kid. Depending on the age, you can assign the work. Try to get them involved in simple works such as mixing the salads, choose the items for salads from the available list. These activities make no harm even for 6 – 8 years. This is just an example.
- Hiding the healthy ingredients in the food that they like. Example can be, mix grated vegetables while making the dough/ batter or grinding vegetables along with the rice to make dosa batter. Check for one such recipe cucumber neer dosa here.
- I again tell you all tips may not work with everyone. Like, when I cook anything for my son, there should be a lot of thinking & effort required. It may be because of the sensitive palate that he has. He likes only few distinct flavors and he eats on his own only if the color & presentation is very attractive. Opts for mayonnaise & cheese with his breakfasts like dosa/ chapathi & even with idli! Likes barbequed (in fact charred) vegetables when compared to cooked ones. Look for my recipes of salad in white mayo sauce & fried baby potatoes in mayo sauce.
- Fussy eaters usually have their own interests & liking. As I understood kids generally love barbecues (barbeques)/ tikka.
Preparation time: 30 minutes
Cooking time: 30 minutes
Serves: 2-3
Ingredients:
Vegetables of choice
Carrot – 1 large
Potatoes – 2
Bottle gourd/ Ridge gourd – ¼
Onion – 1
Oil - to apple on tava while cooking
Marination:
Curds/buttermilk – ½ cup
Chat masala – ½ tsp
Garam masala – ½ tsp (optional)
Red chilli powder – ¼ tsp
Salt – 1 tsp, adjust to taste
Coriander powder – ¼ tsp (optional)
Crushed fresh mint/ maruga leaves - 1 tsp, You can use any dried herb if
you don’t get the fresh ones.
Gram flour – 1 tsp (optional)
Method:
- Wash the vegetables clean, peel the skin of gourds.
- Cut into desired shape. I prefer thin slices to make it easy to cook.
- Now take a wide mixing bowl. Mix all the ingredients under Marination.
- Mix the vegetables with this sauce and keep aside covered for 20 minutes. This is called Marination.
- Now heat a iron griddle/ tava or flat pan. Apply little oil on the tava. Spread the vegetable pieces on hot tava (how much ever possible at a time. Cook open for 3 minutes, until the side facing tava turns dark brown. Flip off each piece and cook again.
- Remove from the tava when both sides are cooked well & turns dark brown to blackish spots are found.
- Follow above steps till you finish off all the vegetable pieces marinated.
- Serve the tikka with your choice of sauce. Garlicky mayo sauce makes a great combo to this.
- You can make variations in the selection of vegetables.
- Paneer / cottage cheese can be added.
- Spices can be used & adjusted according to your taste.
- Fruits like pineapple/ guava can also be added to enrich the taste. They work great in BBQs.
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