Rainbow Rice!

This one worked moderately well at getting my picky eater to consume a bit of food at dinner. The green beans, yellow, orange, and red peppers, purple and blue (used a drop of plant based blue food dye) eggplants are from our CSA and the brown basmati rice is organic, though I don't know where from. I also added cut up leftover chicken from a previous meal, though sadly it is only a free range organic chicken and not a local pasture raised one*. The prep wasn't too hard, I blanched the green beans before dicing, diced up everything else and, in order of yellow to blue, stir fried everything with a bit of garlic, ginger, sesame oil, and salt. The rice was steamed with homemade stock, which I make using any left over vegetable pieces, meat bones, and herbs. (Whenever we have meat I freeze any bones or pieces that we don't give the dog and every other week or so I get out my huge pot, chuck in everything and let it simmer all day. Viola! Oh, and I add a tablespoon or so of apple cider vinegar to get more minerals out of the bones.) I'd say she ate about 1 1/2 cups of the stuff, and I felt elated!

*I'll go into the pastured chicken vs. free range organic chickens in another post soon. I want to do a bit more research first to give solutions instead of frustration.

What is it about refined flour?

Why does a croissant hit the crave button so much louder than my sourdough flax bread from the CSA? Why does cake make me grab and bran muffins make me think twice? Why are my ethics and need for healthy foods so easily subverted by sugar? Why doesn't knowing better make more of a difference?

Questions I'm working on...

And while I'm at it...Why do people think that because I've got chef in my repertoire that I know how to get kids to eat? My 3 1/2 year old can pass for not yet 2, she is so little. She loves ladybugs and likes pasta and cheese, so I made her ravioli that I used marinara and shitake mushrooms (both of which she likes) to decorate to look like ladybugs. She refused to eat, and not for sympathy to the "bugs". She wouldn't even take a bite of her brother's ravioli that was dry. Of which there was plenty 'cause he wouldn't eat more than 1/2 of one ravioli! Arggghhhh! I wish I knew the trick, other than mac n cheese or fish sticks! It seems if it's from a box and not really food, they'll eat it all. What kind of survival of the species instinct is this! They are begining to refuse anything I offer them on a spoon. My daugter had to be coerced this morning with bribes of blueberry smoothie to taste the honey on my tea spoon. What, do they think I'd make them taste something awful? "Here Emerald, try this liverwurst and marzipan frosting I made..." What to do....?