by Sara Mcgrath

Created on: November 05, 2010

You can make vegetables more appealing to your child through creative preparation. Use cookie cutters, for example, to slice raw veggies into fun shapes. Then offer a variety of dips such as hummus, nut butter, mayonnaise, mustard, olive oil, salad dressing, spaghetti or barbecue sauce, to name a few. Make those raw vegetables and dips even more intriguing by serving them in little bowls. Eat with chopsticks.

Get even more creative and craft vegetable sculptures such as apple-carrot-pepper-raisin ladybugs. Slice an apple or bell pepper in half. Cut the carrot into stick legs. Dot the lady bug's back with raisin spots. You get the idea.

Try stir-frying a colorful mixture of vegetables, add oil or butter and some spices, and serve them in half a bell pepper.

Does your child like scrambled eggs? Try blending mixed greens and egg together before scrambling. Read Green Eggs and Ham while the eggs cook.

Grate zucchini, carrot, or kale into a meat loaf, meat balls, or add to muffins. Grated zucchini melts into muffins and breads and gives them a moist and chewy texture. Try grated carrot over spaghetti.

Invite your child to help your choose some fruits and vegetables to put in the juicer. Create a recipe book of your child's favorite creations.

Try a new vegetable each week. Ask your child to do the choosing at the grocery store. Purple carrots, fractal broccoli, orange peppers...

Plant a vegetable garden and invite your child to help plant and harvest. Join a farm share. Tour the farm. See where the veggies come from.

Farm share boxes often contain an abundance of greens. Cream of greens soup uses a whole bundle of greens and has a taste that may surprise children. To make cream of greens soup, chop a small onion and a clove of garlic. In a saucepan, saute in a tablespoon of olive oil or butter. Add four cups of broth. Bring to a boil. Chop the bundle of greens. Kale and similar-textured greens work well. Add the greens to the boiling soup. Simmer for five minutes or so until the greens are tender. Blend the soup well. Return the soup mixture to the saucepan. Stir in a can of coconut milk and serve.

Cream of greens soup has a cheesy flavor. Call it "Green Soup." Remember green eggs? Green food is fun.

Emphasize the fun factor. Create color themes in your meal planning. Make an adventure of it. This week is purple week. Eggplant, anyone?

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