I have always enjoyed my food. My family loves food - Mum makes a mean spag bol and tuna mornay, my Dad is game for anything (as long a red meat is an ingredient somewhere along the line) and both my brother and sister are impressive cooks. I am not a great cook (I hate sticking to complex recipes, and it shows!)
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I explored a little when I lived in Griffith in NSW (approx 80% Italian population) and added penne arribiate and scallapine a fungi to my favourite foods. I tinkered with eggplant in Egypt, Burritos in a dodgy Mexican cafe and rich Belgian food with a severly overweight but kind family near Brussels - during my travels in my early 20s. Really though, I only learned about the glories of truly adventurous eating through SSB. I was in my late 20's when we started going out and our romance was a journey through the palate - he introduced me to antipasto (artichokes were new territory for me!), to Indian curries and Grecian breakfasts. We travelled together through Italy and Austria and explored real cuisine - both simple and high-brow. I fell in love twice over. As a result my palate and my girth expanded substantially - I thank my man for the first but am less enthusiastic about the second.
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My children, however, have proven less easy to please in the gastronomy department. As you may know if you have read this blog previously, my son actually
gave up eating entirely for the months 2-11 of his life. If you have never encountered a
gastrostomy tube, then you can thank your lucky stars. Actually, at the time I thanked my stars that Dash had one, 'cause otherwise the poor little darling would have starved. Literally.
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For those who don't know, this tube provides a direct pipe from the outside world to his tummy. It looked like the valve on a beach ball. Except you don't pump air in, you pump food. Well, not food as we would recognise it, liquids with as many calories as you could possibly find. (Unusual fact: Milo is one of the best fattening agents in this situation - remember this when you go to add an extra spoon into your nighttime beverage!). I sometimes joked about this bizarre addition to Dash's tummy - especially when he played with it while I was changing his nappy... teasing him that he was too lazy to reach down any further like most boys! But this unnatural, man-made device saved his life, so if you ever hear me whinge about it, slap me hard.
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Dash DID learn to eat though, once he was
fixed. Slowly, and a bit vomity for a while, but he used his mouth and swallowed. Part of me wondered if he would remember how. Seriously. We had forced the poor little fella to take a dummy just so he would be used to having something in his mouth. But those days are gone and he's great
now (five years later) and will try pretty anything.
Bacon and eggs, apples, bananas
(which his mother refuses!), spinach and feta pie
(a favourite), corn on the cobb etc. It's all good.
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And I thought, when my daughter was born, all gorgeous thighs and dimples and fully formed heart that my life had suddenly taken a turn onto Easy Street. A healthy baby. Yay! But then, at five months, when she seemed ready for solids, she just clammed up on her first mouthful. Nothing. Coaxing, ignoring, carrying on with our own food. We left it for a couple of months and tried again. Nothing. Suddenly, I was back in my nightmare again... a child that won't eat. I imagined breast-feeding forever. My skin crawled - I loved being able to do it (after failing with Dash) but the thought of a child over the age of 12 months unable to survive away from me for one meal was appalling.
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Her very first solids were the filling from a gourmet sausage roll at about 11 months. I was in a shopping centre in one of those mid-mall eating areas. I was so excited at the breakthrough - she was eating. And that was it. If it was a sausage roll from that particular cafe, she ate it. Otherwise, the mouth clammed shut. At about 13 months she discovered weet bix. And she loved them - but not Vita Brits! She would clam up immediately if I tried to sneak a Vita Brit in (I don't enjoy supporting Sanitarium who are rabidly anti-red meat. I love plenty of vegetarians but don't think its reasonable to attack an entire industry and the livelihoods of thousands!) Oops, I am hopping down from my soapbox now. It snuck up on me! Sorry. Back to TLW...
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Finally, we managed to sneak honey sandwiches into her at about 18 months. Spaghetti bolognaise is acceptible too, as long as there is no cheese or visible meat chunks or vege bits. She can clean a bowl of spaghetti up and leave the 95% sauce with the "good bits" at the bottom - it's quite an art form.
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She is now three, and our menu has blown out to include fish fingers. Not any fish fingers though. Just IGA fish fingers. Seriously. She looks fine (weet bix and honey sangers keep you pretty well-covered) but she shows NO INTEREST in new food. Perhaps she is just stubborn - there is no physical reason for her limited diet. She just doesn't want to change her tried-and-true diet. No fruit (although she has nibbled a tiny sliver of apple on rare occasions to shut me up) and no veges (except what sneaks by in the bolognaise-sort).
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I have had LOTS of advice from people wanting to help - and I have tried it all. Leaving food around for her to 'graze on'. Starving her til she tries something new (screaming, almost vomiting child beats determined but badly-burned Mama 9 times out of 10). Serving her the same as us and hoping she gets curious (no luck at all). Serving Fun Food (from the 25 books people have given me). Blank looks and mouth firmly clenched.
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At times I am more than ready to hand her over to anyone who reckons they can "fix" her. I think she's just stubborn as hell. She's alive and eating and growing. I do resort to vitamin drops. But she seems otherwise happy and healthy. So I do my best and ignore the rest. And I make sausage rolls. Cause they work and I can sneak veges past the TW's Nutrition Alarm System. And much as I claim to not be much of a chef, and certainly no
Martha Stewart,
Jamie Oliver,
Nigella or
Ree, I have decided to share my silly, simple recipe to
Tricking Kids into Eating Veges. Cause there are others out there struggling just like me. If it helps, great. If it doesn't, no biggie. Adults like these too!
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BUSH BABE'S SAUSAGE ROLLS
1 kg sausage mince (buy it from butcher - pre-sausages- and most supermarkets)
2 eggs, lightly beaten (reserve about 1/4 for later)
1 cup breadcrumbs
1 carrot, grated
1 zucchini, grated
and 4-6 sheets puff pastry
Put all ingredients (except pastry, that would be silly) into a bowl. Place pastry sheets out on bench to thaw slightly. Preheat over to 180 (is it ever anything else?) and line trays with baking paper. I don't like to wash up much either!
Mix bowl ingredients with clean hands until combined and sticky. Slice each sheet of pastry into quarters and then take filling mix and roll a palmful into each quarter of pastry. Dole all mix out before rolling each pastry section firmly over the mixture to form a sausage roll. Press at each end to seal. Place on tray and then brush over with remaining egg mix. Bake for approx 20 mins or until golden brown. Can be frozen or used immediately
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It's not gourmet, and it's not hard, but it smells good, it has goodness in it, and kids eat it. Nuff said.
They're fast Mum! Do I look fast? Do I look twice as fast?
Racing to get the mini-football in amazing, twice-as-fast, new shoes. 
Today was more... sharp-edged and IN YOUR FACE. 
And being the cruel, cruel mother that I am, I kept walking. And then I took time to take a photo of my child wailing and walking. 
Hmmmm...
