Penny Eats Veggies

 We've been away on holiday to Disneyland Paris this past week and we didn't want to spend the whole time trying to convince Penny to eat veggies. We mentioned it a couple of times but she said no on the grounds that 1) we were on holiday and 2) we were in another country. (Tell us in the comments if you can find another "Friends" reference hiding in that lot!) We did worry a little bit that she wouldn't want to continue, but when we got home and asked the girls what they wanted for lunch, they said pasta bolognese. Normally we would hide the veggies in the sauce, but this time we decided to ask Penny which vegetables she would like to put in the sauce. She chose onion, carrots and peppers. She helped Stephen with the preparation and when we sat down to eat, she practically inhaled her bowl of pasta, asked for more and finished her sister's portion too! It was only halfway through that Stephen suddenly apologised to us all that there w...

  I will admit that Penny didn't choose this freaky looking vegetable from the list. I bought it because I wanted to try it, but in the spirit of things Penny was happy to give it a try. I wanted to make celeriac and potato bake which seemed easy (because what I probably should have said from the start here is that I am NOT the best cook!) To make the bake from the GBVC book we first had to make a celeriac purée (also from the GBVC book!) Celeriac Purée (serves 4 as a side) 1 large celeriac, peeled & cubed Juice of one lemon 50g butter 100ml half-fat crème fraîche Salt & ground black pepper to season Bring a pan of water to the boil and add the celeriac cubes and lemon juice. Boil the celeriac for 15-20 minutes until tender then drain well. Put into a food processor or bowl for hand blending. Add butter - which will melt with the hot celeriac - and crème fraîche and blend until the celeriac is smooth and you have a nice purée. Season with salt and ground pepper. NB: we used...

 (The "Friends" viewers among you will get the title!) The girls were out with Daddy for the majority of the day and Penny's first words as she came through the door were, "I'm so excited to try the pea tarts, Mummy!" Colour me shocked and delighted! We warmed them up and served them with baked beans - again so she had something on her plate that she definitely liked - and straight away she tucked in. A tentative bite of just the pastry at first, and then some of the pea mixture too. Immediately she gave it a 5/10 because she didn't like it as much as the pesto from yesterday. She had good reasoning too. The peas were mixed all over the pasta, but here they were all in one place. She tried another bit though, with beans on top, and then proceeded to eat all of the bacon, pastry and beans. For her first attempt at "green" I couldn't be happier!

 We've decided not to go A to Z on the vegetables, as it's quite hard to find some of the ones from the book in our local shops, so instead we're showing Penny the list and she's choosing. She decided on peas first. We bought some still in their pods and picked out two of the recipes from GBVC to cook. Pea pesto (with penne pasta) and pea & ricotta tartlets . Peas were great to start with because the girls both got to help shelling them! The pesto might have been a little ambitious because of the many flavours (basil, garlic) but I went for it because I was putting it with something Penny is familiar with and likes a lot - pasta! (pre-pea pesto) She did dig straight in though! Stephen had a moment where he almost told her to stop talking and just keep eating, but we managed to avoid it and, left to her own devices, every few minutes she went back for a bit more. She didn't eat very much, but it was a HUGE step :) She gave the pea pesto 6/10 - a bit ...

 We just took a trip to Sainsbury's (other supermarkets are available - hehe!) to pick up some things for our holiday. While we were there, there was a little stand giving out free samples of chicken tikka with pitta and tzatziki - complete with cucumber pieces. Penny asked for everything - I think unaware that the cucumber was in the dip - and popped all of it in her mouth. We waited with baited breath for her to discover the offending article and spit it out, but instead she chomped the whole lot down and declared it delicious! (As did Harriet, and cucumber is one thing she genuinely doesn't like.) We then told Penny that she'd eaten cucumber she said "Do you know what? I could feel it! But I still liked it." A very positive attitude!

  Penny answering her comments. She seems very positive about it all. Thank you everyone! (Oh and Harriet getting in on the photo of course!)