Penny Eats Veggies

 (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!)

 

 These are literally the words we use every meal time when we attempt to put vegetables onto our eldest daughter's plate. She is six years old and although during the weaning process she would eat every type of vegetable under then sun, she will now not eat a single one unless it is SO heavily disguised (i.e. in a soup) and if we give her any, she dismisses them completely out of hand without even tasting them. "NO! I don't  like them." "But you haven't even  tasted them. How can you  possibly know?!" There are debates, attempts at reasoning, usually a good argument and a few tears when we finally get to the "if you don't even try it, you don't get anything else." Meanwhile Harriet, her 4 year-old sister, sits across from Penny at the table (smug as you like) eating everything we give her, except anything she genuinely doesn't like, and will taste anything new too and it takes all our self control not to say ...