Italian Vegetable Stew

"The more a child is exposed to new foods the more likely he/she seems to try and become familiar with them.  A child may need 10–15 tastes of a new food to develop a liking for it so giving up after a few attempts will generally fail to introduce the new food."

10-15 times.  Really?  Is that all.  I would like to challenge that.

 Yesterday I picked another recipe from my favorite recipe website, America's Test Kitchen.  I thought it looked good and when I pick out new recipes to try, I rarely think about what my kids would like to eat.  I know that is totally selfish of me.  But hey, since I'm the one cookin' I get to pick out what we eat.

I bought all the ingredients and chopped them all up.  It wasn't until this stage in the recipe, that the thought occurred to me "My kids are going to hate this." Bell peppers, zucchini, potatoes, eggplant, garlic, tomatoes and onions just to name a few.  Seriously good stuff. 

 Once I finished making it, I knew I was going to like it.  It smelled heavenly.

And sure enough. I set it on the table and immediately got grimmaces all around.

One child tried it and said it was o.k. I'm thinking he was just being nice. 

One child decided he could eat the potatoes and the soup part. The only parts he liked. He then reluctantly admitted that the soup part tasted o.k., but it made his mouth hot.

One child wouldn't even touch it and then decided he would strain everything out except for the soup part and potatoes when I told him no more rolls until he ate some soup.

And a fourth child watched the three other ones and copied their behavior.

They either filled up on the Rustic Dinner Rolls that I also made from this website. Dairy free I might add and quite delicious.  Or they just picked at their soup and pretended to eat it, knowing that was all they were getting for dinner.

Scott and I both thought the soup tasted great. But sadly, with this kind of reaction from my boys I may have to shelf that recipe for awhile.

Which brings me back to my first statement.  Only 10-15 times? No way. I have made countless recipes with the same vegetables over and over and over, hoping that they would start to like them. And still, they refuse to eat peppers, tomatoes and onions and anything that is green or leafy or different in any way whatsoever.  So whoever makes these kind of statements is living in a dream land as far as I'm concerned.

As for me, I will continue to make recipes that include these ingredients with the hope that someday they will like them.  Someday......