Month three of the One Small Change challenge already? How did that happen?
Month two’s challenge of washing my hair with baking soda and vinegar went pretty well. It’s a different feeling, and one I’m still experimenting with. Hair still comes out soft, but a different kind of soft that takes some getting used to.
This month’s challenge is going to be a bit more difficult for me. I want to get my family to eat at least one vegetarian dinner a week. Getting others involved is always a little more difficult.
The hard part about this is how my family generally reacts to vegetarian meals. There’s one that everyone enjoys, Sand and Shells, but that’s it.
My husband always says either that it would make a great side dish or suggests adding something to it, such as chicken, bacon, ground beef… you get the idea. He’ll accept the occasional vegetarian meal, but as a weekly thing may push his habits a little.
The two older kids are each challenging for this in their own way. Neither likes beans just now, although my son used to utterly adore them.
My oldest daughter loves barley in soup but not otherwise. She hates all nuts and nut products, except once in a while when she will enjoy cashews, but is just as likely to hate them the next day. She loathes couscous.
My son is just plain variable in what he will eat on any day, even favorite foods. He’s still highly resistant to all unfamiliar foods. On the plus side, he would take peanut butter as a food group if I let him. Except when he wouldn’t. He enjoys couscous sometimes.
I have some hope that a recipe with lentils will do well. They’ve all enjoyed those in homemade chicken soup, to the point that my daughter begs me to make it. Might be possible to get them eating lentils in another recipe.
I’ll probably start the first week with Sand and Shells, just because they go over well and the leftovers go into my daughter’s school lunches. Very easy lunch for her to bring, something I really appreciate in a leftover. This will also give me time to start looking up recipes and getting any ingredients I don’t already have on hand.
Have you tried having your kids help you make a vegetarian meal for dinner? My husband and I are foodies but some of my nieces and nephews are the pickiest eaters in the world. They call what we eat “weird food” because it’s not PB&J for all meals of the week.
When they are over, I have them help make the meal. They are more likely to try my weird food if they helped make it.
That’s a good idea. My kids enjoy helping out sometimes.
I may have to put my picky eater niece up against your picky eater nieces and nephews sometime. She doesn’t eat PB&J for all meals, but finding a food she will so much as try is incredibly difficult. But she’s just 3, so some of it is likely sheer toddler stubbornness, admittedly to a greater extreme than I’ve seen before in a toddler when it comes to food.
[…] I mentioned in my One Small Change Challenge post, I’m trying to go one meal a week meatless for my family. It’s a bit of a push, but I […]