Food Fight

I'm on a healthy cooking kick lately. It's time to stop the slow, continuous 'spread' that seems to be happening to my backside, and it's time to put a limit on the endless chain restaurant dining in which my family has been partaking over the last few month I was inspired by this great blog: skinnytaste.com, which I originally found on Pinterest (one of my other current obsessions, but that is a post for another time). The blogger of skinnytaste.com, Gina, has amazing recipes that are easy to make, yummy and actually good for you! I made her Thai Coconut Curry Shrimp last night, and at first bite, the hubs fell instantly in love with me all over again! (It was that good!) Tonight I made Gina's skinny Cream of Zucchini Soup recipe. Hubs was giddy once more because it reminded him of a soup his mom used to make 'back in the day.' I was giddy because he was eating zucchini -- and smiling! The boys? Well, that was a whole other story. You see, my boys, to put it nicely, have never been adventurous eaters. And by not adventurous, I mean they refuse to eat anything with a green hue (or anything in a sauce, or anything too hot or anything that doesn't resemble a chicken nugget). I have to say, Boogah has improved over the past couple of years. He will at least try things now. Like last night, I gave both of them some sugar snap peas on their plates. Who doesn't like sugar snap peas? They're crunchy, slightly sweet -- quite refreshing actually. Boogah gave them a try. Well, he gave two pods a try, dissected a third one and left the remaining pea pods on his plate. Blue, on the other hand, 'tried' them by taking one look, observing their color, and concluding that he couldn't possibly be asked to put that in his mouth! They say you must choose your battles. Well, I've been in the heat of the food battle for so long that I rarely have the energy for it anymore. I tend to throw my hands up in surrender and give them what they will eat: hot dog with smiley face fries . And by the way, those who claim it's easy to get picky eaters to eat --'just continue to introduce your picky eater to a variety of healthy foods and eventually they will stop being picky'-- need to be punched, frankly. However, my worry about the boy's current and future health prods me to muster up the energy every once in a while to don the battle fatigues and jump back into the trenches. Tonight, due to my healthy cooking kick, was one of those times when I was geared up and determined to get a vegetable in them. I thought to myself, 'wouldn't it be great if the kids would actually eat some of this zucchini soup?' Bahahaha! Yeah right! I knew that to make this happen, I'd have to get creative. Now, I'm not particularly proud of the strategy I chose, but all's fair in love and war. So, I bribed my children. Yes, I flat out offered to pay them each $5 if they ate a cup of the soup. There. It's out in the open. Like I said, I'm not proud, but it worked! My sweet, materialistic angels actually ate zucchini soup! For money. I'm sure this shows my extreme lack of parenting skills -- on many levels -- but I experienced the sweet taste of victory nonetheless. It took Blue over an hour to choke down his soup, periodically feigning bouts of nausea, but with cold, hard cash at stake, he stuck it out and finished every drop. By the end, he had named it 'Crap Soup.' Oh well. He says the word crap and accepts bribes, but he ate a green vegetable! And in soup-form no less! Hallelujah! One more battle down, many more (I'm sure) to go, but they're worth the fight. Now, I wonder how much roasted cauliflower will cost me...