How to Prepare Veggies for My 20 Month Old ...

Smoothies is my answer. My son doesn't like most green veggies so I make smoothies for him almost everyday. I use yogert or apple sauce with a couple of fruits 1/2 peach and a banana then add one or two green veggies. Throw everything in the food processor and he doesn't even know it is there. I use my food processor to grind up veggies and add them to spagetti sauce, meatloaf, rice or mac and cheese. I grind them so fine that he doesn't even know they are there. Hope that helps.
Tina

I usually steam them and sprinkle them with seasoning salt. When I serve them, I offer him sauce to dip them in. He usually chooses teriyaki or soy sauce, but salad dressing is great too! If your daughter loves ketchup, offer her that. Sauce has always been the key with my son!

Another thing to do is mix together pasta, chicken and veggies and serve it all together in a bowl, covered with tomato sauce. It's really yummy and she might eat some without noticing!

K.
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What I would do was to boil all the nutrients out of them, or even add fats/proteins to them by boiling them in chicken stock (sounds terrible, doesn't it?).

What it did though, was make them mushy enough that they could be swallowed safely, and accustomed him to the taste. (Most kids have a gag reflex that starts with all previously untasted foods around 24 months and lasts until they're 5/6 years -all "new" foods introduced then are "yucky" for the next 10-30 years...introduce AS MANY flavors as possible before that time!!!) This is the age group you'll see people complaining about picky eaters...and also when most people in this country START introducing new flavors. Oops...backwards. Avoid bland old baby food and go on a culinary explore. Pick an ethnicity and GO for it, letting her try everything, before it's too late.

Anyhow, I boiled the heck out of all the veggies in the beginning, and then slowly started boiling them less and less until it was just a light steam to get the flourescent color thing that happens :) My son was probably 4 before he actually was eating raw/crisp veggies. But we never hid their flavor, just gradually started cooking fewer of the nutrients out.

Veggies in soups, though, are FANTASTIC. Because they super soft, but the vast majority of the nutrients are actually IN the soup. From campbells chunky, to homemade. Soups are a stellar intro to veggies.

If you're freaked about boiling all the nutrients out of them, you CAN use the veggie water in other cooking (like adding some to mashed potatoes/etc.) Most of the delicate ones died a gruesome death via the heat (although some stubborn ones we don't even get unless there's heat applied). So it's a choice. Neither fantastic nor awful on either side.

R.

And here's a poem my grandfather used to tell me all the time. Just popped into my mind as I was reading, so I figured I'd share:

"I eat my peas with honey,
I've done it all my life.
It does taste rather funny,
But it keeps them on my knife!"

The chewing problem...I know this quite well. My son did the same thing. Then one day he choked on one. Scary moment for a sigle mom and first child. After it happened I calmed him down and showed him how to eat it properly. Like the "do you like "See food?" joke. Show your child when you put food in your mouth how to chew the food and show the mushed food in your mouth. Be like a game for a month or two, but the end result is no choking and proper eating habits. I hope this idea helps.
I had no problems with my youngen eating veggies. I had a problems with eating potatoes. So one night I told him to eat his tators or he would lose toys for a day. (he had to pick the toys out. And he picked out the ones he liked too) He lost five toys that night. Lesson well learnt. Have no problems now that he is six, He knows he has to eat everything that is on his plate.

I make soup for my daughter, and I make GOOD soup, something I would eat, too. I take chicken stock and boil tons of veggies, mostly what I have around. Usually it's carrots, celery, tomoatoes, green beans, and peas with minced onion and garlic salt (but I have used any combo of that plus zucchini, corn, asparagus, mushrooms, anything I have in the fridge!) I make it baby-friendly (healthy), but I don't withold the salt or anything, I try to make it tasty. So I boil the heck out of the veggies (it takes a while, maybe 20-30 minutes) and then put it in the blender. She LOVES it. She pretty much has a bowl of it every day at some meal. Feed her something she can dip in it, too (or float a few goldfish crackers in it.) Or put it in a mug so she can drink it. Good luck!

Oh, and also heed the advice of the old Greek man I met a few weeks ago: "Don't worry about your kids eating their vegatables. They just go to college and become vegetarians!" :)