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Hidden veg recipes

(19 Posts)
GagaJo Sat 25-Apr-20 09:52:58

My 2 year old grandson is on a vegetable boycott. He hasn't worked out that veg can be colours other than green, so we CAN sneak carrots and peppers into things but if it even has a SLIGHT green tinge, he automatically refuses it. He's also stopped loving mushrooms and now won't touch them.

Has anyone got a recipe that completely hides the veg? (He's vegetarian by the way, so nothing with meat).

Alexa Sat 25-Apr-20 10:03:59

Recipes with a lot of tomatoes turn green vegetables brown especially if they are whizzed into sauce or soup.

Some green cabbages and lettuces have pale creamy- green hearts, and those may be acceptable?

I wonder if caramelised sugar would serve to turn green vegetables brown. There might be a safe food dye that can change the co.our of green vegetables.

Bigred18 Sat 25-Apr-20 10:16:37

Just Google hidden vegetable sauce
My daughter sent me her recipe and I have it with chicken, fish, pasta. Delicious!

Elegran Sat 25-Apr-20 10:23:47

I have just planted some climbing French beans with purple pods. The packet says that they keep their colour when steamed - but I have yet to prove that. You can get yellow courgettes, though you may have to grow them yourself.

I second the poster who said that tomatoes + green veg = brown, as I have made a veggie lasagne with tomatoes + puree + shredded spinach in the "meaty" layers, which had an appetising-looking brown sauce. (It also had aubergine and courgettes, plus layers of white sauce with onions in it, and a topping of a savoury egg custard with grated cheese. Very tasty.)

Elegran Sat 25-Apr-20 10:27:51

Chard comes in pretty colours - red, orange, yellow - as well as pale green. There are seed packets of mixed colours, and they grow easily. He might like growing his own - pride in production makes everything edible.

Callistemon Sat 25-Apr-20 10:52:35

My friend used to shred cabbage very finely and add it to tomato based sauces for bolognaise sauce etc. Her boys did eat meat, though. She said they hated cabbage but loved the sauce and never realised it had cabbage in it.

Would he eat some veg raw as crunchy snacks eg sugar snap peas, sticks of cucumber etc with a favourite dip? Let him help himself to a selection?

Callistemon Sat 25-Apr-20 10:53:52

The white stalks of cabbage are nice raw.

GagaJo Sat 25-Apr-20 11:22:56

Oh! Forgot to say. He has a tomato allergy.

He tried a bit of raw carrot when we had crudities but spat it out.

Good idea about the chard Elegran!

Food dye HAD crossed my mind Alexa. I'm convinced he doesn't mind the taste, but is just going through a toddler stage of asserting authority.

I had thought about a lasagna with mushroom sauce but what to replace the tomato base with? Also, will have to get some lasagna sheets.

I made cheese straws with a LOT of carrot in them yesterday. Of course, he doesn't know they have carrot in them so is hoovering them up.

Missfoodlove Sat 25-Apr-20 12:34:34

Vegetables in tempura batter are delicious. Mushroom, cauliflower etc.
You could try this with a white bean dip.
Just process a tin of cannelini beans with a clove of garlic, lemon and olive oil. If it’s a hit start adding spinach or other veg.
Vegan sausage roll with lentils and puréed veg as a filling the red lentils would be the dominant colour.

Bathsheba Sat 25-Apr-20 12:50:21

My granddaughter can be a bit picky with some veg - beans, cabbage, peppers, onions, etc. If I make a veggie dish for her I put all the stuff she doesn't like in the food processor first, so only the things she does like are visible in the finished dish wink. This works particularly well in a veggie spag bol, cottage pie or home made veggie burgers.

Carillion01 Sat 25-Apr-20 13:00:46

Gagajo,
I watched Alex Gautier (Michelin star vegan restaurant in London) make his Faux Gras pate. This was on YouTube. To make his mushroom-based pate look a bit more pinkish he just added beetroot puree.
I'm not suggesting you give your dear GS this pate!? but maybe adding beetroot puree in moderation would enhance the colour of other veggies for him?

Carillion01 Sat 25-Apr-20 13:38:17

Apologies, should have been Faux Fois Gras pate (not Faux Gras)!

Callistemon Sat 25-Apr-20 17:04:14

A tomato allergy makes it difficult because the strong taste and colour hide a lot of undesirable such as vegetables.

What about chips? Made out of sweet potato.
Cookies or muffins with finely shredded veg

Some posters say they used to dislike beetroot with mashed potato at school but I used to love it - I'd mix it up into pink clouds!

SueDonim Sat 25-Apr-20 17:57:09

My GD ‘takes against’ certain vegetables at times. Her parents just keep presenting them to her, on her plate with her meals, with no comment at all as to whether she eats it or doesn’t. She eventually starts eating the previously-rejected vegetables although being 2yo, she then rejects something else instead! grin It’s a bit of a game of Whack-a-Mole but when you look at the picture over a week or a month, it’s a good, balanced diet.

MiniMoon Sat 25-Apr-20 19:17:13

My grandson is autistic, and has a rather limited diet. He is a tall, strong 9 year old now, but when he was 2 my daughter struggled to feed him.
To get him to eat broccoli she bought some edible glitter paint, and painted it sparkly gold. She told him that the fairies had grown it specially for him in their magic garden. Needless to say, he ate it since it was magic. He has loved broccoli ever since, (unpainted) and now eats it raw.

Callistemon Sat 25-Apr-20 22:18:18

Brilliant idea, MiniMoon!

Edible glitter on fairy cabbages (sprouts)!
I wish I'd thought if that, although perhaps it wasn't invented then.

GagaJo Mon 27-Apr-20 12:59:08

Just an update for anyone that was reading this.

I made him a cheese (with hidden cauliflower) sauce for lunch, to go on pasta. Cooked extra cauliflower for myself, because I'm not a huge pasta fan. He sat on my lap while I was eating my cauliflower cheese and at 80% of it.

Little toad.

Elegran Mon 27-Apr-20 13:12:40

GagaJo He sounds like DH in the days when we used to entertain friends to dinner, and be entertained in turn. Many is the time I have sat at someone else's table while he was handed something that he would refuse at home and waited for him to refuse it again - only to have him eat it up, accept seconds, and turn to me and say "Why do you never make this? You must get the recipe . ."

GagaJo Mon 27-Apr-20 13:14:30

Men! Of any age.

GS also needs clapping and massive praise for tidying up his own mess. I assume his wife will be doing that when he's 30.