[NovelMama]

Originally Posted by Mother of Sons

Do they eat rice or potatoes (roasted, hashbrowns, boiled, baked etc? Do they like pasta?
Do they eat raw veggies with dip? You might consider having an appetizer tray to munch on. Do they like things with sauce? Do they eat salad?

PJ will eat salad, sort of. Abby loves ranch but not with veggies, LOL, just with chicken nuggets and occasionally fries. They kind of like rice. Honestly, I don't think I've ever given them potatoes in any form but mashed or fries. I used to cube sweet potato and saute that in butter and Italian seasoning and they loved it - totally forgot about that!! I'll have to try that again, and regular potatoes, too. Other than ketchup and ranch, they're not big on sauces. Same for DH.

Growing up we always had a salad first and that had add ins like cucumbers, sunflower seeds and raw carrots. Then a few vegetables and a starch and then the protein. Sometimes jello. We usually had dessert but it was often fruit.

So you did multiple courses instead of everything out at once? Do you feel like that was helpful somehow?

Since they like crunchy, here are a few things that might satisfy that craving.

Salads (with add ins)
Latke or hashbrowns
Pan fried chicken
Raw zucchini
Raw (thin) asparagus wrapped in lunch meat
Freeze Dried fruit/vegetables
Lettuce wraps
Nachos
Roasted chickpeas
Nuts
Nut crusted fish/chicken


Grate, drain water and add into hamburgers or spaghetti or sloppy joes or anything with a sauce. Same with spinach or protein powder

Anything green is considered highly suspicious. Why peas and cucumber have made it through their filters I don't know. If I can't make it miniscule they will pick stuff out. And if they see me prepping it and they know it's in there, they just won't eat it.

They don't like nuts. (They don't even like peanut butter! I eat the stuff by the spoonful nearly evey day.) But a nut-crusted something-or-other might go over well if I can get the nuts fine enough. PJ will eat fish but not anyone else. Nachos...never thoughts of that, but that might work. All of us but PJ like chicken quesadillas and I make those for lunch usually a couple times a week.

Thank you so much for the list and ideas. I'm going to try some of these.

I'd also consider quitting and letting them all figure it out

This is totally what I'm dying to do but I can't bear the thought of what they'd try to subsist on!

Originally Posted by CelticJourney

I'm following along to get suggestions, too. Trying to move to more produce and less carbs is harder than it should be.

Have you talked to your husband about how this is a problem and maybe he could try to help by eating something green?

He has no control over. If he so much as smells that a vegetable has been on his food (like if he orders a burger and they put lettuce on it in the kitchen but then take it off before bringing it to the table) he can't eat it. He will eat honeycrisp apples every once in a while - maybe 3-4 times a year. (Not joking.)

Originally Posted by bananacake

Have you tried to make your own GF bread? I know this is only a small part of what's going on. :make more later hopefully.

I used to, with the Pamela's bread flour, but it was too dense and just not good. Now that they have their artisan flour I should try again; that makes really good cookies, so maybe it would make decent bread? It's been probably 5 years since I made bread; maybe now there are better gf recipes out there than there were back then.

Originally Posted by RiverRock

That sounds really hard. I might start by making variations of your pasta and rice meals.

Here is an alfredo alternative. You can switch up the seasonings or omit them. The recipe is delicious as it is, but could also be good with curry (and omit the Italian seasonings). http://meatified.com/italian-chicken...le-hold-grain/

Here is a chicken rice casserole alternative. I usually double the sauce. This freezes well, with or without the rice. http://www.food.com/recipe/bourbon-chicken-45809

Thank you, I'll check those out!