This is another of the recipes related to my Foodbuzz’s 24,24,24 April event – A Very Veggie Experiment… where I fixed dinner to my finicky friend Mariví and her 4 oldest kids – Ignacio, Diego, Kamila and Daniel. The littlest one, Sergio, who’s just 3 months old, was spared of our experiment this time…
I knew giving a side salad as part of dinner to Mariví’s kids was going to be the most difficult one to “sell”. They are just not used to eating salad. But I had to give it a try… I remember reading in the book Deceptively Delicious that even when you “sneak in” vegetables and other goodies into kid’s meals, it is important for them to learn that eating salads is key to good nutrition.
I used organic romaine lettuce and organic cucumbers. I bought mini cherry tomatoes and told them these were tomatoes specially made for kids.
I made them a Thousand Island Dressing to go along with the salad. That used to be the only dressing I liked when I was a kid, so I figured they might prefer that to any vinaigrette I could make. I started with a Mayo Ketchup base and added some sweet pickles.
THOUSAND ISLAND DRESSING
½ cup eggless mayonnaise ¼ cup ketchup 4-5 sweet pickles or sweet pickle relish About ¼ tsp Garlic Salt
- In a small bowl whisk together the mayonnaise, ketchup and garlic salt. Add the pickle relish and if using larger slices of pickles, just chop them up as small as you can.
- Serve on top of your favorite salad… iceberg lettuce seems to work very well with this creamy dressing.
Some of the kids tried the tomatoes only but they were not impressed. I can’t believe it because in my household, a sliced tomato was considered enough salad for a typical weekday meal when I was growing up.
It was so sad to see all the salads left almost intact… I was the only one who really ate the salad. Everyone else, including the mom, left salad on their plates.
This was the real challenge… but I will not give up. I will make them eat salad if it’s the last thing I do for that family…
KarmaFree Cooking 
I think it’s great that you’re trying to get them to eat salad. If you just keep putting it on their plates, after awhile it won’t seem so new and weird, and eventually they’ll eat it. Me? I love salads -and can’t understand people who don’t. 🙂
It’s a shame that some parents don’t encourage their children to to try new foods. My wife and I told our four children that they were not allowed to “hate food” at our dinner table. For new items they were told to try at least one fork/spoonful. The youngest is now a chef and a new father. He and his wife make up the puréed food their baby eats and he eats everything fed to him. Recently, some yogurt got spilled on the table in front of him – he immediately licked it up with his tongue!
Sometimes a sweeter salad will encourage eating — This past week we have enjoyed a baby spinach, lettuce and strawberry salad with a homemade poppy seed vinaigrette dressing.
A pat on the back for a job well done. I’m sorry your guests didn’t indulge in the salad. Maybe better results next time. I bet I know how you can get them to eat a vegetable… make a gratin or casserole or a soup or a chili with them in it! Vegetables aren’t just part of healthy eating to me – without fresh vegetables the taste of a meal is soooo lacking to me too. Good luck next time.