Three Easy Vegetable Recipes for Kids

No matter how carefully you plan your weekly shop, by Friday your crisper has turned into a sorry collection of orphaned mushrooms and onion halves. Before your lettuce is liquid, fuel a little creativity with your waste-based guilt with any of these easy vegetable recipes. Just about any leftover vegetables work but toss out anything moldy or smelly, and cut sprouts off potatoes, garlic, and onions. (Head over to cookiemag.com for more kid-pleasing meal ideas.)

Chop up any combination of vegetables. (Spinach, zucchini, peppers, carrots, onions, and garlic work well.) In a mixing bowl, prepare the pancake batter according to the package instructions. In a frying pan over medium-low heat, sauté the vegetables in olive oil until soft. Add salt and pepper to taste. Remove the vegetables and mix them into the batter. Add a few spoonfuls of grated Parmesan, if desired. Increase heat to medium. Spoon the batter into the pan in pancake-size dollops, flipping each when it's golden and crispy. Serve with salad or a store-bought roast chicken.

Bring 4 cups of the broth to a boil. (Vegetable broth or water work, too.) Grate your vegetables (almost any work-equal amounts of carrots, celery, and onions make a good base). Greens can simply be torn up. Toss your grated mixture and greens into the broth and return it to a boil (by which time the veggies will be mostly cooked through). Stir in a large spoonful of grits (or Cream of Wheat), 2 tablespoons of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Simmer. Serve with grated Parmesan or Gruyère, if desired.

Mince 1 or 2 garlic cloves and equal amounts of chopped onion, celery, and carrots. Sauté the vegetables in a generous amount of olive oil until the onions are translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the tomatoes to the pan with some red-pepper flakes and salt to taste. Cook over medium-low heat for about 15 minutes. Using a blender, puree the mixture. Top the sauce with poached (or fried) eggs. (You can also spoon it over fish or pasta, or thin it with broth to make a soup base.)

Won't eat their veggies? Get kids to eat everything with some expert advice on how to deal with picky eaters.

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