Successful Vegetables!

And no, I don't mean our garden. I mean that my kids ate what I would call REAL vegetables tonight. In any given day/week, they happily eat pretty common vegetables like beans, broccoli, cucumbers, tomatoes, and olives (yes, I know the last three technically are fruit). But tonight, I am very proud to say that my children ate swiss chard and beets (not cooked together but as separate items).

Normally I make a tasty crustless swiss chard quiche when I have a bunch of chard. Tonight I didn't want to use the oven. It is what we Bostonians call "wicked hot," and you could not have paid me to turn on the oven. How I am going to bake a cake for my decorating class in this heat is a mystery. ANYWAY, Aaron tasked me with the mission of finding a way to use up the overabundance of beets and the remainder of the chard. I informed him that he would grill the beets, and I set off to find another use for chard.

Swiss Chard with Garbanzo Beans and Fresh Tomatoes

I wish I had taken my own pictures of it, but I really didn't know how it would do. I suppose I should get braver about potential flops. The big change I made to the recipe was doubling it, but I did not double the tomato. I sliced one medium tomato and then added a few slices from a second - maybe 1.25-1.5 tomatoes.

The beets don't really have a recipe. We had 3 varieties of them - 2 red varieties and 1 yellow/golden variety. I washed them, sliced them fairly thin (less than a half inch thick, I think), and told Aaron to add pepper and fresh rosemary when he went to grill them. He grilled them in foil for just under an hour.

Caleb had about half of an adult serving of the chard by the end of dinner. Ellie picked at it, but I saw her eating it. The winner for Ellie tonight was the grilled beets! I was delightedly shocked. Ellie ate LOADS of beets, asking for more from our plates and the kitchen. Caleb wanted nothing to do with the beets, saying they were too sweet. I found this critique amusing since I assume other people dislike the bitterness of many vegetables. I also was amused since he didn't have a problem with the cranberry pumpkin bread today or the sugar cookie yesterday.

Amusement aside, I cannot find the words for my excitement that the kids ate and enjoyed vegetables. The adults also enjoyed the vegetables, so I have to give this dinner a 2 thumbs up and suggest you try it too!