Mexican Standoff

Remember yesterday how I said that you should eat things that are grown locally and in season?

Well, I went to the store and bought something that came from somewhere very far away that is ripe in a season that is very far from now. Not only that, but I brought more vegetables into my house. What???

I just couldn't think of any other way to use up my all my extra onions.

So, I bought two tiny bell peppers, and I combined them with 3 onions, to make fajitas. They were clearly very onion-heavy fajitas. Remember my objective, though: To. Use. Up. These. Vegetables.

And the fajitas, combined with a salad made from spinach and some sort of weird Chinese Cabbage from last week's box, made a pretty good dent in the contents of the fridge! Fajitas, Mexican rice, and salad... not bad!

The adults around here ate a ton, and the kids?






Oh boy. I was back to the whole idea that they need to see the vegetable, acknowledge the vegetable, and try the vegetable, before passing judgement. So of course, I made each kid a fajita, carefully picking out only the chicken, leaving the onions and bell peppers in the pan.

Then, I took one small piece of bell pepper and placed it on each plate. I told them, you can eat it plain, you can put it into the fajita, you can bury it in rice, you can use Ranch dressing, ketchup or barbecue sauce. But you HAVE TO EAT THE BELL PEPPER.

My daughter stuck it into her fajita and ate it up. She has finally figured out that if she just gets it over with, she can enjoy the rest of the meal. My younger son avoided the piece of bell pepper for most of the meal, but finally, without a word, stuck it into a bite of rice, and ate it. They both acknowledged that it really wasn't bad.  Maybe next time I will up it to two pieces of bell pepper.

My middle child? Oh my lord have mercy. He cried the minute he saw his plate. He said he didn't want it. He said he couldn't eat it. He begged to not have to have it. He asked if we could just let him eat part of it. He whined incessantly. He flopped out of his chair and back into it. He ate everything else, and asked for seconds. I said, "I can't get out more food while the food on your plate goes to waste." About 20 minutes later, after sitting, staring down, sizing up, and hating the bell pepper, he ate it. And he admitted it wasn't that bad.

Score one for the veggies.

Here, though the next morning, my number one thought is: Why did I forget to put some red cabbage into that salad?