"If you liked it, then you would have put a steak on it." Go ahead. Channel Beyonce and sing while you read this.
Kale, chard, spinach, and the like are super foods. I've tried to get my children to eat them in a hundred different ways. Heck, it took me a while to learn to love them, and I would still prefer a large plate of fries smothered in pimento cheese, but you have to grow up sometime.
Kale juice, even with the addition of pineapple, was not a hit with my crew of three boys. Navy bean and kale stew, with a smattering of sausage, was acceptable, but did not inspire requests for seconds. Spinach quesadillas and chard enchiladas, on the other hand, are well received, especially if I add a little sausage or bacon.
Conscious of our budget and our health, I often season a meal with meat, rather than making it the main event. We don't eat a lot of meat and fish, so steak night is a Big Deal. Recently, we brought home a gorgeous beef tenderloin from our local farmers' market. In the kitchen, the stunning piece of beef was unveiled with reverence, and sliced into individual filets. On the big day, the children periodically chanted, "Steak night! Steak night!"
Knowing that large quantities of greens cook down into small portions, I bought two enormous bunches of kale and one of chard for our family of five. After chopping them into small pieces, I sautéed them with a little crumbled gorgonzola, adding a splash of cream and a sprinkle of pepper to make delicious creamed greens. The children were so awed by the steaks, they barely noticed the bed of healthy goodness below, which they consumed happily, hoping to taste the last bit of steak. And that is the steak (not to mention gorgonzola) strategy to getting kids to eat their greens.
How do you make greens more appealing? The older I get, the more I actually like them, but that took some time!
Related: 15 Ways to Eat Your Greens in the Winter
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Frittatas! A tiny bit of bacon and lots of cheese and they're practically invisible.
Spinach cooks into almost anything invisibly, so I chop and add it to almost every soup I make. You can also blend it and use it for the liquid in chocolatey baked goods!
I'm curious: when does the attitude about greens happen? I have a one-year old who will eat cooked spinach by the clump (and eschew strawberries, papaya, etc.). I know it'll be a challenge to get him to eat greens sometime soon... and I'm taking advantage of his willingness now.
In terms of a "sneaky strategy", a pile of refried beans (or mashed beans from a slow cooker) and cheese is a GREAT way to pile on the veggies. His dinner last night involved beans and cheese with carrots, red pepper, tomato, onion, etc. I'm sure spinach/"green stuff" wouldn't have even been visible...
My husband is also not a great vegetable eater and not particularly fond of leafy greens. My best successes have been to chop them (I buy kale the most) pretty small, almost like minced herbs, and add into anything saucy--stews, chicken pot pie, curries, etc. A good savory sauce disguises just about anything! And small enough pieces so he won't bother to pick them out or eat around them. :-) It doesn't necessarily get quite the quantity of greens into him that I'd like, but better than nothing (and you have to pick your battles! :-)...
Three choices: kale, aluminum foil, or starve
AND LOOK HOW I TURNED OUT WAHOO YEAH!
lkb - the picky stage starts to hit sometime around 2 or 3. At this point, many kids become neophobic (to varying degrees), reject textures they find difficult, reject tastes they find too strong. Around 6 or so, most kids will slowly begin growing out of this stage if you play your cards right (neither overcompensating, nor browbeating them). Unfortunately, around 4 or 5 they're wise to you sneaking things in and may simply refuse food if they aren't 100% positive of the ingredients. (See also: rejecting all sauces, picking onion slivers out of meat sauce, etc.)
Some children love strong flavored greens, even at the picky ages, but the milder flavored greens (spinach, chard) are a better bet than strong greens such as mustard or broccoli rabe.
I love greens any way you cook them! My boys like them sometimes. We're vegetarian, so hiding them under steak is not an option. Pureeing them and baking them with eggs and cheese is, though, and they like that..
A big seussically green spinach and mozzarella cake...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2013/02/12/spinach-and-mozzarella-cake/
Or little cakes, with spinach, herbs and cheese...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/12/31/spinach-cakes-with-roasted-mushrooms/
Here's a chard and chickpea flour frittata-cake...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/09/12/chickpea-flour-chard-frittata-cake-with-olive-sofrito/
I've also made "lasagna" with kale or chard instead of noodles, and they like that...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/09/18/kale-lasagna-with-tomatoes-roasted-red-peppers/
THey liked this spinach/raisin spiral bread...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/01/23/spinach-raisin-spiral-bread/
Both my boys love Indian food, so they liked this kale and chickpea curry with ricotta naan...
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/12/17/kale-and-chickpea-curry-with-ricotta-naan/
And we all loved this spinach puree with boiled potatoes. So flavorful and comforting!
http://outoftheordinaryfood.com/2012/01/06/pureed-spinach-with-potatoes/
I've got so many others! I cook greens several times a week. But I'd better stop.
My kids will eat nearly any vegetable as long as it's in soup form. An extra drizzle of oil and sprinkle of parm doesn't hurt, either.
My son, now five, has been coming out of his picky stage the last year or so. The trick is really to just continue to offer everything--they'll eventually come around.
My mom, fed up that my sister and I were being picky eaters, once asked my Aunt Rosemary how she got her daughters to eat their vegetables. Her answer was one word: "propaganda."
A great way to cook greens that is hard to resist is to slightly chop and blanch them in boiling water for about 30 secs - 1 min, then drain them a little - just use tongs and hold them over the water to drain - and put them in a baking dish with some melted real butter drizzled all over (I toss mine in it), then top with a thin layer of finely shredded parmesan and bake at 400 for about 15 mins. until the cheese just begins to get a tinge of brown. The greens will be just a bit crispy on some edges and VERY tasty!
Wow, that spinach/mozzarella cake looks amazing!
The single most important thing in making vegetables with any kind of bitterness palatable is fat. I grew up in the '80s, and it was all steaming all the time, and as a child I really did not care for anything even faintly bitter: I did like spinach, but kale, chard, broccoli rabe, escarole, endive? Forget it. Now I love all those things. I cook them with cheese, in butter or cream, stewed with bacon ends; I make them into raw salads with a nice garlic vinaigrette. They are delicious. People have this idea that adding fat (and thus calories) "cancels out" the nutritional value of vegetables. That idea is both wrong and deeply counterproductive—in fact, dark leafy greens (and other vegetables too!) are full of vitamins that are fat-soluble but not water-soluble, meaning if you don't eat 'em with fat you're not getting their full nutritional punch. It sounds like your boys like vegetables lots of ways (three out of the four ways you mention you've prepared dark leafy greens you say they find acceptable-to-delicious). Learn to live with the fact that they do not like kale juice, is my suggestion, given that they do not sound in danger of never eating a dark leafy green. And maybe look into Ellyn Satter's thoughts on feeding children vegetables.
Since I am no expert on rearing children, but am interested in animal/human behavior, I have a couple of questions about this business:
I know that most children like to mimic their parents, at least in some regard, so will they eat green/veggies if they see their parents enjoying the greens/veggies? At the same time, children also develop a rebellious streak, so do they not eat greens/veggies because the parents desperately want them to eat the greens/veggies? Or does this have nothing to do with behavior and the only explanation is left to taste buds that are fickle?
I'm just curious, it is kinda fascinating through observation, as long as I am not the one directly involved :)
Despite my protests, my kids (10 and 12) love iceberg lettuce. I make salads that are 1/2 iceberg and 1/2 shredded kale. We make the toppings separate (cukes, carrots, peppers, cheeses, celery etc) and everyone gets to chose what they want on top. Homeade croutons are key. I dream of the day when it is all kale, but for now, I pinch my nose and let them have the damn iceberg. Hubby and I do all kale (or spinach), and that modelling has had zero effect.
my only other trick is pureeing into smoothies or pasta sauces.. but it's difficult to hide a lot of green in there.
I grew up eating - and loving - greens/veggies of all colors. According to my mother, broccoli was my favorite food as a kid with spinach a close second. I don't have kids of my own, but I recently asked my mom how she made broccoli and spinach seem like treats, not chores. Here's, roughly, what worked for her.
1) Nothing was overcooked and everything was fresh. Mom grew up eating canned veggies that were then left on the stove for extended periods. She developed an aversion to things that didn't taste like food and/or had the texture of mush, so she refused to cook that way.
2) She took us with her when she did runs to Monterey Market for produce and let us design rainbows of food in the basket. Filling in colors was fun when I was five, and when I walk down to the produce place near my apartment now, I can't help but smile at all of the color. As a kid, though, because we got to help shop, we had a sense of food being something that looked pretty on the shelf. It was something fun that got us excited about eating long before things ever hit the table. It also meant that when food hit the table, we could talk about where it came from. Sure, to us that meant "the store down the block" but it wasn't something Mom was making us eat - it was something we'd chosen.
3) Veggies were served first. Everyone started with veggies, and when the veggies were eaten, we'd move on to whatever else was being served. This actually served two purposes, most of the time. In addition to getting everyone to eat veggies, it meant that she could get dinner on the table while whatever main course we were eating was still cooking. (The side effect, with a table full of hungry kids, is that we ended up going in for seconds and thirds of all things green because we were hungry and it's all that was on the table.)
4) Mom never once made it seem like eating green things was any different from eating non-green things. Veggies were a part of every meal, and they were considered as much of a treat as ice cream. By the same token, nothing was forced on us. I hated tomatoes as a kid, so they always got shoved to the edge of a salad plate. Mom's response? "More for me!" as she stole tomatoes from my plate. I'd shoot back by reaching for broccoli, cucumbers, and mushrooms.
5) We helped cook. As soon as we were old enough, Mom put us to work chopping, peeling, filling, boiling, tasting, etc. If we helped make it, we felt like we had ownership over it and were more inclined to eat it even if it wasn't our favorite thing ever because it was *ours.*
Our son who is almost 5 likes to announce that when he gets bigger he will eat chard, kale, asparagus etc. but could he please just have plain pasta with butter and parmesan. Oddly though one of his favorite things to eat is polenta topped with sauted mushrooms and shallots. Our daughter who is almost 3 is in the middle of an I don't really eat any vegetable phase. They will however eat kale chips on occasion.
I know one day they will come around.
Kale Eats, have you tried giving the kids romaine? I grew up on iceberg lettuce, and romaine is definitely closest in terms of flavor, texture and appearance, but has an infinitely superior nutritional profile. Maybe start with romaine hearts (you can usually find just the hearts pre-cut in the produce section at the grocery) and then work your way up to the whole romaine head, including the darker green portions.
Also, if you ever see baby kale at the grocery (with all the pre-packaged salads), get it. I won't normally tolerate raw kale, but the baby kale is milder and more tender, but still hardy enough that you can dress it ahead of time. Oh, and it's totally delicious.
Grill them! Almost any sturdy green can be stemmed, torn into bits, tossed with olive oil and a little salt, and thrown on a grill screen. Coo until the edges are brown on about a third of them. They're also great done this way on a cookie sheet in the oven - broiled. Be conservative of the salt, though. I've found that a little goes a long way with this method. I really love the "put a steak on it" idea though. Seems like it would add a wonderful flavor to the greens.
I have to do this sort if trickery to myself. I hate vegetables, despite the fact that my parents served them at every meal and I was required to eat them. At least they got through to me.
My new favorite trick is roasting or grilling veggies. I find it takes out the bitterness of things I wouldn't otherwise eat. Roasted broccolini us awesome. Grilled romaine with a light sprinkling of parmesan and red wine vinegrette.
Also, mixing them into pastas or gnocci will do.