Veggie Tales: Broccoli Or Bust

This morning my four year old caught me cooking a few florets of broccoli . I planned to puree them and then sneak them into her spaghetti sauce without her noticing. You see, both of my children don`t like vegetables . They don`t eat them, they don`t say hi to them on the street, they don`t invite them to their birthday parties. Vegetables are on the black list as far as they are concerned. She went off to preschool in the morning, and I figured I had plenty of time to chop, boil, puree, and hide the offending veggie in her sauce. I made certain to conceal the blender that turned a handful of broccoli into an unidentifiable, yet woefully lumpy liquid.

I cleaned the blender and placed it back in the cupboard before picking her up from her morning preschool. I had added sauce, then more sauce, then even more sauce, but the broccoli stood out like a sore thumb.

That`s not what happened when I smuggled zucchini in her sauce last week, I exclaimed inwardly.

Peering up at the stove from her 90 centimetre height, Sophia looked at the pot in which the broccoli had been when she left that morning.

��Mummy, I only want noodles today,�� she casually remarked, casting a furtive glance in the direction of the burbling cooking ware on the stove.

She is so smart, I thought, kicking myself for having used the same pot for the sauce that I had used for the broccoli. When we were all settled at the lunch table, I asked if she might want to have some sauce on her noodles as I did. No, she did not. But just as suddenly, she changed her mind. She was going to try the spaghetti sauce I had made for her. I jumped up, perhaps a bit too eagerly, grabbed her plate, and headed for the sauce pot. The green pearls of broccoli floated innocently in the sauce. I attempted to sift out the most obvious chunks of vegetable. Unfortunately, several stalks found their way into my daughter`s bowl.

��What`s this?�� she shrieked, lifting her fork and turning up her nose simultaneously.

When I had swallowed a mouthful of my sauced spaghetti, I said, ��It`s pasta sauce, only green.�� With all the confidence that only a four year old can possess, she rolled her eyes at me, resigned herself to my well-intended lies, and ate the whole thing. Written by Christine Louise Hohlbaum