Starting small

No recipes today. My first task is to get the kids to expand their "acceptable" fruits and vegetables to what their sibling eats. Since that's a small list for both kids this won't take long.

Boy eats:
apples
plain lettuce
red grapes (occasionally)
clementines (occasionally)
cooked frozen peas
raisins
dried apricots
dried apples

Girl eats: 
apples
plain lettuce
red grapes (occasionally)
red grapefruit (occasionally)
clementines (occasionally)
cooked broccoli
raw carrots
watermelon

Today they are going to switch and eat two of the fruits or vegetables that their sibling eats. The boy will try raw carrots and cooked broccoli. The girl will try raisins and cooked peas.

If this works then each will have increased their acceptable fruit and vegetable options by about 25%, particularly if you cull from the above list the ones they only occasionally (ie not reliably) eat. And just as importantly it will reduce some of the short-order-cook-feel that I sometimes have. I know it isn't a big outlay of labor to put a handful of carrots on one plate and a handful of raisins on another but it's the principal that makes me crazy: they start to expect people to cater to their particular likes and dislikes so that nothing that they are just so-so about ever lands on their plate.

UPDATE
Not bad for the first day. Girl ate raisins, no fuss. Boy gagged on carrot sticks, but then ate some carrot ribbons (long thin strips made with a vegetable peeler). In the coming week we'll try shredded carrots and maybe super thin carrot pennies since I think the slightly woody texture of the carrot stick was what turned him off. Dinner was ok--she ate the peas, he ate only the dark green tops of the broccoli but wouldn't eat the stems and he did get a little dramatic. But he did it.