The Struggle to Eat Vegetables, the Endless Battle

We rarely eat enough vegetables. I like them. Not all of them, but I like most of them, and would be more than happy to eat them, if only the rest of my family would eat them. Kaia does ok, she particularly likes salad, and she'll eat anything if it is off my plate. But Nick refuses to eat anything except for corn, potatoes (both of those don't really count) and carrots if they are cooked soft enough (yuk, soft carrots.) He has recently started eating spinach if it is cooked into stuff he likes... a chicken alfredo florentine works well for him. He'll eat it on chicken pizza as well. And in the occasional salad if said salad also has apples, cranberries and walnuts. Which I can live with. So, with his blessing, because he will freak if I hide food without his knowledge, we've started adding veggie purees to regular foods so that we can all increase our vegetable consumption. I've done this successfully with spaghetti (carrot and squash puree without any detectable flavors or colors) and I just did it with boxed mac and cheese (the model of perfect health, right?) for Kaia. Instead of mixing the chemical laden cheese powder stuff with milk and butter (yum) I added 4 oz. of pureed squash. Then I tasted it to make sure it wasn't too gross and that she'd eat it. As it turns out, you can't even taste it! Who knew? So I guess I'll be making mac and cheese with squash from now on. Yay! Turning a horrible meal, health wise, into something a little bit better. She's gobbling it up as I type! Now if only I can figure out how to get peas into her peanut butter and jelly!