a bowl full of sushi

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It’s quiet.

Not a murmur, not a word. Just the rhythmic sound of two forks being taken from bowl to mouth.

The Monkeys are eating two bowls of sushi. This is their favourite dinner at the moment. Not daintily rolled between a sushi bamboo mat, instead carefully constructed by their own little hands. I get it all out, prepare the ingredients and then they assemble what they would like to go in there.

Healthy, looks good, they get to help put it together and most of all they love to eat it.

I can’t help but feel a teeny bit pleased. Pleased and proud of my vegetable loving children. Sure they won’t touch zucchini, mushrooms, sweet potato or spinach. Eggplant also isn’t getting a look in any time soon, but what they won’t eat- they make up for. If that means a bowl full of sushi, with a selection of raw vegetables in there, I’m more than happy to give it to them.

I know kids can be picky little things, but if you plant the seeds of eating healthily from the very beginning and get them involved it sets them up for later on. Once a week, the Monkeys wrestle over who gets to bring in the vegetable box after it’s been delivered to our back door. Carefully sorting what’s in there and what exactly it all is. We don’t get to harvest a great deal from our (rather pathetic at the moment) plant pots, so this along with going to farmer’s markets is a second best. Sorting, learning, preparing and then eating it.

As a child, the idea of sitting through an eggplant or mushroom dish set me up for an hours worth of good solid gagging. These truly were horror vegetables that were put on this earth just to torture me. A few decades on and funnily enough what are two of my favourite vegetables?… Eggplant and mushrooms. The seed had been planted, the palate had already been explored, and then it was just a matter of finding out how I liked to eat those two little vegetables.

So that’s what I’m doing with The Monkeys. Expanding their palates and planting seeds. No, they don’t have to eat handfuls of mushrooms, broccoli, and zucchini. They can try a little bit each time though, just so to remember what it tastes like and then they can move on to what they really love. Vegetables like peas, capsicum (peppers), tomatoes, cucumber, corn, avocado, lettuce, pumpkin and carrot. Pop it all in a bowl of rice, with some shredded seaweed and a little line caught tuna, (Good Fish.)

There they have, a bowl full of sushi.

34 thoughts on “a bowl full of sushi”

  1. Looks delicious! (I’ve suddenly got a craving for sushi)!
    Well done on instilling a great attitude towards food in your monkeys – I remember my mum used to tell me that I didn’t have to eat everything, but I had to at least try it, and I believe that this created my own positive attitude towards different foods. (Although I have to admit that I still don’t eat brussel sprouts)!!

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  6. That’s so great that your children are such good eaters. I agree that if you involve them from a young age in preparing and growing their own food they’re so much more willing to try new things xx

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  7. Well done Brydie. I’m certain that allowing children to literally get hands on with food, to explore the feeling and textures and help to prepare what goes on to their plates is a recipe for happy meal times.

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  9. I really like this idea! Sushi in a bowl- made by the children about to eat it sounds perfect. And it looks scrumptious!
    I’m passing this on to my children- I think the grandsons would enjoy making up their own particular style of sushi!
    Thanks, Brydie!

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  11. We do this sometimes too – I cut up all the veges etc and then they roll their own sushi (or rice rolls) and munch ’em stright up. Some end up looking like road kill on a plate – but as you say, cause they made it the way they want, they eat it! – Kara

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  12. Yum! We’re enjoying fishy salads too. Yours looks beautiful! I’m just so pleased the weather is improving and we can eat more meals like this. My boys love udon noodles with vegies, seaweed and tuna. Like you, I love it when they eat food like this – makes for one happy mummy.

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  18. That’s a great idea – sushi without all the hassle. I think you have every right to be proud of your vegetable eating children. At their age my brother would eat peas and sweetcorn (tinned) and I would eat carrots (happily) and sweetcorn (under duress). I don’t actually recall being presented with other vegetables, but I guess we occasionally had broccoli and had baked beans quite often. Ratatouille was a novelty – all those different veg. I don’t think we were unusual either, so yes, feel super proud of your vegetable eating monkeys and super proud that it’s you who did that!

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  19. It looks very pretty – and I love the image of your boys’ excitment at the vegie box. I am amazed some days at what vegies I eat now compared to what I did as a child, and I think Sylvia for all her pickiness eats far more vegies than I did at her age

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  20. What a pretty bowl of food, funnily I hated rice and pasta as a child, but loved raw vegetables. Even now I sometimes catch myself thinking, what’s the point of rice and pasta, they have no taste and they are soft, pasta slimy, and generally no fun…. says my child mind. I think a lot of people have that memory of overcooked boiled vegetables, the way they were served all too often in England in my childhood. We always had salad with our supper as a second course instead of dessert and it included raw cauliflower, carrots, avocados in season, all sorts of veggies. A bit eccentric but my non cooking mother’s way…

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