So….my son and I started a little project earlier this year.

His favorite meal is a plate of plain pasta, cut up fruit and maybe some shredded cheese. Homeboy likes to keep things simple and while I would love for him to keep that life skill, I do think he needs to branch out with regards to his nutrition. And by branch out I mean Eat Things That Are Green But Are Not Candy.

Thus….the Scientific Journal was born!

I told him that he needed to eat vegetables so that he could grow up strong and healthy. He was hesitant in every way a typical 7 year old would be, but after hearing The Plan he was on board, or at least as on board as a 7-year-old skeptic could be.

The Plan: We would go to Whole Foods every couple of weeks to gather specimens. He would pick a new vegetable to try and pick a vegetable or fruit for ME to try. Then, we would take our specimens home for cooking, testing and journaling.

On our outing he picked broccoli for himself and dinosaur kale for his mom. See…his hook, his tipping point, was that he could pick ANYTHING for Mom to eat. The uglier the better, I suspect. He chose Dinosaur Kale for Mom. Broccoli for himself.

We decided that trying it in three different preparations would give us a good idea of what broccoli would be. Raw, steamed and sauteed/seared is what we went with.

I was sure to have him help cook.

In the end, he had a preference.

With all the business this year, we haven’t journaled very much since this first experiment (we’ve only added purple potatoes to the list), but looking forward to more. I assume that as a result of this project, he now will eat broccoli in any simple form but preferred it to be a little bit roasty/toasty.