Kid Vs. Produce

Do you see what I see? That is lettuce on The Boy’s plate, and he’s not making the barf face.  How did this happen?  Is my campaign for Pleasant Salad Eating paying off?  Or is it all about novelty?

It was The Chef’s 11th birthday, and she requested barbecued pork ribs and salad rolls.  I don’t think she’s actually ever eaten anything wrapped in the translucent rice paper spring roll wrappers, but I had picked up a package a few weeks back, and she was intrigued.

We decided to get basic, and stick with some of my favorite salad components.  Here’s a look at what we started with:

• sliced cucumber
• sliced carrot
• sliced avocado
• sliced mint leaves
• sliced green onion
• mixed, washed salad greens
• rice paper wrappers

Here’s a look at the wrapper package.  We picked these up on the Asian food aisle at our regular grocery.

So, step one is rehydrating the wrappers.  We filled a pie dish with water and immersed the wrappers one at a time for about 20 seconds.  That’s an unscientific time, by the way.  We put ‘em in there and poked at ‘em until they seemed done.

One at a time, we spread out the wrappers and added salad fixings, and then prepared to wrap them up like little see-through burritos.

Awwww, look at the little see-through veggie baby-sized burrito!

Okay, I’m sort of embarrassed to admit that that roll was pretty much the only one that turned out pretty okay looking.  The rest were all lopsided or weird and I wish I could blame the kids for making them that way, but basically it was all me.  The kids totally got into making them, and even The Boy was excited to select “his” vegetables.

When it came to table time, I served these alongside a spicy peanut dressing and watched curiously to see if what the kids would do.  You guys… they ATE IT.  The Boy wasn’t too thrilled with the texture of the wraps (mostly because they were kind of baggy and chewy.)

So get this… since The Boy didn’t like the wrappers much, he peeled his rolls open and snarfed down all the veggies.  With zero prompting from me, he just got busy and ate the lettuce.  He ate the avocado.  He at the cucumber.  He even ate the mint.  He said “hmm.  Minty.” I’m starting to think I’m winning the Salad War!

Success! I’m calling it a success!