We’re getting better at eating veggies. She has really liked broccoli for a long time. Asparagus is starting to meet her approval… as is zucchini. And she likes the flavor of garlic. If I put fresh garlic in couscous or barley or rice, she likes that. Glad she likes garlic! I can stick tofu in just about anything, and she eats it. She LOVES fruit, and eats it in enormous quantities. I am hoping that the fruits make up for the lack of veggies.

Salads? My daycare provider says that she eats salads at daycare, but I don’t seem to have any luck with them at home. I used to eat a big salad about every other night. I’m not talking about lettuce tomato and cucumber salads. I’m talking about grilled Portobello mushrooms over baby greens with warm feta cheese and walnuts. I’m talking about an overnight marinate with a dozen different cubed veggies, served over crisp watercress and cilantro. I’m talking about those summer days in which you find the PERFECT tomato, and you cube it and toss it with fresh basil, a little cubed mozzarella, and lots of olive oil and black pepper. Or tabuli, marinated overnight with lots of lemon juice and tomatoes and mushrooms and cucumbers and scallions and zucchini and whatever else is sitting around in the fridge, and served over chopped fresh herbs. It has been months since I made myself one of those salads.

I try to make things that we both like. Which means we eat LOTS of pasta. We both love pasta. So we eat too much pasta.

But the one food she loves more than anything in the world?

Black beans.

She could eat them every day. I really used to like black beans. At this point I am so sick of them, that if I never see another black bean it would be too soon. Not pinto beans. Not kidney beans. NEVER lentils. I love lentils. She finds them offensive.

Black beans.

Black beans.

Black beans.