NOT mother of the year, then?

I care a lot about my children's nutrition. Well, in the sense that they rarely eat fast food, they get juice only at parties, and I avoid the frozen convenience section at the supermarket...

From 6 months onward, I lovingly steamed, pureed and froze little containers of vegetables rather than rely on jars... I hand rolled my own sausages, fer goodness sake!

And, like hungry sparrows each of my delightful children opened their little cherub, strawberry-scented mouths to take in the delicious, homecooked, goodness I provided for them.

Yes, at 6 months my children looked like the cover of an Annabel Karmel cookbook. Indeed, many of my recipes were extracted from those tomes. And I congratulated myself on setting up a marvellous food-foundation for their future.

Fast-forward two years and this is an illustration of a typical mealtime at my place:

Does this look like the cover of an Annabel Karmel cookbook to you?!? Folks, where have I gone wrong?

Last night, I cooked up:

- Snow peas, carrots and peas
- Fish Fillets with soy mayo

and instead, my daughter ate:

- cold 2-minute noodles
- Dora the Explorer yoghurt
- Half a piece of vegemite toast.

It is a repeating pattern. It doesn't seem to matter what I make, my daughter turns her nose up at it, pushes her plate away in disgust and would cheerfully go to bed hungry. Except - despite my pitifully weak threats - I can't let her. Thus the vegemite toast.

She won't eat vegetables. Not even hot chips -- are they even a vegetable?!
She won't eat cheese on toast.
She doesn't eat baked beans. Or spaghetti. Or chicken schnizel. Or stroganoff. Or hamburgers. Or tuna mornay. Or anything from the "Feeding Fussy Kids" cookbook by Antonia Kidman NOTI thought would be the answer to all my problems.

She will eat toast.
And cornflakes.
Mini sushi-rolls with tuna.
Cheese biscuits.
Yoghurt.

And that's about it.

I'm at a complete loss. And as - night after night after night after night - she rejects my meals, I am losing my motivation to even try. I hate cooking, always have. I only try because I love my kids and want them to eat well. But when my Labrador eats the meal I spent an hour preparing for my children, its hard not to let it get me down. I've well and truly lost my mojo.

Have any of you been through this? Have you any tips or never-fail recipes you could share with me? I am not quite ready to give up just yet.... but I'm getting close!

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