How to serve Bottle Gourd to Kids

 Bottle Gourd - Let’s Hide it. 

Well, Being a mom I know how kids react to veggies and their names. It doesn’t matter if your child is 2 years old or 20 years old, if they are picky eaters they will give you a full damn attitude about not eating vegetables. Especially once they start understanding the names of the vegetables or maybe they had listened to their elder ones about not eating Ghiya or Tori, Or Tinde just because these veggies don't sound good or interesting. 

  But we as mothers know how important it is to feed them these vegetables or their benefits for kids. But even if we don’t talk about all these important or benefits, we need vegetable options thrice a day to make. So from where you will get the fancy vegetable options all the time, especially in Indian kitchens where these Dal, sabzi and roti formulas run daily. You can’t make fancy food thrice a day, Come on we have other work too. Or we can’t order food just because our kids give us a hard time eating these vegetables just because these poor vegetables don't look good.  

So, today let’s talk about Bottle Gourd - You know the benefits of the bottle gourd or ghiya for the kids or any single individual. Let's read below - 

• First of all, they are a great source of Vitamins and minerals. 

• They as a veggie or their juice cure acidity.

• As they are loaded with water content so they improve your digestion along with keeping you hydrated because kids generally don't drink water on their own so they cover the need for water in kids' bodies. 

• They are magical vegetables when your child is having a cough, cold. 

• As it is loaded with 92% of water, they cure diarrhea too. 

But even after these are loaded with super benefits our kids don't eat these vegetables. So what to do? Then let's hide these vegetables. I do it and feed it to my loved ones when they don't eat it as vegetables. So how we can hide them - 

1 Hide it in parantha - Now again we have two ways to make ghiya parantha - 

1.  Take a bottle of gourd peel and wash it nicely. Add it into a mixer jar, but don't add water as they are already loaded with 92% of water in them. Now you get the juice of it. While you are kneading your flour add this mixer into it along with some ajwain and a pinch of salt and make chapati with any favourite vegetable of your child or make parantha with curd. 

2. Now if your child loves eating stuffed parantha, then take a ghiya peel and wash it properly. Grate it from the thickest side of the grater. Strain the juice from it, (you can use this juice while needing flour or this can be added in any dal or sabzi while cooking it), now add salt, ajwain and a pinch of black pepper into this mixer and make stuffed paranthas. You can serve these with even curd or with homemade butter depending on your child's likes or dislikes. 

2) Hide it in Halwa - Major kids do have sweet tooth, so why don’t we take advantage of it. Let’s give them the sweetness of mother’s love, homemade different kinds of Halwa, India’s dessert special. Why waste it with chocolates and candies?  

After peeling off the Ghiya/Lauki, grate its outer part only and leave the seeds area, because while eating Halwa we should have soft stuff in our mouth rather than seeds. Once you have done this, take a pan pour three tablespoon of ghee (I take little extra ghee while I make something for my kids, you can take as per your convenience), add this entire grated lauki into the pan and stir it occasionally till you feel it's getting dry, now add if you are taking approx 750gms of lauki add a big cup of milk in it(250ml) because I don’t add mawa or or khoya so I generally take extra milk, but if you are using mawa or khoya too then add approx 150-175 ml of milk. Let this cook on slow to medium gas and stir it occasionally. At this stage you can add your choice of dry fruits chopped as per your child age. For eg- I cut almonds into 4 pcs because now my kids chew properly, but if your child is not still learning how to chew you can cut almonds into a more dense size or you can make a fine powder of it too. 

    Once your milk starts getting dry add grated jaggery in it, because I don’t use more sugar in my daily cooking I use Jaggery/ Jaggery powder instead. You can use what you prefer. Now the milk has almost dried up, add a pinch of cardamom powder for some great flavor and taste. Let the Halwa cook in a pan even after your milk is completely dry, this makes the taste more authentic, and creamy too. 

You are ready to serve the goodness of lauki, let your little one enjoy this hidden vegetable. 

3) Hide it in Kheer -  So if you have read my Halwa recipe above completely you are very near to this kheer. The process is completely the same only in kheer we don;t need to dry the milk and we have to triple the milk quantity. So in kheer I take Full cream milk approx 1 ltr for 750 gms of Lauki. Here in kheer we just need to thicken the milk rather than completely dry it to the end. Trust me this kheer is so delicious that my kids started loving lauki for this kheer. Do let me know in my comment section, how your recipe turned out? 

4) Hide it in Idli - Me and my kids do have a bit of South Indian taste, and we love having Dosa, uttapam and for evening snacks, Idlis are somehow one of our favorite dishes. I make Idli for more than 20 types. And they love eating it. So if once in a week I am making Idli I make it differently every single time, so the taste doesn't repeat every time and we never get bored of it. Generally I make Idlis by mixing semolina (sooji) with curd, but you can use Urad dal mixture too to make Ghiya Idli. The process is very simple and you will love it. You just need to make idlis the way you make them. Just add ghiya juice into the sooji or urad dal idli mixture to make the idlis. Your hidden ghiya idli will be ready soon. 

Vegetables and kids really don't get along with, but vegetables never miss a chance to give their goodness to kids. So we should also keep trying to serve the goodness of these veggies to our kids.  Whether by hiding them in plates or by serving them with different names. I always say that we as mothers have a tendency to do a lot, it's just we need to take a step.