Once upon a trip to Costco, I bought a giant jar of sun-dried tomatoes on a whim. After using them off and on throughout our six years of marriage (not this exact jar, mind you) my husband finally told me that he doesn’t like them.

He’s such a patient, patient man. He did the same thing with stuffed peppers after a half dozen batches of them (I really like stuffed peppers.)

He also claims he doesn’t like balsamic vinegar or eggplant.

I could be a nice, sweet wife and avoid those completely. “Sweet” isn’t something I’ve heard about myself often. Instead of avoiding the food he “dislikes” I kept making them in different ways in order to get him to like them.

Back to the sun-dried tomatoes…

He informed me that he didn’t like chewing on a chunk of a tomato, but he likes the flavor it gives the dish that they’re in.

Soooo. . .I threw a third of the jar into the food processor with some Romano cheese and pine nuts and made sun dried tomato pesto. And because I had a big bowl of that pesto, I tried to find uses for it over the next couple of weeks. And guess what?? He liked it!

I feel like you could use the same technique for getting kids to like things. It’s worked so far with my girls. But it probably takes more tries with them because kids can be especially finicky. (I take that back. I know adults who are more finicky than a toddler.)

Try this pesto in my 15-Minute Sun-Dried Tomato and Spinach Omelet.