Boo, I would be the last parent to criticise you over this. I do understand - we had a house full of food issues. easy child 2/difficult child 2 will eat nothing with "bits" in it, everything has to have a smooth, creamy, baby food texture. But difficult child 3 wouldn't touch anything creamy, he would gag on it. It was Jack Spratt and his wife all over again. I stopped making biscuits because I wasn't permitted to put nuts or fruit in them. Cakes - no using cream or even butter cream. And again, no 'bits'.
Your youngest is 6 years old. There is a lot of time to go. When difficult child 3 was this young, we didn't force the issue too hard but instead we tried to adapt his foods. A lot of the problems were due to change. We used to buy frozen fish fillets (crumbed) which we would bake in the oven. He would only eat one variety of one brand. When they went off range, we had a horrible time trying to find a replacement. We got tantrums in the supermarket as difficult child 3 raged at the manufacturers for being so changeable.
What I suggest for you - with the pasta, switch to home-made. Make it yourself. Buy a pasta machine (a cheap hand-cranked one, if you shop around you can get them very cheaply). I bought the most recent pasta machine for A$30, but there were also more expensive ones (looking almost identical) for up to A$230. The expensive ones sometimes have a ravioli attachment, but you can make ravioli without one.
Home-made pasta recipe - when you're first learning, start small. I use whole egg, flour and a little salt. No added water. You can add other ingredients such as chopped herbs or lemon zest, or tomato paste. This changes the colour as well as the taste, I would only do this after you've got him onto home-made pasta. To start with, keep it plain.
Plain pasta - first make sure you have a clean laminex (or similar) bench. CLamp the pasta machine to the bench (g-clamp). I often put down a silicone sheet (like those heat-proof baking sheets) and work on that.
In a large bowl or jug, put in about a cup of flour (all-purpose). Add half a teaspoon of salt. Make a well in the middle and break in one egg. Mix it all together and knead it. I'm not sure if it will be too dry or too moist, but it will take up a surprising amount of flour. It will seem dry and crumbly, but as you knead it, your hand will feel damp spots. Mix it all up so the damp spots take up as much flour as possible. Add a little more flour if it is still too moist. Eventually it should start to come together into a ball, even if only bits of it do. All this should only take a couple of minutes.
When it starts to come together and you have at least some bits that don't feel too moist, start rolling it through the pasta machine rollers. This is when you will almost certainly realise that the mix is too moist. Any loose flour in your bowl, put it on the dough now and knead it again. The rollers help knead it.
What you're aiming for is a smooth sheet, not sticky to touch, with a uniform texture. The edges can often be a bit stickier or crumblier so if this happens, lay the sheet out, fold in the edges, press it down with your hands then fold it over end for end to seal in the edge fold-over. Pass it through the rollers again, making sure it doesn't unfold at the edges.
Once the sheet seems right (not sticky, not too dry, add a drop or two of water if it's too dry but go easy) then roll it out over and over, moving the rollers closer together each time (there is a dial on the side, the higher number = rollers closer together). When the pasta sheet is thin enough for you, pass it through the cutting roller (choose the cutter of your preference - I ask the kids which they want). Meanwhile, you should have put the water on to boil. I also add salt to the water.
The pasta dough can be hung over a rod to dry a little before cutting, or after cutting. If it is floured well, it will be OK to pile the cut dough onto a plate. But if you leave it for too long or it is too moist, it will stick together. If this happens, it's OK to start over, roll it back into a sheet and roll it out again. All tis takes a little practice but once you have the knack, you can go from eggs & flour to pasta on the plate, cooked, in ten minutes.
To cook the pasta - throw it into boiling water. Stand guard with slotted spoon and bowl, because this literally takes no more than a minute. A boiling pot will soon try to boil over after the pasta has been added - take out the pasta, it is cooked. Cooked pasta floats. It also expands a bit, so the raw pasta dough might look a bit light on for a meal, but what you cook is a lot more. Our serving guide is based on weight.
Once you have the knack, you can make a larger batch of pasta dough. But I don't recommend more than six eggs at a time, no matter how many you are cooking for. It just gets too cumbersome if you have too much dough at one time. I sometimes make up a larger batch (4-6 eggs worth) and keep it in the fridge wrapped up for a few days, in a block. Then to serve it out, I weigh the dough and allow about 100 g per person (big appetite, no other food in that meal). mother in law is a small meal person, no more than 60 g for her. Or easy child 2/difficult child 2. difficult child 1 is a big eater, up to 120 g of pasta at a time.
If you get the dough from the fridge or freezer, keep it wrapped until it is back to room temperature or condensation will add moisture and you will need to add more flour to stop it being sticky.
The beauty of this, is the whole egg in it. Protein. We serve the pasta with just a little butter; maybe some home-made pesto sauce (made with cashews instead of pine nuts); Paul Newman's pasta sauce or home made bolognese sauce.
We got through a lot of difficult child 3's upbringing with home-made bolognese sauce. difficult child 3 would have it sometimes on pasta; he would eat it as chilli con carne (add tinned kidney beans and pasta spirals) or as our version of nachos (corn chips base, dollops of bolognese sauce, topped with grated cheddar, put under the grill).
The other thing we have found has helped difficult child 3 greatly - your son may not be old enough for this yet. But it's worth a try.
We got difficult child 3 to have a taste of anything new. We had previously noted that some foods still had to be avoided, foods we already know he hates. We know he hates prawns/shrimps, so we know to not try him with crab or lobster. We also knew to avoid anything with cream, or overly creamy texture. However, we did get him to have a tiny taste of choc-flavoured butter cream, and also chocolate ganache.
When getting difficult child 3 to have a taste, we made it clear - one tiny taste only, and we wouldn't force him to have more. He also was permitted to have something else handy to get rid of the taste from his mouth if he didn't like it. We also praised him a lot for trying something new. It took a lot of encouragement and patience but it was worth it.
The next step - we would ask difficult child 3 what he thought of the food. He had to be honest, but he was allowed to say if he didn't like it. But he had to say why. Whether he liked it or not, he had to say what it was about it that he liked or disliked. Of course, tis also gave us useful information. And sometimes he realised he did like it, and it was OK to ask if he could have some. As we said to him, if he had never tried chocolate ice cream, think of all the treats he would have been missing out on, by avoiding it because it wasn't on his list!
Don't insist he eats something entirely different for a whole meal. Always let him know that his preferred food is there for him if he chooses it, but you want him to try this first. If he doesn't like it, he can have his pasta. But while he's waiting for his pasta to be cooked, he can at least try this.
This "have a taste and tell us" rule was brought in for us by SIL1. We already had the "have a taste" rule but sometimes, often, difficult child 3 would fall back on "I don't like it," and never have to eat more of it. But by getting him to tell us why, he had to analyse his own likes and dislikes which made him realise how limited he was, and made him more willing to try. Also knowing he always had choice and could refuse more, made it easier for him to be honest with himself.
When we travel, we like to try the foods that a place is famous for. We buy the local produce and prepare it ourselves, too. When we went to NZ for a month, SIL1 and easy child came too, and tat was when tis rule was suggested. It worked brilliantly for us, and it got difficult child 3 eating a lot of new foods, most of which he liked, to his surprise. And each time he finds a new food, he is encouraged to try again next time. Of course there were a lot of foods difficult child 3 didn't like, but at least he had tried them. We also HAD to eat in a restaurant at times when on holiday, and the crowning success was when difficult child 3 ate the biggest adult meal on the menu and polished it all off! A huge steak with mixed roast vegetables. And then asked for his favourite dessert - plain scoops of ice cream!
Left to his own devices, difficult child 3 will still gravitate to instant noodles. But he now has a much bigger food repertoire and sometimes will ask me to prepare something special.
The last thing but certainly not the least to try - involve him in gardening. Vegetable and herb gardening. Then involve him in harvesting it and cooking it. And of course since he helped, he has earned the right to taste, and also to suggest ways of preparing it that he likes.
I have other recipes for you to try - home-mde gnocchi is possibly something he would love. It's made from leftover mashed potato mixed with egg (about half cup of potato to one large egg) with flour added to make a wet dough, then you roll the dough in flour and roll it to a 'snake' (like children learning to use modelling clay). When the snake is as thick as your index finger, cut half inch slices off, roll them in a little more flour, then gently press with a fork. Roll them gently off the fork so the pieces are slightly flattened, marked with the tines of the fork and curved over. This helps them hold the sauce when they're cooked.
To cook - throw the little gnocchi dumplings into boiling salted water and stand guard with the slotted spoon. They cook faster than fresh home-made pasta. As you drop the gnocchi into the boiling water, they sink. As they cook, they rise and float. When they have floated and boiled for about 20 seconds, scoop them out and drain. Serve immediately with sauce or a little butter. Delicious! If you have to leave either home-made pasta or gnocchi for more than a couple of minutes after cooking, toss with a little oil or butter, to stop it sticking. Sometimes I put a layer of oiled gnocchi in a baking dish, pour over some bolognese sauce and top with cheesy bechamel, then bake.
As you can see with the gnocchi recipe, it's a great one to make with pre-school kids, they love to roll out the dough and then squish the pieces. And making it gives the child ownership and they're more inclined to taste it (and like it).
It's still not the best food in the world, but it is an improvement.
The other beauty of developing a taste for home-made food, is when you make it yourself, the taste often is subtly different. One batch may be better than another. This gives the child some acclimatisation to a little variation.
When I was a kid, I was a very fussy eater. What used to bother me was the way my mother would hide certain ingredients in the food. However, my mother was also working with often poor quality ingredients plus she wasn't a great cook. Once I was able to cook meals for myself, I was able to amend the ingredients to my taste. I had already been helping my mother with meal preparation which made it easier for me to have the courage to change a recipe.
At school in cooking class, the curried eggs were notoriously spicy. The word was out in the classroom - watch out for that class! So the day our class had to make curried eggs, I sneakily adapted the recipe. While every other group was adding the required three tablespoons of curry powder to the bechamel sauce (turning it to a bright mustard yellow colour) I made our little group of three only add three teaspoons of curry powder. Our bechamel was a very pale lemon yellow colour. We quarted the hard-boiled eggs and stirred them in. We boiled the white rice. The sauce smelt tasty, I hadn't realised that I could like curry. We cooked everything else according to the recipe, then like everyone else in the class, we sat down to eat what we had cooked. Our group was the only one to be able to eat it all - all around the room, students were gagging or begging for glasses of water. We polished ours off and the teacher looked very suspicious. We got top marks. I even went home and cooked it up for my family, who liked it.
The secret - I had control. Plus because I had done some cooking before, I had the confidence to make the change.
It's never too early to involve a child in cooking. Don't force it too hard, even if all he does is help stir a pot for you for a few minutes. When making pasta, I get difficult child 3 to turn the handle of the pasta machine for me. Also he can stand guard with the bowl and slotted spoon because as soon as he fishes out the pasta, he gets to eat it! It's the fastest way to get his food.
I hope you can use some of this.
Marg