My daughter has been diagnosed with Crohn's but none of the doctor's diet recommendations ("low residue"!) helped at all. The Specific Carbohydrate Diet brought about a huge turnaround though. Because it is similar to the Paleo diet, there are lots of recipes online, so we have been using a lot of online Paleo recipes as well as SCD. One of my favorites is
http://comfybelly.com/ and there are many others.
I tend to look for recipes where the blogger says something like "This is the seventh recipe for this dish I have tried, and my kids love this one and wouldn't eat the others."
You're right, variety is important. It took us a while to get over the feeling that some fresh fruits were "too expensive." They aren't if they help keep her healthy, so we go for variety and also get her tons of blackberries no matter what the season! Obviously this depends on what diet you are using, as well.
My daughter doesn't like the SCD "bread" type things at all, and most of the recipes we have tried that involve coconut flour have not been a success. We eat a lot of grilled meats and fish, trying to get good variety in. We found a type of sausage that is SCD legal, and a brand of bacon that is also legal. Lots of omelettes and scrambled eggs with vegetables for breakfast, with some kind of fruit. When we have more time for breakfast, she likes "paleo pancakes" which have bananas and coconut flour and eggs in them. Lunch is either leftovers in a thermos bowl, or a lettuce wrap, with some cut-up fruit, maybe veggies with a dip, a little bag of nuts, and some SCD-legal cookies. The cookies are very good but don't keep too well, so I make half-batches often.
I really try to make her lunches good. Lunchtime at school has a lot of temptations to "cheat" on the diet. Kids like to share their food. Lately she has mentioned that she shared some of her SCD-legal treats with her friends and they agree that they are yummy! Victory dance for Mom!
There's a recipe on Comfybelly for Chicken Tikka Masala that we all absolutely love. It uses SCD yogurt as well. We eat it with cauliflower rice, and it is great the next day and in lunches. I intend to try other spicy recipes soon.
Last week we got a deep-fat fryer because we realized that there wasn't anything "legal" on my daughter's diet that was also crunchy and salty. So far we like celeriac chips and mushroom chips the best. I need to experiment more. Not the most healthful way to eat vegetables but good for an occasional treat.
Ice cream and chocolate are not allowed on my daughter's diet. Smoothies with fruit and SCD yogurt are good. Sometimes she makes them, sometimes I do. Different every time. I keep frozen banana slices in the freezer to add to smoothies. Frozen seedless grapes are very good eaten plain, like little nuggets of sorbet. Last week I made the SCD yogurt with half-and-half and made some really good strawberry frozen yogurt.
My daughter is a little older than yours, and she likes to go out to the mall with her friends, so we did a lot of research to identify things she can eat under those circumstances. In our area, for example, she can get lettuce-wrapped burgers at Elevation Burger or Five Guys, and at Chipotle she can have a salad with carnitas, no rice, and guacamole if she wants it, etc. etc. There is also a kabob place that has food she can eat, where they will give her the meat with a salad.
It really helps her feel she has some control over what she eats, if she does the research herself. But that's just her personality.
It's all rather time-consuming and expensive, but a lot better than surgery!