Let me assure you that we only serve delicious food in this house
Despite such assurances and other measures we’ve taken over the years, the mealtime battles still rage on. The kids aren’t buying it. And sadly, deception doesn’t necessarily work.
Interestingly enough, they will cheerfully eat vegetables. Tacy loves peas, while CJ prefers broccoli and carrots. Many times, CJ has led me to the refrigerator and pointed to the crisper drawer: “Cah-uts, peese!” Fruit is a big hit too - not just bananas and grapes, but apples and oranges, peaches and pears. Berries disappear faster than I can buy them.
It’s the main dishes where we struggle.
Back in March, I reviewed “The Sneaky Chef” for Cool Mom Picks. I’m no chef, but even I was intrigued by the idea of incorporating purees into recipes. The pureeing nearly wore out my wimpy little food processor (Hint: bring out the blender if you want to puree effortlessly), but I ended up with several small portions of puree in my freezer and set about making macaroni and cheese with cauliflower.
I have ruined macaroni and cheese for Tacy. Perhaps irrevocably.
Seriously, I have a box full of Kraft Easy Mac packets in my pantry that hasn’t been touched in months. She knew there was something “off” about the mac-and-cheese I served her, and now she won’t eat it at all.
But!
The breading for chicken and fish strips? Delicious. If you go easy on the egg/veggie mixture before you bread the meat (using the ultra-healthy breading recipe) and bake it, it’s absolutely fabulous. We rarely eat fish anywhere but restaurants, but this breading strategy has helped us incorporate fish into our diets at home too.
What I really want to check out are the baked goodies from Deceptively Delicious. I’m not much for making main dishes (although I’m ready to re-stock the freezer with puree portions for Kyle to add as he sees fit), but I love to bake. Gingerbread spice cake with broccoli and carrot purees? Perfect for the season, and there are some darling little loaf pans at Williams Sonoma that I could use. Blueberry oatmeal bars with spinach puree? What’s not to like about those, especially if you let them cool completely (as Seinfeld advises) which helps the spinach taste dissipate. I’m not going to mess with my chocolate chip cookies, but I’m all for trying the carrot cake muffins, despite the long list of ingredients. I’ll be interested to see if the cauliflower puree in the muffins is adequately disguised by all the yummy spices.
So we’ll keep slugging it out with the kids where it comes to main dishes. But if you’ve got any super-duper kid friendly recipes that are not completely off-putting to adults with sophisticated palates, I’m listening.
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I can’t win the $250 gift card to Williams Sonoma, so I’ll have to buy those loaf pans myself. But you could win! Go check out today’s PBN Blog Blast and write a post about what your kids will or won’t eat (and whether they inherited their pickiness from you). Even if you don’t cook, Williams Sonoma sells pumpkin quick bread mix and peppermint bark…mmmmm!
I did get to check out a cool new stroller that steers like a dream. If only I’d bought this one fantastic stroller instead of all of those cheapo strollers that weighed a ton and didn’t steer worth a damn…
October 26th, 2007 at 6:57 am
I’ve never had a problenm getting the kids to eat their veggies.
Will eats whatever you put in front of him. He’s a BEAR!
Maggie would rather eat a whole plate of steamed baby carrots than put a piece of meatloaf in her mouth.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:10 am
Puzzle me this: Jo will eat baby carrots but ONLY if they are cooked and drenched in butter.
Regular-size carrots: Must ONLY be raw.
?????
Our go-to easy dinner is peanut or sesame noodles from Thai Kitchen (http://www.worldpantry.com/cgi-bin/ncommerce/ExecMacro/thaikitchen/shop.d2w/report). Works with tofu or whatever leftover meat we might have, plus any veggies. We take out a portion of the noodles for Jo to eat plain, and she will eat the protein and usually some of the veggies. The rest of us eat the whole thing.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:11 am
PS the Mutsy looks very cool and you have me all nostalgic for the NJ days.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:19 am
[…] Let Me Assure You That We Only Serve Delicious Food in This House […]
October 26th, 2007 at 8:58 am
My darling kids only eat meat.
Love having carnivores for kids.
And I’m still waiting for my copy of Deceptively Delicious as it’s been back ordered thanks to Oprah.
Bugger.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:01 am
I really like the DD book. I wonder how it compares to that “other” puree book.
Found you via the blast. My entry is here:
http://mamaknj.blogspot.com/2007/10/lay-off-jessica-people.html
October 26th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I’ve been wondering about Seinfeld’s wife’s book — such a great idea. My 18 month old goes through stages of demanding just one food: a few weeks ago it was baby carrrots with hummus; Kraft Mac & Cheese; the Thai Kitchen noodles; now it’s bread. He’s pretty much vegetarian.
October 26th, 2007 at 8:07 pm
I was a picky eater. My mom was a good cook, but I have to admit that all of the vegetables we ate (except stuff in salad) came from a can. Asparagus, broccoli (frozen), spinach. The only thing we ate fresh was corn. The notion of canned spinach (limp and bitter tasting) still turns my stomach.
October 26th, 2007 at 9:47 pm
I tell my kids I am not a short order cook
We make one family friendly meal and eat together.
On my blog (http://whatscookingblog.wordpress.com/2007/10/08/is-deceptively-delicious-too-deceptive) I have been talking about where to draw the line between honesty and getting our kids to eat well.
Take a peek and learn about some other ideas that might work that are less deceptive than what Jessica Seinfeld is promoting in this book…
October 27th, 2007 at 3:31 pm
“Puzzle me this: Jo will eat baby carrots but ONLY if they are cooked and drenched in butter. Regular-size carrots: Must ONLY be raw.”
Ha, what’s really funny about that is that almost all “baby” carrots are just regular carrots that are cut and put through a tumbler that gives them the “baby” shape. Kids.
I’ve got Ms. Seinfeld’s spinach/carrot/chocolate brownies cooling right now in our test kitchen, I’ll let you know how they turned out.
October 28th, 2007 at 6:46 am
Spinach/carrot/chocolate brownie. I wouldn’t even eat that. I like all three separately but not together.
October 28th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I employed the “hiding nutrition” 18 years ago by putting carrot puree in my beef stew because my toddlers wouldn’t eat the carrots. Instead of cooking and pureeing them myself (which my smart kids might have noticed and objected to eating on principal
I added carrot babyfood to the stew. I liked the taste so much myself that even though the whole family has liked real carrots in it for years, I still also put in a jar of carrot babyfood.
However, I think for the most part it is better to just get kids to like vegetables by serving them contstantly and eating them yourself all the time and not pressing them to eat strong flavored ones that they probably really dislike rather than that they just “don’t care much for”. I think if you depend on them getting all their vegetables inside muffins, brownies, mac ‘n’ cheese, etc., then they may never develop a taste for any of the actual vegetables and when they go out into the real world, not want to eat anything but muffins, brownies, mac ‘n’ cheese, etc. — which will be the non-nutricious versions.
An aside about the baby carrots: most “fake” baby carrots (the ones cut and tumbled) and some real baby carrots (the ones shaped like miniature regular whole carrots) have a preservative on them that bothers my daughter’s mouth. Whole “mature” carrots don’t need this preservative to stay “fresh”. This could be why some kids will only eat them cooked, but just can’t “put their finger on” what is wrong with the un-cooked ones as my daughter was able to recognize.