I cook dinner almost every night, usually from "scratch" which I think means "not from a commercial preparation."
My handy husband loves everything I cook. That's one of the reasons we've been together so long. I do nag him a little when he eats two gigantic servings for dinner. OK, so that establishes that I do cook edible food. Portion control is his issue, nagging is my job.
Here's my rant: Our sons can be finicky. Frank will not eat zucchini. He umnfortunately ate one small piece of zucchini 6 years ago which made him [or forced himself to] vomit, and he will not eat it since. Ernest is a little more reasonable... he will eat one piece of zucchini. But neither will touch asparagus, even though I serve it all the time (when it is on sale). And I could go on and on about the vegetables that I have served and they have refused to eat. It's not my fault. I've tried and tried with the veggies and I have given up. The HH and I eat chard and beets and squash and asparagus and.... they eat peas. I don't want to fight about it. We do all eat salad.
But I get tired of thinking of menus, so I put out a call last week and the two younger ones asked for "Jambalaya." Which in our house is a mishmash of:
Thaw some cooked shrimp.
Cook some sausage (this was a pork/apple/honey blend I found at the local family-owned store). Take it out of the pan and slice it.
Saute diced onions and garlic in the drippings. (I'm going all Pioneer Woman here.)
Add a handful each of sliced celery and red and green bell pepper (add olive oil if necessary) and stir around a while.
Put the sliced sausage back in the pan plus one cup of white rice. Add some seasonings (pepper, salt, parsley, sage??? whatever you like)
Stir some more.
When the things in the pan have browned a bit, add 2 cups of liquid (chicken broth + water).
Bring up to a boil, then turn the heat down low.
About 20 minutes later, put the cooked shrimp in and stir.
Check in 5 minutes when the shrimp are hot.
Serve, eat, enjoy.
And hey, did they notice they were eating 2 kinds of bell pepper and celery?
THEY DEVOURED IT!!!!! There were NO leftovers!
There is HOPE.
Let me know the next time you're going to make that and I'll swing by and help devour it.
ReplyDeleteOur girls are picky about food too, but the rule is they have to have at least one bite of everything, even if they already think they hate it.
Last night, we got wild and crazy: I mixed the peas into our pasta before bringing the food to the table. No one died because her foods were touching, so I have hope for the future.
Cheri -- MMmmmm. I love parmesan cheese on zucchini.
ReplyDeleteJen -- I did the eat one bite rule too...that was the one bite of zucchini that Frank gagged on!
Cooked Zucchini does go mushy real easy. The magic sister-in-law chops it-raw-in to salads. There is also Zucchini chocolate cake, but why spoil chocolate cake in any of its variations?
ReplyDeletem-i-l
In one respect, I am lucky in that my boys will eat pretty much any kind of veggie...cooked or raw! Make things "mayonaise and parmesan cheese dippable" and they will fill up just on that!!
ReplyDeleteBut we do have some finickyness....my oldest, who will eat raw sea critters about to crawl off the table, gags at cooked shrimp.
I just. don't. get. it.
But I am going to try that jumbalaya recipe...sounds yummy!! (he can pick out the shrimp!!)
There IS hope. My kids will eat pretty much anything because they've always eaten what we did. Eat have one thing they don't really like, but I believe the exposure as well as home-cooked "from scratch" food will have only positive effect for their future. They won't like the other garbage out there. So what if my daughter doesn't like scrambled eggs? She won't like "box" food, either!
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