Diversification and control

I've been trying to find simple recipes that my kids can cook (with assistance) that will serve the dual purpose of diversifying what they will eat and increasing their cooking skills. I've printed out recipes from blogs, checked out kids' cookbooks from the library and asked if there are any favorite recipes that I make that they want to learn how to cook.

It didn't really take off. They certainly didn't feel motivated to do research to pick out new recipes (it doesn't help that most of my cookbooks are in storage while we are doing our house construction) and on the few times they did, the cooking skills required were too complicated or dangerous. I'm not ready for them to be hauling homemade pizza out of a 500 degree oven (they do help roll out dough and top it) and they don't have the patience to slowly stir a white sauce until it thickens enough to add cheese. So it was a struggle and they weren't participating fully. Not a winner of a combination.

But I've found what I think will be the perfect tool for both diversification, kid-selection (very important for these two who need to feel like they've chosen a recipe instead of having it imposed upon them) and simple enough cooking skills:

I got a free subscription to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food magazine (through a program called Recycle Bank that my town has just recently discontinued. I found out that you can use your Recycle Bank points to get free magazine subscriptions and this was one of them.)

This is the perfect magazine for food-suspicious kids with limited patience and cooking skills. Every recipe has a photo. Every recipe is short (none more than one page). And pretty much every recipe requires only basic cooking skills--no complicated techniques, no obscure equipment or ingredients.

I got the first issue, explained to the kids that they each had to pick out one "real food" recipe (no snacks or desserts) that they thought they could make with my help for a family dinner. They turned the pages of the magazine warily at first, but then they were squabbling about who got to hold it and my hopes lifted.  The girl picked out a recipe for garlic lemon pork. The boy picked out a basic ground meat taco recipe.

The boy even marked two additional recipes (one for a snack and one for a dessert) that he wants to help make and I am thrilled that he is voluntarily suggesting more cooking because even the unhealthy recipes expand his limited cooking skills. Hell, I first got motivated in the kitchen making cookies, brownies, pancakes, etc. I sure didn't start with the motivation of making spinach quinoa pilaf...

I'm hoping that since the magazine will be delivered to us every month it will keep us consistent with this project: every month I'll hand over the magazine and every month they'll pick out some new stuff to try and cook. I'll report back.

Family Policy

This summer, while the kids had plenty of time and very little stress (no homework, very limited scheduled activities), I tried and implemented a policy that is a) way overdue b) actually seems to work ok and c) that I'm adopting as a permanent standard.  

In the past when I've made food I know the kids won't eat for dinner (like last night's spicy sauteed kale with lots of garlic under a heap of soupy canellini beans with rosemary and parmesan) I made something else for them. It was something simple, like a bean and cheese quesadilla and apple slices, or a turkey burger and peas or broccoli. 

It wasn't that much more work and it meant no yelling or people telling me that what I cooked was disgusting. But still, it was more work for me and even if the cooking was easy, the multitasking of timing two totally separate meals left me feeling frazzled.

But this summer we've been all about increasing competency and comfort with regular tasks. I explained to the kids that now that they are growing up and more capable, my parenting is shifting from doing things for them, to teaching them how to do things so they can do it themselves. Some skills they already had, like cleaning the bathroom, folding laundry and mowing the lawn. Others were things I taught them once and didn't really follow up on, like doing the laundry and vacuuming. But there were big gaps in basic cooking skills like how to safely use sharp knives or adjusting and monitoring temperatures of burners. If you don't feel comfortable doing this, you are pretty much limited to reheating stuff in the microwave.

This misson to increase their competency was not met with cheers of enthusiasm.

In fact it was met with lots of complaining and whining and even a bit of yelling (on both their side and mine). This only convinced me that I should have started this back when the boy was the girl's age (they are 2.5 years apart in age), though it is a lot easier to teach them both at the same time since usually one of them is in a good mood and that propels the other one to keep at it. 

So this summer they have followed basic recipes, they have used sharp knives to chop up vegetables (many of which they won't eat, but at least they know how to cut them up...), they have been coached on when to adjust stove top temps and how to see if something is cooked through.

They still need a lot of coaching. It still isn't easy to cook with them. But it's a start. And it means the new dinner policy is possible to enact.

Now, I warn them if I'm making a dinner that I know they will despise and it is up to them to decide what they are going to make and take charge of making it. (If I'm making something that I consider accessible, I still want them to give it a try; if they hate it then we can figure out what they'll make themselves). I'll help them with the cooking, but they have to tell me what they need help with rather than me telling them what they should be doing. Not all options are always available since I don't always keep all the ingredients around, but there are always at least 3 or 4 from which they can choose. 

I'm happy to report that helping them cook, when they have to take the lead and either I or their dad is just assisting, is much less stressful than trying to get two different meals on the table at the same time. And the more they do this, the less (I hope) we'll have to pitch in.

Here's what we wrote up and have posted on the fridge:

What you can make if you don’t like what’s for dinner
(ask for help if/when you need it)

Pick one main course:

1. bean and cheese quesadilla
2. pasta with olive oil and parmesan cheese
3. turkey burger
4. tuna melt or sandwich
5. grilled cheese sandwich
6. baked beans
7. omelette or creamy eggs and toast
8. english muffin or pita bread pizza
9. homemade chicken and rice soup
10. miso soup and tofu
11. peanut butter and jelly (sandwich or toast)

Add two fruits or vegetables:
frozen peas
frozen broccoli
carrots
grapes
watermelon
raisins
lettuce
apple (half a large or a whole small)
apple sauce
dried apricots
clementine

pour yourself a glass of milk

DONE!

Seasons change

Now that it is Summer, I've had to shift some of my strategies. You would think that Summer would be easier as far as encouraging fruit and vegetable consumption since so much more of it is available fresh. That may be true for vegetables in our house (fresh asparagus, peas, mild flavored lettuces), but for my two kids, it doesn't hold true for fruit.


They both eat copious quantities of apples and sadly, apples are beginning to be pretty crappy: their favorite supermarket apples (Pink Lady, Honey Crisp) are no longer available so we're down to Fuji's and Gala's in the apples-that-aren't-mushy department. The girl's other regular fruits: grapefruits and navel oranges are also at the end of their season and it is a crap shoot when you cut one open as to whether it will be good or not. (I've been transforming the sour grapefruits into a really delicious cocktail with gin, lime juice and elderflower concentrate but that isn't an appropriate recipe for a "feeding-the-kids" blog!)


There's still watermelon and the occasional other melon (for the girl) and red grapes (for both) to lean on. I've made them try (again) small tastes of summer fruits that they have previously rejected (strawberries, plums, peaches, bing cherries) and all were gagged down and declared undesirable.


And yet, in all this talk of failure, there has been one modest success. I figured out a way to get both kids to consume some of these:

Neither of my kids likes bananas straight up (and this is one area that I tend to agree with them--I will occasionally eat a plain banana but usually sort of choke it down when I feel I am potassium deficient). So finding ways to mix them into stuff is a good way to increase consumption from zero to (at least) minimal. We still regularly make our high-protein banana chocolate chip muffins, but when you divide two bananas over a big batch of muffins, well, the fruit impact is pretty minimal. 


Enter the power of the freezer. A recipe on Pintrest for healthy fudgesicles caught my interest so I gave it a try. 

In a blender you whirl together: two very ripe, small bananas (the kind that would be too mushy to eat straight--their texture is disgusting but they are very, very sweet and perfect for this), 1 T cocoa powder, 1/2 C coconut milk and 1 T agave nectar. Pour into popsicle moulds and freeze.


In our smaller popsicle mould, there is a 1/4 of a banana per pop. In our larger mould, it's a 1/2 a banana (!).  The rest of the ingredients are pretty benign so I don't have a problem with the girl eating 4 at a time if that's what it takes to get a whole banana in her. 

proof.

It took a while to get the boy to agree to try one but finally I declared that he couldn't have any other frozen dessert (and he is a big ice cream lover) until he did. We engaged in a stare down for a few days, but after his sister vouched for their edibility, he tried one and thought it was fine. He wouldn't choose it over ice cream, but I'm pitching these as a healthy snack they can have any time, not as a dessert substitute. Context can make all the difference.

Progress with the tomato hater

I made one of my favorite soups, a creamy tomato soup (recipe below), and the girl had not one, but two (small) bowls of it. I left out the crushed red peppers that I usually add to the soup and settled for just sprinkling my portion with cayenne which was an acceptable modification.


To give you a sense of the momentousness of this please consider, she has:

• vowed never to eat a raw tomato
• won't eat tomato sauce on pasta
• only barely tolerates tomato-based pizza sauce

To keep it interesting, the boy, who has no problem with (smooth) tomato sauce on pasta and sauce on pizza (no raw tomatoes for him, though) tasted it and threw his arms up in the air with an expression on his face that I can only call a rictus of alarm. It was only one step up from when he ran to the trash can and spat out the lentil soup I asked him to try. (And yes, I was tempted to make him try another taste just to see if he would repeat the response, sort of like a tap-to-the-knee reflex. I'm a little sick that way.)

Creamy Tomato Soup

adapted from this recipe from Food and Wine, March 2004

1 T butter

1 T olive oil

1 medium or 2 small onions, sliced thin

3 or 4 garlic cloves, peeled and smashed or chopped

2 big 28 oz cans of whole tomatoes in their juice

1 c water (use it to swish out the bits of residual tomato in the cans)

1 heaping T sugar

1/4 t crushed red pepper (leave out if you are dealing with sensitive palates and put some cayenne on the table w/in reach of those who like spice)

1/4 t celery seed

1/4-1/2 t dried oregano
2/3 - 1 C cream, half and half or whole milk (depending on how much acidity you want to off-set. For my sensitive kid, I went with cream)

salt and pepper (the latter is, again, optional)

chives, for garnish (optional)

In a saucepan, melt butter with the olive oil. Add the onion and garlic. Cook for about 5 minutes until soft. 

Add tomatoes and juice, water, sugar, crushed red peppers (optional), celery seed and oregano. Bring to a boil and break up the tomatoes with a knife or back of a spoon.

Reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes.

Puree in batches in the blender until smooth. Then stir in cream.

Snip some chives on each serving, unless, of course, there will be blood-curdling screams at the sight of something green.

Breaking News

My kids ate Kale Chips! And didn't scream (at me, each other, or the universe in general)!

Thanks to Tricia for reminding me of this way of getting green stuff into their mouths. I made these for them once before, but I think I kind of burned them. I liked them (but then I dig around in the potato chip bag for the burned ones and like my toast just short of black) but the kids didn't and so I dropped it.

This time I made sure that I put them in a cooler oven (275), used plenty of olive oil to get them crispy and checked them often so I could pull them before they browned.

For those of you who know the hell my kids put me through when it comes to new foods I present the only thing you will believe: photographic proof (and no, I don't have sophisticated enough photoshop skills to have fudged with these.)

I'd be lying if I said they were clamoring for more than the smallish portion I gave each of them, and I doubt that they'd gravitate to them if they were, say, on a buffet where they could serve themselves. But who cares! They both ingested kale! The girl even said (after her first taste) that they would be good to have instead of popcorn when watching a movie! Not sure she'd eat a whole big bowl full, but I'll definitely make these again.

Updates

Just a few updates on our progress:

• The boy eats homemade salsa and likes it! 
• I have to adjust some of my shopping habits: I'm used to buying asparagus for 2 people not 3. 
• The girl likes (and regularly requests) maroon carrots. Since regular carrots are one of her acceptable vegetables this is not a big surprise, but the flavor of maroon carrots is closer to what I'd call a homegrown taste: a bit minty and stronger than the one-note sweetness of supermarket orange carrots.
• Both kids are willing, though not hugely enthusiastic, to eat sauteed sugar snap peas. I'm planting extra in the garden this year.
• The girl will eat a small amount of roasted cauliflower and has been willing to taste strawberries and pears. She also dealt with dried cherries in the oatmeal chocolate chip pecan cookies and was willing to eat cinnamon raisin bread without yelling about the raisins.
• Both kids tolerated the appearance of a few mushroom slices on their homemade pizza.
• Not much progress on getting the boy to accept asparagus or either kid to accept green beans or kale (even with a lot of butter)...

Fiona recommends

Fiona has been getting into the idea of eating a more diverse selection of foods and making sure they are healthy foods, too. Here are some of her recommendations.

• TEDtalk with Jamie Oliver video on youtube. "It really gets you aware of how much we're eating and how the wrong stuff can really hurt people." "ow."
• Print out your school lunch and breakfast menu after watching the video and circle the healthy stuff and cross out the unhealthy stuff (we don't eat school lunch, but it helps with awareness).
• Look at the foods/recipe categories listed on the NY Times Recipes for Health page and note which ones you eat and which ones you are willing to try.
• Part of being a healthy eater is learning how to cook. All our cookbooks are packed away right now because our house is under construction so we've been looking on-line for recipes and ideas. So far Fiona's favorite one is Eating Well's Healthy Kids recipes (a bit meat heavy in the main course department, but plenty of side dishes listed below).  I should note we haven't tried any of these recipes yet, but she finds the presentation appealing (half the battle, in my opinion) and she's going to go through and pick some out for us to make together.