Posting for Competition

Deborah at The Humble Housewife is sponsoring a competition called Make My Kid Eat!

I can fully relate to this problem. While my soon-to-be eight year old has asked to try sushi, and would eat almost anything to get dessert, my five year old eats nothing.

The sweet little face hides my shame: he is the bane of my culinary existence. He is one of those children who eats about ten things, one of which is hot dogs.

Hot dogs that were given to him by my husband.

Need I say I will never forgive him for this?

I've tried tofu dogs (no go) and I do get either turkey or chicken hot dogs. The fact remains, though.

It's a hot dog.

Do you know what's in hot dogs?

Neither do I.

The child has gone to bed hungry more times than I can say, because while playing good mom/bad mom I've had to put into effect the 'no thank you bite.'

They must try one bite of dinner. If they don't like it, they can have a bowl of cereal. I'm done being a short order cook.

I'm not totally unwavering on this point, though. If I make pasta they can have just plain Parmesan or butter instead of the sauce I've made. Or some other dishes I will take part of it out before I season or sauce it if I know they won't like it.

I will let them have some milk before bed if they don't even take a no thank you bite.

Wow, I sound like a total ogre. I don't mean to be. I just want them to try new food and have a healthy diet.

They say it takes 10-15 tries (or maybe more) to decide if you will like something.

That's an awful lot for a parent with a child with food issues.

Or, you can just sometimes be sneaky, like me.

Saturday Night is our Family Movie night (or as Patrick calls it, food-wise, his 'free ride night.') I pick a movie and we eat dinner in the living room in front of the tv.

The best meals for this are generally hand held, which usually means pizza.

                                  Pizza Crust (This makes enough for one pizza crust. If you prefer yours thin and crisp like I do, you can use this for two pizzas.)

- 1 cup (250 ml) warm water (105-115F)

- 1 tbs sugar

- 1 envelope dry yeast

- 3 tbs olive oil

- 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) whole wheat flour

- 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) or more, white flour

- 1 1/2 tsp salt

Combine water and sugar in a bowl. Sprinkle yeast over; let stand until foamy, about 10 minutes. Add oil, then flours and salt. Mix about 1 minute. Either turn out onto a floured surface or put into bowl of a stand mixer and knead until dough is smooth and elastic, adding more flour if dough is sticky, about 5 minutes. Lightly oil large bowl, add dough, turning to coat with oil. Cover with plastic wrap, then a towel. Let stand in a warm, draft-free place until dough doubles, about 1 hour.

                                                 Here, I've added fresh rosemary.

Punch down dough in bowl, knead in bowl 2 minutes.

While dough is rising make sauce.

                            Quick Pizza Sauce

- 1 14.5 oz (411 g) can diced tomatoes

- 1 6 oz can (170 g) can tomato paste

- dash Italian seasoning

- dash olive oil

- 2 large carrots, grated

Combine all ingredients in a small saucepan, bring to a simmer.Let cook down a little bit, remove from heat.

                           

Just towards the end of the rising time for the dough, pre-heat oven to 400F.

Take dough and either roll out or stretch to fit your pizza pan(s.) Pre-bake the dough for about 5 minutes, until it starts to turn light brown and you can easily turn it over and brown the other side.(As I will probably never have a kitchen with a pizza oven, I've taught myself this trick for really crisp crust.) Remove before it gets too brown, and let cool slightly.

                              Pizza Toppings

- fresh mozzarella

- low fat turkey pepperoni

- fresh Parmesan cheese

- any combination of peppers, mushrooms, onions, garlic, etc. (Your favorite pizza toppings.)

The pizza for the kids usually just has sauce, cheese, and turkey pepperoni.

                                              

Place a small amount of sauce on crust, swirl around (if your kids are like mine, the sight of actual tomato pieces will be appalling. You can mash the them with the back of a spoon.) Place mozzarella, and then pepperoni on top.

For an adult pizza, pre-cook all your veggies in some olive oil until soft.

                           

Here I did garlic, red pepper, onions, spinach and radicchio.

Spoon a small amount of sauce, swirl around pizza (same as kid pizza.) Spoon your cooked toppings on top (if you have excess liquid, use a slotted spoon, you don't want your crust wet.) Place cheese and pepperoni (if using on top.) I also put grated Parmesan on ours.

Drizzle both pizzas with some olive oil, bake just until cheese melts (check after 5 minutes.)      

                                             

So here the children have had protein (pepperoni, cheese, and the wheat flour has some, too.) They also have had dairy, calcium,carbs,and veggies (extra from the carrots in the sauce!) Don't be too tempted to use all whole wheat flour if they're picky, I know mine see too much brown and automatically are turned off!

For dessert, an old standby, chocolate pudding.

                                                                                                 

I admit, I used a boxed mix that I keep on hand for 'emergencies.' (Also, I don't like pudding, in the American sense, like this.) I used skim milk, so they get all the calcium with none of the fat.

A very kid friendly meal.

The Food Snob is going to Cape Cod for a few days. I will hopefully have some pictures without rain when I come back.

Happy 4th to my fellow Americans!

   

       

 

 

Comments

[beccy]

Thnks for the tip about pre cooking the pizza!

The pizza's look great unfortunately Ben won't eat them 15-20 trys is a long time in a childs life although it did work for me with raw veg.

[chrisb]

I have just come back from holiday and you are away. Look forward to seeing some photos when you get back.