Food Which Has Been Prepared For My Offspring Which They Have Refused To Eat This Week

[pegkerr]

1. homemade beef stew

2. Shepherd's Pie (sorry, naomikritzer; yes, they are ingrates)

3. Squash, stuffed with a cottage cheese/parmesan cheese/apple mixture

4. Crescent rolls, topped with cheese/tomato/bell pepper mixture

Comments

[megd.livejournal.com]

Mail it my way.

I'd kill for homecooked food.

One more week.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

If they refuse to eat what's on the table, what happens?

I think it all sounds yummy. Do you have a recipe you'd be willing to share for the shepard's pie?

[trinker.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't have been thrilled by bell peppers, but everything else there looks delicious!

[juliansinger.livejournal.com]

Mmmmmm, shepherd's pie. (Though admittedly, when I was a kid, I ate the beef and the mashed potatoes and left the corn alone.)

Mmmmmmm, squuuaaaash. (How does the hot cottage cheese work?)

[serenya-loreden.livejournal.com]

They are getting old enough to learn a few simple meals (or at least at a minimum Fiona should be, 12 right?). My mother bought me a cookbook that had basic family meals, but was written for young teens when I was about 12/13, and I cooked dinner a couple nights a week. It was in part necessity, as she was working 2 nights a week, and then in school, and my father traveled some. Still, cooking the meals on occasion helps one appreciate the effort involved, and the annoyance when a well-cooked meal is rejected out of hand.

[aerden.livejournal.com]

Oooh! I'll help you eat the squash dish and the shepherd's pie! (g)

Chantal

[aome.livejournal.com]

I'm not a big squash fan (aside from zucchini in modest doses), but the rest sounds fabulous. I thought shepherd's pie was pretty kid-friendly - hamburger, mashed potatoes ... what's not to like?

We haven't yet gotten to the "You know where the PB is" stage. Right now, it's "You don't have to eat it, but this is what dinner is. Take it or leave it." Even when the response is "leave it" (which Two did tonight), no one has died yet. But your response is perfectly adequate - at least then they get protein and don't whine at you that they're hungry. And they do the work.

Come to our house tomorrow - crock pot potato/ham/spinach soup with grated swiss.

Plenty old enough

[1crowdedhour.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who was making family meals at that age.

Not that my cooking skills were/are anything to write home about.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

These dishes sound great. IMO however you make Shepherd's Pie it's one of the best comfort foods. Umm, I had learned to cook by 12, tought my son the basics at that age and I know my grandkids all started learning about that time. I think it works and will work on your two. I've also posted two simple recipes at my site, one for soup and the other for ez pasta & cheese.

[bethynyc.livejournal.com]

I'm coming to your house for dinner. That all sounds great!

[jbru.livejournal.com]

That all sounds delightful. I probably couldn't stomach the squash, as something about the texture of squash causes me to gag every time I try it, but it sounds like it would smell wonderful enough for me to give it another go.

One of these years, your daughters will come to you and ask for recipes for all those wonderful foods you tried to make them eat when they were younger.

[naomikritzer]

I thought about your picky daughters tonight, as I made a variant on the Sicilian Seafood Stew from Moosewood Restaurant Cooks at Home. It calls for shrimp and scallops, but for a cheaper version I used this "Seafood Medley" you can buy that's a mixture of shrimp, squid, clams, and mussels. Plus I threw in some corn and edamame. It turned out pretty well and would be easy to double, but I bet if I made a batch of that for your family you would get to eat it allllllllll by yourself. ;-) (And don't worry about your ingrate daughters offending me. They're both delightful even if they don't like Shepherd's Pie. Did Delia tell you she ran into me this morning? I was touring Seward.)

[bordergold.livejournal.com]

Hahah I wish you were my mom. I would eat ALL of the shepherd's pie. And beef stew. And rolls.

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

OK, the squash I can understand. Not one male in this family will eat squash, and the daughters are iffy about it. (I love it, and so did my mother.)

The shepherd's pie--I've never made it, because I was pretty sure that B wouldn't eat it (back then--now that he is a world traveler, he eats things I won't, but he still expects a narrow range when he comes over here!) and J would be iffy, and E doesn't like ground beef.

The crescent rolls probably wouldn't go over big here, either. Stuff on top of anything bready never did ("pasta" not being considered "bready," however).

But beef stew! BEEF STEW! What's not to like about beef stew? It has always been one thing that I knew everyone in the family would eat, reliably, and even express appreciation for. (Although I have to call it "beef soup" even if I thicken it a bit, because J won't eat gravy. Yes, gravy. He had this childhood accident involving hot gravy ...)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

After watching my mother struggle with my brother's picky eating*, my dad's lackadaisical response to her effort at feeding us ("that was okay"), and then, later, my stepfamily's hysterical "you will eat it and like it" gagginng-on-a-pea hysteria, I have the utmost respect for people who feed their families and don't completely lose their interest in trying new and interesting foods. Go you!


*CallunaV recently reminded me of something I had forgotten: My family went through a drastic upshift in income after my father finished grad school. My mother made a list of what my picky brother would eat, and realized that his pickiness had a lot to do with the fact that the more expensive foods we could then afford weren't what he was used to. He wanted hot dogs, mac & cheese, and the beloved "slop" (baked beans cooked with hamburger and served over cornbread), not steak. Just a basically irrelevant footnote, but I was so chraned when Calluna gave this story back to me that I love to tell it whenever i get the chance.

[sraun]

Silly children - that all sounds wonderful!

[naomikritzer]

Out of curiosity, what were your eating habits like when you were a child?

I would happily eat shrimp, clam chowder, and deep-fried liver, but turned up my noise at tuna noodle casserole, and macaroni and cheese. I didn't much care for cheese as a kid, and didn't like anything where it was a central ingredient. I finally acquired a taste for cheese when I was in college.

It was macaroni and cheese (my mother made a really good baked kind -- I actually liked the fake Kraft stuff, which I sometimes got for lunch) that precipitated the applesauce-on-the-head incident. Have I told you that story? I can't remember.