What various members of my family will not eat

[pegkerr]

I have no idea what to cook for dinner. I am really weary of trying to figure it out.

Delia will not eat
cooked tomatoes
cooked fruit
dried fruit
chicken
pork
onions
kale
mushrooms
cooked vegetables
chili
lasagna (Edited to add: Delia says she will eat some lasagna. If the cooked tomatoes are not detectable.)
beef, sometimes (this is unpredictable; sometimes she'll accept hamburger in, for example, spaghetti or tacos)
bell peppers (if cooked; she'll eat them raw)
kidney beans
pinto beans
garbanzo beans
fish (violently objects to the smell; can't cook it when she's in the house)
potatoes (Edited to add: Delia says she'll eat some potatoes. Certainly more than her sister will.)
shellfish
shrimp
avocados
turkey burgers (will eat sliced turkey. Occasionally)
brussel sprouts
cauliflower
most nuts, particularly in baked goods (she will eat smooth peanut butter)

Fiona will not eat
onions
mushrooms
broccoli
kale
dried fruit
pineapple (allergic -- it causes hives)
chicken (unpredictable, but usually not)
pork (unpredictable, but usually not)
bell peppers, cooked or raw
chili
kidney beans
pinto beans
garbanzo beans
fish
eggs
potatoes
shellfish
shrimp
avocados
brussel sprouts
cauliflower
most nuts, particularly in baked goods (she will eat smooth peanut butter)

Rob will not eat
broccoli
kale
onions
mushrooms
cantaloupe
olives
vegetarian pizza
eggs
shellfish
shrimp
avocados
papaya
mango
tofu (will only eat it if it's in pameladean's Tofu French Silk Pie)
brussel sprouts
cauliflower

I will add items as more occur to me.

P.S. I have thrown in the towel and am resorting to canadian bacon pizza.

Comments

[stinaleigh.livejournal.com]

Mmm. I don't see wild rice or bacon or cheese on any of those lists. I have a great, easy soup recipe if you want it.

[sdn.livejournal.com]

hm. is it that they are allergic or that they just won't eat it?

you should just serve kale for a week. :)

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

She mentions a few of them as being allergies, so looks to me like she has the distinction clearly in mind.

[stinaleigh.livejournal.com]

Oh, I forgot to say that I understand about the fish, I'm pretty much the same as Delia when it comes to fish although not quite enough to make me leave the house; I will leave the kitchen.

[peacockharpy.livejournal.com]

::boggles:: Pizza sounds good to me. I am making lasagne tonight, but running late, so I'm getting the "where's dinner" grumblings.

Maybe you could do baked potatoes with various stuffing things? Then people can decorate with the things they like and ignore the others. Cheese, chopped raw veg, sour cream, strips of ham?

Oh, and we sometimes do this: toast bagels, then put a slice of fresh tomato and muenster cheese on each one, then run them under the broiler long enough to melt the cheese. Usually we use the "everything" bagels but plain are good too. We sometimes serve this with soup. (Actually, plain ol' grilled cheese and soup is another favorite around here.)

Good luck.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. The girls won't eat potatoes. (adds to list)

[barondave.livejournal.com]

People can live for weeks on just water.

[heavenscalyx.livejournal.com]

And that can be extended with judicious application of peanut butter.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

How about tofu? Is that acceptable to all parties?

Also what about nuts?

[msavi.livejournal.com]

::jaw drops::

How do you stand it? My kid is 3 years old and I don't take anywhere near the amount of care to feed him as you do to feed your family. I make something I think is nutritious and if he doesn't eat it, it's a cup of yogurt or cereal and I'll get him on the next meal. Luckily, he doesn't seem to be the picky sort. Not yet, anyway.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

It drives me mad, believe me. When I go out for dinner on Friday nights, I gorge on healthy and frequently vegetarian food; all the stuff my own family won't eat.

[snippy]

Lamb isn't on the lists. (I love lamb.)

For parties, I often make a vegetarian soup base, keep it hot in a crock pot or on the stove, and then prepare lots of garnishes: shredded cooked chicken, pre-cooked noodles, roasted peppers, salsa, cream cheese, grated cheddar cheese, finely-chopped cooked veg (peas, corn, carrots, zucchini), tortilla chips.

Or we have mock-smorgasbord: cruditees, dips, at least 2 kinds of cheese (slice your own), salami, ham or other pre-sliced lunch meats, crackers and bread, pickles, olives, fruit.

[satakieli.livejournal.com]

Yikes! My profound sympathies.


Would recipe suggestions be acceptable or unwelcome?

[redbird]

I think it's time to get a bunch of stuff, cut it up, and tell them to each make their own stir-fry for dinner. For values of "a bunch of stuff" that don't involve fish or pineapple (the latter for reasons of cross-contamination). Supply white and/or brown rice alongside. If anyone complains, tell them that they've just volunteered to cook tomorrow.

For that matter, why are you doing all the cooking when you're working right now and Rob isn't?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Because then she'd have to do the dishes. Handwashing dishes is even more distasteful to her than trying to find a dinner that satisfies us all.

I've offered on more than one occasion, and she seldom allows me to cook, except for her Friday nights out, which I get by default.

Rob

[rolanni.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Obviously, it's Braunschweiger sandwiches all the way down...

[dd-b.livejournal.com]

Canadian Bacon pizza? Ick! One of the few things I won't eat.

Sounds like a completely intractable problem! My sympathies.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I have no idea what to cook for dinner.

My vote: Any damn thing you want, for the next month. They'll either learn to choke a few things down, or make their own PB&J/mac&cheese with carrot sticks and you'll be off the hook. You've been catering to EVERYONE for ages - your turn now. Declare October as Mom's Month of Menus; anyone who gives rude comments (rather than polite 'no thank yous' before going off to make their PB&J) means you add an extra day to the Month, or they get extra chores, or something.

Don't know if you're willing to do something so outrageous, but I'd sure be tempted with such ridiculously picky (and incompatibly so) eaters. Your turn to eat without hassle.

Speaking of food - I've sent you an edible treat in the mail - maybe there by Wed?

[jeanineers.livejournal.com]

Sounds brilliant to me.

Hard to do, but brilliant.

[cirakaite.livejournal.com]

Good luck! My mum always used to resort to cauliflower with cheese sauce when we were being picky. She'd make the cheese sauce, steam the cauliflower, put out a plate of raw veggies, and call it dinner. Then she and my dad could make some other protein + cauliflower + other steamed veggies (from the ones she'd cut up for us to eat raw.) One of our jobs every weekend was chopping/peeling/slicing mounds of raw cauliflower, broccoli, carrots, and whatever other veggies we would condescend to eat (cabbage was surprisingly popular) to store in tupperware in the fridge. Then if we really hated a meal, we could have tomato soup and raw veggies without any extra effort on her part.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I take it that running away with the gypsies is not a viable option?

One option is breakfast-for-supper, usually a hit in our family: pancakes or waffles with bacon or sausage on the side, and fruit for them what eats it.

I quite like the idea of declaring Mom's Night Off once a week, in which everybody is responsible for feeding themselves AND CLEANING UP AFTERWARD. If the balanced diets go to hell, there's always the other six days of the week to compensate.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

The various season-your-own meals worked for us in picky phases. You already know about tacos. Another is curry: curried (whatever), which not everybody, of course, will choose. Rice, coconut, raisins, minced hard-boiled egg, minced peanuts, minced scallions, minced whatever you feel like chopping, each in *key point* separate bowls. Everybody gets rice and then chooses their favorite other things. Over time, mine slowly started trying things that weren't on their original list.

Another one in our family is "cream of green soup", but it's potato-based. Will your daughters eat disguised potatoes? If so, boil potatoes and leeks together, season, strain to a puree, serve with bowls of chopped scallions, grated cheese, sour cream, chopped avocado, chopped anything else you think people might eat.

If you buy bread dough at the store, you can do choose-your-own pizza the same way, with each person making an individual pizza.

The illusion of control is helpful.

[auriaephiala.livejournal.com]

Well, there's a fair number of raw-tomato-based pasta sauces, with garlic replacing onions. Or cream-based pasta sauce (alfredo, etc.)

And salads (they don't hate cabbage -- amazing!)

But really, this is stupid. Allergies one can't help. A tiny list of things one really hates (fewer than 5) is at least understandable -- if it was only fish, mushrooms, and kale you could probably work around that.

But if they won't eat most of the standard things you can reasonably make for dinner, they're being unfair to you.

You could:
a) make the same thing EVERY night for them until they break, or
b) tell them to make their own dinners (and shop for them if they use ingredients not in the house) if they're not willing to eat what you cook. Forcing them to realize the amount of work it takes to cook every evening might make them more reasonable.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

While it's still summer:

World's Easiest Tomato Sauce

Chop very ripe tomatoes. Put in a bowl with salt and pepper to taste. Add chopped garlic or shallots. Add basil if your family will let you. Wait awhile; 5 minutes at least, half an hour if you've got it.

Cook pasta. Toss with chopped tomatoes. Serve with grated cheese, preferably fresh Parmesan or Romano. You can also sneak in bits of cooked bacon.

[naomikritzer]

Foods I do not see on this list:

turkey
black beans
black-eyed peas
lentils
dried peas, both green & yellow
edamame
green peas
carrots
sugar snaps
cauliflower
beets
cabbage (all the veggies I'm listing can be eaten raw)
cheese in all its glorious variety
bread, including 100% whole grain bread
nuts, including peanuts and peanut butter
raw tomatoes
avocadoes and thus guacamole
corn

I'm sure some of these were just oversights; I can't imagine someone who won't eat broccoli willingly eating cabbage, even raw. But just as a thought for a menu item -- quesadillas. As a bonus, they're very easy to customize. A basic quesadilla is just a tortilla folded over grated cheese, but you can add any number of extra ingredients, including diced bell peppers, thawed frozen corn, refried beans, avocado, un-mashed beans, etc.

If they will in fact eat turkey but scorn chicken, turkey is really pretty damn cheap. You can substitute turkey sausage for pork sausage, smoked turkey drumsticks for ham, chunks of leftover turkey for cooked chicken, etc.

[naomikritzer]

And another one -- I have a recipe for pasta in a peanut sauce that's made with smooth peanut butter, if you think people would eat that.

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

I'm so glad that sometimes you get interesting creative lunches yourself.

Is Canadian bacon pizza just pizza with ordinary (side) bacon and cheese as toppings? (That's what it is here in Ontario.)

Or is it pizza with Canadian bacon (back bacon or peameal bacon)?

I discovered the other day that McDonalds here offers an Egg McMuffin with back bacon. I guess that counts as local cuisine. Like the McLobster in the maritime provinces.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

I think what we call Canadian bacon is probably what you call "back bacon" or "peameal bacon."

I've never heard of McLobster.

No one in my family but me would eat it, undoubtedly.

[jhetley.livejournal.com]

Resign. Tell 'em all to get their own damn food, even if they have to chase their mastodon down Main Street and spear it in the village square.

[febobe.livejournal.com]

YIKES. And I thought I was a picky eater!!!!

*sympathetic hugs*

[eal.livejournal.com]

I hesitate to point this out but they're going to starve if they have to go on a meal plan in college. I say this as someone who couldn't do the meal plan -- the thought of it made me ill. But I could cook and we had a kitchen, so I didn't die. Would have, though, if I'd had to live on the meal plan.

I'm a picky eater, and I know it, and I honestly have a lot of sympathy for both you and the girls. That said, I ate bread a lot of nights because I didn't like whatever it was that was for dinner. I always had to try whatever it was that my parents fixed (and trust me, some of those meals would make your hair stand on end).

[redbird]

That might depend on the college. My meal plan would have let a person eat peanut butter and jelly for lunch and supper every day. (They'd have been overpaying for it, but it was there, and a lot of people treated it as the thing to get if none of the other offerings that meal suited them.) It also came with a salad bar at lunch and supper, and all the milk and orange juice a person could drink (and all the coffee and tea, but there are no calories in those.) There was also a dining hall where you could get made-to-order omelets (plain, cheese, some veggies) five nights a week.

That was in addition to four or so cooked entrees every lunch and dinner, and a dining hall that would do cold cut sandwiches for lunch Monday-Friday.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Your posts like these often result in making my mother very confused, because she can never figure out why she gets unexpected "thank you for not strangling me"s of mornings as I am on my way out the door. So there is hope for us kids.

[redbird]

Is there a "Peg will not eat" list that should go with this, for anyone trying to come up with possible suggestions? Also, what range of spicy is acceptable here?

[minnehaha.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's what I was wondering, too.

K.

[blpurdom.livejournal.com]

1. Chicken Waldorf Salad - Just make the apple salad first--with apples, grapes or raisins, shaved carrots, a dash of OJ while chopping the apples, to prevent browning, and the mayonaise dressing, which can be low- or no-fat, then divide and give the girls their portions and add chicken to what's left for you and Rob; you can also add chopped red onion, walnuts and/or a small amount of grainy mustard to yours if you like. Serve with crusty bread and butter.)

2. Pasta - Filled pasta, dried pasta, pasta we just put red sauce on, pasta we toss in oil and vinegar and garlic and that's it, pasta with pesto, pasta with sauce and sausage, etc. (You didn't mention anyone not liking sausage, real or the tofu variety.) Let the girls pick out what they think are cool shapes for the pasta, like raddiatore (looks like little radiators!), select the sauce, and what they want with it (if anything--like sliced sausage, for instance). Other good things to add that aren't on the "will not eat" list: olives (good pitted kalamatas), roasted peppers (technically not the same thing as "cooked"--they're VERY good and sweet and the girls might love them. Rob might even love them), shredded or grated cheese (for protein, if you're going meatless), polenta, tofurkey sausages, sweet Italian sausage, pancetta (Italian ham), pepperoni, Zucchini, egg plant, etc. (Zucchini cooked in tomato sauce is awesome and absorbs the flavor of the sauce, then you just dump it all onto the pasta!)

3. Quesadillas or panini (fancy name for Italian grilled cheese sandwiches) - Take whatever their favorite foods are to combine, their favorite cheese, and put it between tortillas or good crusty bread and grill the sandwich on a cast iron griddle with raised ridges, turning the sandwiches 90 degrees halfway through cooking on each side to get cool criss-cross design on both sides.

4. If I'm completely at a loss, I fall back on mac-and-cheese and hot dogs with green beans on the side. Rachel won't eat the hot dogs, being vegetarian, but she gets protein from the beans and cheese, and Ben won't eat the beans, but he eats fruit for his produce intake, so it all works out. (I have one vegetarian and one whatever-the-opposite-of-vegetarian is. That makes meal-planning fun! And while Chris will eat NEARLY anything, he has a few food allergies we need to be careful about because some foods make his tongue swell up.)

[magicwoman.livejournal.com]

Wow, just read through the entire entry. Made me tired, I can imagine how you must feel! I learned something new - supertaster. Never heard of that before.

I now love two things that I didn't as a kid: oatmeal and cole slaw. Still don't love (or will eat) raw tomatoes, fish of any kind (except tuna, if heavily disguised), beets, olives (will eat, but not crazy about), most meat (will eat bacon, ham, white meat of turkey) - that's about it. Will eat everything else.

David swears he doesn't care for grits or okra, yet he's eaten them both when I've cooked them.

I don't have any practical suggestions. I just know I wouldn't force the girls to eat what they don't like (I would have them take a bite or two). I have horror memories from childhood where my mom would make me sit at the table hours after dinner because I wouldn't eat the fish she made for dinner.

Susan