Don’t give up

We all get discourage. It happens. I have a 9 year old and know how picky kids can be about food. Ours is compounded by the fact that she’s been raised vegetarian, so the options are further limited. We had been making a lot of progress in trying new things. Then we hit a rut. For the last few months, she’s been back to a very limited palate. This is difficult for me because I go to great lengths to try to create healthy, delicious vegetarian meals for her that are not just carbs and cheese, which are her go-to dishes.

I’d spend time finding, creating and making interesting recipes, all with foods she likes, just in new formations. She’d eat maybe two bites and say she wasn’t that hungry. Or it’s “too spicy” or “not my favorite.” I had a weekday where there was no time and ended up making Trader Joe’s frozen gnocchi. Of course, she had three helpings. I was crushed. It got to the point that I was ready to give up. I mean, why put in all the effort to then just throw out the food, or at best, I end up eating the leftovers because no one else does?

In what was almost a moment of defiance, I decide to make a dish that is basically a vegetarian version of orange chicken using chickpeas in place of chicken. I served it with steamed basmati rise and roasted cauliflower. She ate. She said it was good (which she sometimes does, only to eat none of it), and she actually ate a pretty good amount of it. It wasn’t the “mac n cheese” eat three helpings, but it was a good amount. The dish was actually pretty good. And what she didn’t know is that it had ginger and crushed red pepper, which we thought were reasons for her aversion to dishes in the past. So those spices are back on the table!

I needed this victory to remind me to keep trying. Yes, the kid will always prefer bread and pasta, but there’s a chance I can still help her expand her culinary adventures and try new things! She reminded me that kids challenge us in so many ways. And her challenging me to find interesting meals that we can all enjoy has helped me grow tremendously in my cooking over the past few years!

The decision to become vegetarian or vegan

Kids are stubborn. Duh, right? I’m sure I’m not the only one who has tried to argue reason with an 8 year old and wound up wanting to just bang my head on the table. The amazing little humans can in one argument sound totally reasonable and come up with completely rational arguments and then in the very next discussion argue that fairies really exist even though they can provide no reasonable evidence with ardent passion.

So my reason for dwelling on this stubbornness was inspired by a little girl who looked to be about 5 years old. I was getting out of my car next to one of my favorite neighborhood restaurants, Rockwell’s, and a family was sitting on the patio. The little girl was saying “Would you like it if someone killed you? So, why do we kill animals just to eat them?” By the response, her parents were obviously not vegetarians. But the simple logic just struck me.

Now, I’m not a vegetarian, and I don’t judge if you choose to eat meat or not eat meat or if your diet consists of candy bars, for that matter. However, it made me think about my girls and the various dietary habits we have cycled through over the years. My Katie, who now is a complete omnivore for the moment, decided to be vegetarian when she was about 8. As a non-vegetarian family, we accommodated this by experimenting with vegetarian dishes or by providing alternative proteins such as beans or tofu if we were having a meaty main dish. This lasted about a year.

Then a few years ago, Katie and Melanie both decided to go vegan. Katie’s stint here was short lived. She then decided to be pescatarian. That lasted until recently. About a year ago, she slowly started adding meats back into her diet. Melanie has remained dedicated to being vegan, despite the occasional reminiscence about meat dishes she once loved.

But the thing is, they came these decisions on their own. No one told them what their food choices would be. I provided the food I like in life until they asked for something different, and then I have tried to accommodate wherever I can so that we can enjoy meals together.

Now, our youngest is 9 and a vegetarian. However, she was born to two practicing vegetarians. Her mother is still vegetarian. However, her father went back to eating meat a couple years after she was born and I am a total meat eater. She’s very insistent that she’s a vegetarian. Now, as with our other girls, I totally respect her right to choose. I would just argue that she has not yet made that choice. Her current vegetarian diet is more a result of that childish stubbornness we all know and love and less a choice. Someday, I am confident that she will make a conscious choice about this issue, and I look forward to seeing how that plays out. But for now, I do enjoy challenging her rationalizations on the issue. (Don’t worry, I don’t challenge them by not offering her as much good, healthy, vegetarian food as I can!)

With each of the girls and each of their experiments toward discovering their dietary decisions, I like to ask questions and challenge the rationale. For example, if you aren’t willing to eat an animal but you take no issue with animal made products, this is a questionable position. Also, I never understood the rationale of eating fish but not other animals. Or if the issue is that you have a problem with animal cruelty, are there alternative decisions such as being conscious of where the meat is from and just avoiding those parts of the industry that practice methods you consider cruel. Or one of my favorites with the little one, if you say you don’t want to kill animals but you are willing to flood the world with ocean-life killing glitter.

Now, depending on at what age you are having these conversations, obviously the rational quality of the conversation may vary. However, it can be fun and stimulating as long as handled in a “explain your side to me” open way and not an “I’m right, you’re wrong” manner. Does it help them decide? I don’t know. I think they eventually develop a set of ideas and beliefs based on the totality of their experiences in life. I think I’m part of that totality, but only a small part. But either way, it’s been a fun and interesting journey so far.

Instant Pot

An acquaintance told me about her Instapot recently. It definitely sounded like something I would love to try out. Luck would have it that the husband and I stumbled onto a Macy’s going out of business sale and there was an Instant Pot (not the “Instapot”, another brand). This has to be one of the most amazing inventions ever.

First, you can do all the things. Think one pot meal and this is your best friend. You can saute, slow cook, steam, warm, pressure cook…I mean the thing specifically has a risotto setting! Also, unlike most other kitchen gadgets you find, this one can eliminate other items in your kitchen! I’m going to keep my crockpot, but I COULD get rid of it.

The first thing I made with the Instant Pot was my risotto. I was skeptical, but it came out awesome. The best part was that the risotto normally takes over and hour and I’m stuck standing over a hot boiling dutch oven for most of the time. While the work out to my arms is awesome, it’s also exhausting. In the Instant Pot, I sauteed the shallots, wine, garlic and rice, and then just added my saffron, salt, pepper and vegetable stock. I set the pot in the steam function for 20 minutes. The risotto was awesome!

As weird as it sound, I love the Instant Pot for making pasta. It’s really the equivalent of one pan as far as dishes are concerned, so while it sounds like too much for such a simple dish, it’s worth it. The pasta comes out perfectly done. I’ve done a recipe where you make the sauce first and add the pasta and steam. I’ve also done pesto by cooking the pasta in the pot and adding the pesto after it’s done to the hot pot. In both cases, the pasta was delicious.

My next adventure is going to be chicken. I have some chicken thigh thawed and I’ve found several good looking recipes online. I don’t think I’m going to use one of the recipes, but I will use some ideas I got from them. I’m thinking of a garlic, onion and white wine chicken preparation. I’ll try to remember to update you on how it came out!

Pesto Experiments

It turns out that while, yes, the classic pesto sauce we all think of is basil, garlic, olive oil, pine nuts and Parmesan, you can make many varieties of pesto. I mean, we all know this because we’ve seen them on various menus or in jars at the grocery store, but I hadn’t really thought of experimenting with them.

However, the other night, we were out at Pasta Passion, a new place in the neighborhood, and a member of our party had the Genovese pesto, which was made with walnuts…I think. So I made a basic basil pesto, but instead of pine nuts, I used ground almonds. It came out delicious. There’s definitely a flavor difference because pine nuts have their own particular taste, but it was good. I am super curious to try it with walnuts!

You can also make pesto from a ton of other things. I learned from one of my beloved cookbooks, East Like a Gilmore, that all you need is 1) an herb or vegetable, 2) a nut or seed, 3) cheese, and 4) oil. Most people stick with olive oil, though I have seen some recipes with avocado or grape seed oils. Just use an oil you would eat as a salad dressing.

For herbs, you can stick with basil or use cilantro or mint. Anything that has that same texture profile works. Or, you can use a vegetable like sun dried tomatoes or roasted red or yellow peppers. If you want an Italian flavor, Parmesan is good, but so is Asiago or Romano. But you can go a little Mexican or Greek using cotija or feta. You just want a cheese that is a little harder like the texture of Parmesan. And you can add to these four basic ingredients, if you want for a little sweetness, a little honey. If you want a little spice, jalapenos or red pepper flakes.

Anyway, there are no rules for pesto. Feel free to experiment with flavors you love. Your family is nothing if not your own little focus group. I have to avoid the spicy, but I think I could do almost any other crazy combination of the above basic four categories and throw it on pasta, and my kids would all eat it. But we’ll see…in any case, trust me that it is worth it to make your own pesto. Nothing in the store will ever compare, and it’s super easy. Check out my basic Pesto Sauce recipe.

Oops, I totally botched dinner!

I love to cook. I pride myself on being an excellent home cook. I can cook lots of different cuisines, though Asian has mostly alluded me. I am working on that one. But last week, I totally botched the easiest possible dinner. I had purchased a couple of bags of frozen pasta dishes from Trader Joe’s. This is an easy dinner, right? All you have to do is heat and eat. Somehow, I messed that up, and it worked out great!

I steamed cauliflower to go with the pasta, which was a basic tomato sauce penne type dish. We had cauliflower, and it was going to go bad if not cooked soon. I normally roast it, but it was hot out, and I try not to run the oven. The cauliflower turned out to be the star of the evening.

We sit down to dinner and start to dig in, and the pasta is cold. I cooked it for more than the recommended times. It looked warm. The bowl felt warm. But I didn’t try it before putting it on the table. (All the Food Network judges would be cringing about that one.) I don’t mean it wasn’t quite warm enough. It was cold. It was like I took it out of the refrigerator and put it on the table. But here’s the good part. The sauce was also spicy. It had a zing that I knew the youngest kid was going to be extremely “anti” about. But because it was cold, that never came up. She ate all her cauliflower and then had two more helpings. She claimed she just didn’t really like cold pasta.

I seriously did some victory laps here. Don’t get me wrong. She eats cauliflower. She loves cauliflower and pretty much most vegetables. Getting her to eat a veggie you put in front of her is not a problem. But she also is a breaditarian. She would take pasta, bread of any ilk, and rice, over all other foods. We struggle to make sure she isn’t just carb loading on a daily basis. I messed up pasta in a way that made it so that she ate it like it was the side and devoured the veggies and fruit. I am calling that a big win.

Sometimes we all really mess up dinner. I could tell you some stories about my early days of cooking. But sometimes, a mistake leads to a victory or a great work of art, so we shouldn’t beat ourselves up. Also, as a side note, never trust the package instructions. Taste your food, even if it wasn’t your own creation before putting it on the plate!

Change is a constant

One of the more interesting challenges of dealing with picky eater children is that their tastes also change. And sometimes, they change like a see-saw, so it’s hard to keep up. I mean, my Katie has changed from vegetarian to vegan to vegetarian to pescatarian to eating some meat but not all meats. I literally have to ask any time we’re gonna have a meal to make sure I’m on the current menu!

We all know that our tastes change as we grow. I didn’t really like red meat as a child. It turns out this was partially because my mother only eats meat so well done that most cultures would be making clothing or shoes from it. When I was around 19, I tried a rare steak, and I’ve never looked back. But there are other foods I’ve tried after years of not having and discovered that I now like.

But combine changing tastes with pure stubborn child-like attitude, and man, it gets fun. For example, the 9 year old won’t eat anything that has a texture similar to mashed potatoes or applesauce. However, she loves pesto. I am not going to explain that it’s basically the same texture she claims to not like. Somehow putting it on pasta makes it edible. But short of a penne that had a little kick, I haven’t really found much pasta she wouldn’t eat. I am trying to convince her she should retry different textures as that definitely changes with age. So far, not too open to that idea.

And her food preferences or tastes change so frequently, we need some type of daily briefing to keep up. She’ll eat eggs every morning for months, then one day, the eggs are just left on the plate, and we’re told she’s just kind of tired of them. I recently bought strawberries from a street vendor. She was super excited when I bought them. I gave her a bowl for snack and each strawberry was half-eaten. When I inquired, I learned that she saw a wrinkle here, or it wasn’t worth the work to get around the stem. After a little more discussion, she informed she really doesn’t like strawberries that much. Well, this was new, as she usually eats them up. Next week, we could have a total reversal of this opinion.

The best part is that asking prior to offering the food is of no help. As an added bit of fun, she doesn’t have the self-awareness often to even know that these changes are happening. In her defense, I’m not sure how you would know your taste buds have changed until you try something. But it usually takes a couple of times of her not eating it or eating it weird (I’ll try to explain eating weird in another blog sometime) and us asking a lot of questions to get her to analyze and realize that said changes have occurred. So add food-therapy to our dilemmas?

Oh the fun of having picky eaters!