Mothership Meals and Satellite Saucers: kid food

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Butternut Chips

Since we already know that even sawdust would be delicious fried in oil and served with chunks of sea salt, it should come as no surprise that something as sweet and accommodating as butternut squash makes a sublime chip.

And since squash of all kinds is in season now -- meaning, cheap, local and highly sustainable -- it's great to have one more way to cook it. Tonight, as we were getting ready to have a good old Saturday Night Burger Dinner, I thought -- just burgers and salad? We make small burgers, and everyone is always still hungry afterwards. Meanwhile, this lovely butternut squash had been giving me the eye for over a week, expectantly wondering: Are you making a pie? A soup? What exactly is your plan...? My eyes fell on it as I was scanning the kitchen for potatoes, because I thought chips would be nice.

Any why not butternut chips?

They were delicious. In fact, we fought over them -- not the four-year-old, who explained in great detail that she liked them, but did not love them.

But the rest of us, including the highly selective 8-year-old, joined the fight for scraps.

One tip: As I served an exploratory chip to each kid plate, I announced that I needed to know -- not if they liked it, but -- what it tasted like. "I need some words to describe these. I think they are sweet and salty, but I'm not sure. Tell me what you taste."

"Not so good," said my daughter.

"Like a hot salty lollipop," said my son. "Can I have more?"

BUTTERNUT CHIPS

1 Butternut Squash
Vegetable oil
Coarse sea salt

Halve, seed and peel squash. Use a mandoline or a vegetable peeler to make thin slices.

Meanwhile, fill a large skillet with oil about one inch deep. Heat until extremely hot. (How hot? When you slip a test piece of squash into the oil, it should begin to bubble.) Fill skillet with one layer of squash. Fry until browning on one side; flip and brown on the other side. Err on the side of over-browning.

Use tongs to remove chips from oil into a large bowl lined with paper towels. Blot oil, then sprinkle chips with coarse sea salt. Serve immediately.

Friday, November 9, 2007

Some Oatmeal with Your Sugar?

I remember as a kid sprinkling brown sugar onto a grapefruit half, then looking up to see my mom's hardcore hippie friend looking at me with horror. "You're putting sugar on THAT?" She was aghast. I guess grapefruit was a sweet treat to her, but I needed some sugar on mine.

I feel the same way about oatmeal. I love oatmeal -- that is, the real kind, made from steel cut oats, that takes 30 minutes to cook and has great texture and flavor, and is not gooey and slimy and tasting of cardboard like rolled oats. I love it, but I still like to sugar it up.

This is what we do with our one cup of steel cut oats, which magically expands over the course of 30 minutes into enough food to feed our entire family of four, for something like 5-cents a serving (Who says eating well has to be expensive?) Right as it finishes cooking, we add (prepare to look at me with horror):

- a couple teaspoons of molasses
- a tablespoon or so of maple syrup or honey
- a knob of butter

That does it for the stoic adult male in our house, who is not really a sugar person (and whose recipe this is).

The rest of us add a few little hard pebbles of brown sugar or sucanat, which melt into syrupy pockets of deliciousness in the oatmeal.

So, go ahead and be horrified. The thing, it's not even nearly as sweet as pancakes. And the other things is, my eight-year-old son has been eating organic steel cut oatmeal for breakfast most winter mornings for the last few years. I think it's worth the sugar. It's soooo good, and really cheap. And my daughter joined our oatmeal-eating corps last winter at the age of 3.

If your family is of stronger moral fiber than ours, you could try raisins, or apples, or even just a little cinnamon, instead of tumbling down this slippery sugar slope with us. Either way -- eat oatmeal!

PS Did you know sucanat stands for 'sugar cane natural'? It's unrefined cane sugar, with lots of molasses flavor left in it.

The Mothership Method

(Or, how to sit down for dinner with your family without completely losing your mind)

It would be great if kids AND parents wanted boiled chicken and baby carrots every night for dinner. But, too bad, we picky parents want spicy, exotic, fun foods, and our kids want, well, sorta lame foods.
Here's the solution: break it down. Serve the dish deconstructed, and let everyone put their own dish together at the table. Sort of like tapas, or smorgasbord, or tacos. Or how in some parts of China you get a bowl of rice, and everything else is in the middle of the table and you take what you want for your own little bowl of rice. That way everyone gets to eat what they want, parents don't have to nag their kids, and kids get to feels some ownership over their meals. Plus, kids get exposed to the look and taste of the foods you hope they will one day love. But it's not just tacos. You'll be amazed at what can be served with the Mothership Method.

Ten Tips to Get Through Dinner Without Having A Nervous Breakdown

1. Accept That Kids Are Picky. No need to freak out on your cooking ability, or look at your kids like there is something wrong with them. It's called "neo-phobia", and it's just how they are, especially from ages 3-6.

2. Serve Meals Broken Down. Even grown-up meals like coconut curry or linguine with clams can be served in their elements, making them more appealing to kids. Grown ups can assemble their own jumble of deliciousness at their own plate while kids take on the pared-down elements.

3. Push if it Works, But Don't Nag If It Doesn't. Some kids are okay with being expected to taste everything on their plate. Others aren't. I think it's okay to push kids -- but not if you're turning dinner into a battlefield.

4. Suggest a Smell. Smelling a new food is easier than tasting it, and can sometimes provide a kid with the information needed to take that scary first bite. But don't confine smelling to new foods. Smell favorites, too, and help them develop their sense of smell by making a game out of it.

5. Don't Ask "Do You Like It?" Instead, try, "What does this remind you of?" or, "Would your cousins like this?" or, "Does this taste salty or sweet?". Asking if they like it or not gives kids too much power and ends the conversation. Besides, we don't care if they like it! We just want them to keep tasting it until it is familiar.

6. Don't Get Frustrated. Imagine being in Taiwan, or Nairobi, or Rome for the first time. Would you eat everything on the local menu? New foods are scary and gross. Our kids need time to learn about the foods that we eat.

7. No SubstitutionsThis is family dinner, not a diner. You, in all your wisdom, have provided foods that are healthy and delicious and appropriate for your children. There is something on the table for them to eat. Period.

8. No Snacks Before Dinner. This can be the hardest with our hectic schedules and hungry kids. But children who come to the table hungry are more likely to eat than cause trouble.

9. Put Peer Pressure To Your Advantage. School children are more likely to accept new foods if the alpha girls in their group accept them. Swap healthy food ideas on playdates.

10. Involve Your Kids In Cooking, Shopping, and Gardening. The more experience kids have handling and preparing a variety of foods, the more likely they are to eventually accept the foods. (But don't get upset if they help you make a complicated wonderful meal, and then refuse to eat it.)