This week's meal plan from my 6-year-old

So this week I enlisted the help of my 6-year-old for this week's meal plan. I was half expecting it to look something like this:

Monday: Lemongrass Coconut Chicken Soup - he suggested "soup" on Monday. I suggested we make Ming Tsai's Lemongrass Coconut Chicken Soup from Simply Ming One-Pot Meals. One look at the photograph and the mention of coconut milk and he was sold.

Tuesday: Roast Chicken with Mac & Cheese and Green Beans - He drew a picture of a storm cloud and snow flakes. I asked him what we should make on a snowy day. He offered mac and cheese. I added a roast chicken (I'm anticipating we will have loads of time indoors for lots of cooking due to the impending blizzard) and green beans. He said okay, but would NOT be eating any chicken. Fine. 

Wednesday: Chili (or Beef Stew) - He suggested Turkey Chili, which we JUST had last night. I offered we make another "type" of chili (I was inspired to make Cooks Illustrated's Guinness Beef Stew by The Fortuitous Housewife). "Can I have it with chips?" Sure, kid.  

Thursday: Pizza - He reminded me we hadn't made pizza in a while. So I agreed we could make some this week. We'll do the usual plain cheese plus Hawaiian Ham & Pineapple. I'll be so sick of shoveling snow, perhaps this will magically teleport me to Hawaii? 

Friday: Scallion Pancakes - It's International Night at my kids' school, so we'll be feasting on a variety of cuisines from around the world. I plan on making and bringing these super easy and ridiculously addictive scallion pancakes by Joanne Chang. 

Have a great week!

Winter Minestrone Soup

I have one amazingly adventurous eater (8 year old) and one extremely stubborn one (5 year old). My oldest will gladly try tripe or a raw oyster (but probably will never again). My youngest will avoid any protein (except for nut butter, eggs, or bacon) or most veggies (except for carrots, celery, or tomatoes in tomato sauce). He is the epitome of a picky eater. Or as he puts it, "just scared."

Maybe veggies and other non-carb foods are truly scary to him. Or maybe it's his sneaky way of getting out of something. But I've found a way to get him to try - and even like - veggies. I get him to help me make Ina Garten's Winter Minestrone Soup.

Experts suggest (and my own experience has proven) when you get your kids involved in cooking a meal, they will most likely taste it, then proclaim they are the greatest chef the world has ever seen (as my kids have done). Another way to get kids to try something new is to mix new ingredients with something tried and true. In my case, pasta + bacon + cheese. The kid was scarfing up the stuff so fast, he forgot he's throwing down spinach, carrots, celery, tomatoes and other veggies he proclaimed to be so scary in the past.

Plus this soup is so good. Especially during a polar vortex. Make this. You won't be sorry.

Click here for the recipe.

Dear Son,

Now that you have a family of your own, you no doubt have some challenges with your picky eater. You're wondering, "How can this be? I'm a foodie. My wife is a foodie. We get the best produce teleported to us from our virtual CSA!" I know this will come to a surprise, but you too were a picky eater. Especially when it came to eating your vegetables. We tried serving it raw, baked, sautéed, grilled - you name it. You were just like that silly girl Lola from the classic tale of "I Will Never, Not Ever, Eat a Tomato" by Lauren Childs.

So here's a tip I want to share with you that worked for me and your father. Introduce new ingredients with something you know your kids like to eat. So for you, we added veggies to rice. We also found if we got you to help grow veggies in our garden, you were more open to trying it. I've never seen you gobble up tomatoes faster then when we picked them off the vine from the garden in our backyard.

So put away your cookscreens (or whatever you call those fancy cookbooks of the future) and try this one-pot chicken and rice favorite. You loved it as a kid. I think your kids will like it too.

Love,
Mom



Chicken Sofrito 
Adapted from Food and Wine 

INGREDIENTS
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
4-8 bone-in, skinless chicken thighs
1/2 teaspoon chili powder
1 medium onion, diced
3 garlic cloves, minced
2 large thyme sprigs
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch thick strips
1/4 teaspoon fennel seeds
1 cup chopped tomatoes
3 cups chicken stock or low-sodium broth
1 cup white rice
2 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup roasted almonds

DIRECTIONS

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. In a large ovenproof skillet, heat the vegetable oil. Season the chicken with salt and pepper and dust lightly with chili powder. Add the chicken to the skillet and cook over moderate heat until well browned, about 4 minutes per side. Transfer to a plate. 
2. Add the onion, garlic, and thyme sprigs to the skillet and cook over moderate heat until onion is softened (about 8 minutes). Add the bell pepper, fennel seeds, and 1/2 teaspoon of chili powder and cook, stirring until fragrant (about 30 seconds). Add the chopped tomatoes, raise the heat to high and cook until bubbling. Add the chicken stock and bring to a boil. Stir in the rice and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and bring to a simmer. Arrange chicken pieces on the rice. Bake in the oven for about 30-35 minutes until chicken is cooked through and rice is tender.
3. Transfer chicken to a plate. Discard thyme sprigs, stir in lemon juice and sprinkle almonds on top. Spoon the rice onto plates, add the chicken and serve. 

1.  Heat oil in large skillet over medium-high heat. Add zucchini and cook until softened and browned at edges, about 3 minutes.
2. Add corn and cook until deep yellow and softened, about 2 minutes
3. Add garlic and cook until fragrant (about 1 minute) and remove from heat
4. Stir in herbs, lemon juice, salt and pepper to taste and serve.

Future executive chef, restaurant critic, or food blogger!

It happened. I don't know how, but it has to my delight. My 6 year-old is passionate about food. The boy loves to shop for food, try new restaurants, and help cook. And most recently, has asked if he could not only help cook, but plan some meals. Hold a moment while I wipe away a tear.

So as not to discourage him from this new-found interest (the trains can finally get a break!), I grabbed a stack of ChopChop magazines, a couple of kid-friendly cookbooks from the public library, a pad of paper and pen and asked him, "so what do you want to try making?" He flipped through recipe after recipe and pointed out the ones he wanted to try as I scribbled away as if he was the executive chef and I his sous chef.

The boy's menu

So the plan is this: he gets to choose at least one recipe a week and we add that to our weekly menu plan. I was happy to see he did not just choose the typical kid-friendly dishes. His tastes ranged from savory breakfast items, hearty lunch dishes to multicultural dinners. This week we made oven-baked pita chips, spinach, mushroom and cheese stromboli, and banana-berry smoothies. Best to start of slow, right?

I have no idea if we'll be able to keep this up, but this pretty much re-affirms what experts preach when it comes to dealing with picky-eaters:

• Get kids involved
• Meal plan with them
• Let them help pick out groceries
• Give them a job in the kitchen

Our youngest has even joined in on the fun and we've noticed dinnertime battles have decreased - albeit just a little bit... but I will take anything I can get.

So if you can, make it part of your routine. Have your kids be in charge of breakfast/lunch/dinner once a week. Just make sure you are not in a rush and don't mind a bit more clean-up!

• Introduce new foods often - I'm always trying new recipes/dishes almost every day
• Start them young - chop up your food for little ones (your knife skills will improve dramatically)
• Don't give up - experts suggest it takes more than 20 times before your kid determines if he/she really likes something

But I do have one 'ace up my sleeve' that has curbed picky-eater syndrome at our house. Chopsticks. The kids love the challenge of using them to pickup morsels of food - from tofu to cheerios to broccoli. There are plenty of kid chopsticks and training chopsticks out there. But then I came across Edison Chopsticks at my last shopping trip to Hmart. They are Ah-mazing. Made for leftys and right-handed eaters, they have finger guides for instant proper positioning (that can be removed once they get a hang of it). They are super cute. Easy-to-clean. Even my two-year old got a hang of them after the first try.


I'm not making any guarantees these chopsticks will make your kids clean their plates of tofu and spinach. But it will make for some laughs... and maybe a bit of a mess the first couple of times. The last food for thought is not to make meal times a battle. We all know how willful some kids can be. And trust me, sometimes a battle of the wills is not worth a piece of broccoli.

What are some other tips/advice you have for parents to curb picky-eater syndrome?

Children of foodies, otherwise know as koodies, gastrokids or taster tots seem to be getting a lot of attention as of late. In addition to several new cookbooks focused on broadening your kid's palette, I recently read these mini gourmands will be featured in several new reality TV shows (check out the article on nypost.com). For example, Bravo is developing a junior version of Top Chef. I can see the quick fire challenge now... create an amuse bouche using go-gurt and lunchables.

And with any new trend (or craze), you come across some backlash.  Some see koodies as a product of self-absorbed, elitist adults. Others claim that these foodie parents are trying to make their kids grow up too fast.

I'm here to say that I'm not looking to create koodies with my own kids or claim to be an expert on how to make your kids *not* be picky eaters (I don't think that's even possible!). Like so many other families,  I'm really not interested in making two meals - one for the grown-ups and another for the boys. I'm not interested in only going to restaurants that offer crayons with their kids menu if we decide to go out to eat. My focus will be about finding good food that my whole family will enjoy - whether it be at a hidden restaurant or a must-try recipe - and to share those experiences. We may end up with our own home version of "Hell's Kitchen" now and then - and I'll be all too happy to share every second of it!