My friend Debbie's new cookbook. Read on for info on how to win a copy!
A few weeks ago, my friend Sally and I were emailing about dinner ideas; she’d invited us to her house for a causal family dinner, and wondered what might be good for her to make, and for me to bring to help out. She wanted to make pulled pork in her slow cooker, at which suggestion my mouth immediately commenced watering.
But what about the kids? Between my two and her two, we have varying levels of picky/mercurial. Pulled pork? Would they go for it, in the absence of a fall-back serving of mac-and-cheese or plain pasta or hot dogs?
Something clicked for both of us, and we decided to resist the urge to even offer a fall back. We would take the risk. We would tell them — here’s dinner, kiddos. Try it, you might like it.
So that’s what we did. I took a prepare-for-the-best approach, talking up the sweet and sloppy and barbecue-saucy goodness of pulled pork for days. I privately appealed to Daniel, as the least picky (and often most hungry) of the four of them to be a good-will ambassador for the meal (“You try it, and I bet the others will, too!”). I also made clear my usual rule: try it, at least. Or no dessert.
I report: It worked, to a point. James had the best line of the night: at first, he thought it looked awful, but then he took a sniff (it did smell pretty awesome), and said, “Hey, guys! If you look at this and think it’s gross, smell it! You might like it!” He ate a few bites, then a plain roll with butter and some broccoli with lemon. Sally’s kids tried a bite or two. Daniel, bless him, ate the most and stayed at the table longest.
And we felt great, as parents, that we had moved closer to a parents need to eat too mentality. A this is what’s for dinner ethos, updated with an effort to make food that everyone will like.
This is a long introduction to the real purpose of this post, which is to introduce this KICK ASS cookbook written by my friend Debbie Koenig, Parents Need to Eat, Too.
It is fresh off the presses next week, and I got my hands on a copy last week (buy it yourself, here). As a cookbook enthusiast, I’m in love with it already. As a writer myself, I’m beyond impressed and awed with the amount of work that went into this tome, which covers all aspects of feeding everyone from the tiniest baby to the tiredest adult in the house. She’s got ideas for one-handed foods for nursing mothers; recipes you can make in stages during a baby or toddler’s naptimes; and meals that will please a crowd of all ages and only take a half-hour or so to make. Plus it’s full of little asides and stories and hard-won wisdom. Plus it has desserts. Awesome.
And guess what? Leave a comment here about your kid-feeding adventures, and you’ll be entered for a chance to win a copy of the book! Repost this on Facebook or Twitter (and let me know you have), and you get two entries. I’ll randomly choose and announce a winner in two weeks.
I just found out another tidbit: The official launch date of the book is next Tuesday, a week from today (Feb. 21). If you order a book, for yourself, for a friend, now, you’ll also get a FREE Digital Starter Kit, which includes extra recipes, feeding guides for babies, a bookmark, a pretty gift card (great if you are buying it as a gift). More incentive! Get thee to Amazon! (or Barnes & Noble. Or Indiebound).
Once you have the book (and it makes a great gift for a baby shower, seriously), you can, as I did last week, make this so incredibly easy and delicious dish, Broccoli and Cheddar Pinwheels. I made it as a side dish. I figured it couldn’t fail — even though it’s technically foodthattouches — considering that it’s made of three basic foods my kids love: cheese (duh); pizza dough; and broccoli. It was so simple! The recipe is below, but here are couple of photos of my creation in action:
The broccoli, cheese, and Dijon mustard combo spread out on prepared whole-wheat pizza dough:
Ready to roll!
The finished product, all cheesy goodness:
No child (of mine) can resist cheese
Here’s the recipe. I adjusted it only slightly, cutting it into more than the 8 pieces as instructed, so the pinwheels would be smaller and more side-dish-y. And while we were all eating them, we discussed other ways we could make this, with different cheeses and veggies and other fillings.
So enter the contest! Check out Debbie’s website for more recipes and information! And follow Sally’s and my lead and don’t make fall-back meals! Because Parents. Need. To. Eat. Too.
Love it, Denise! I usually make something new and then heat up the previous night’s leftovers, so there is a dinner buffet to choose from. Last night the new item was escarole and bean soup, and 2 out of 3 kids tried it and went back for seconds! Miracles do happen!
I’m excited to see this book Denise, baby #2 on the way and I know it’s going to be tough to feed the whole family with a little one permanently attached to me and only 1 hand free! I do have to say though that there really is no pandering to the toddler in my house so far. From day one on solids I have fed my son everything we eat. This IS what is for dinner and we all eat it (dealing with our own varying degrees of pickiness!). He loves curry, chili, I can’t think of a vegetable he won’t eat. I definitely owe a debt to Annabel Karmel’s cookbooks for offering toddler friendly versions of things we eat already and then as his palate has changed and his ability to eat full size food improved, I was able to adjust flavours and sizes (penne instead of mini-penne, etc) to the way we grown- ups prefer. Despite my MIL’s best efforts I refuse to raise my children on Chef Boyardee and Kraft Mac’n'cheese!
I love the title and concept of this book. A friend and I get together regularly with our kids for dinner when our husbands are working late. We take turns cooking. We have noticed that our kids are more likely to try something new away from home. Her son actually said to me once, “Food tastes better at your house.” Lol! If only my own kids thought so…
Sounds like a fun book!
Like Claire B, we’ve been sticklers about not pandering to the kid in our life; he will try anything and enjoys lots of different foods. We told him spicy food will put hair on his chest so every time we have a spicy dinner, he checks his chest for hair.
My son is almost 3 and sometimes he just doesn’t want to eat dinner. This really stresses my husband out b/c he isn’t around to see that he ate a good breakfast and lunch. I remind him that one day when the boys are bigger, we’ll wish they wouldn’t eat so much!
The meals for nursing moms sound awesome. My baby cluster feeds before bed so after about 4 pm, I have to do everything one-handed.
I can’t wait to check out this cookbook! It looks like it will fit so well with our family. We have a 1 1/2 yo and a 3 yo who love pickled garlic, olives, strong tasting cheeses, all kinds of different fruit and veggies, but will turn up their noses at stew, roast chicken and other foods that I thought typical toddlers enjoyed. I can’t figure them out, but maybe this book will solve some of my problems!
Wow, what a great website! Here’s my tale of feeding my two year old…
I have her sitting in her highchair and I bring over a bowl of spinach ravioli, one of her favorites, yet she makes a stink face. You want spinach ravioli? NO! Do you want Lentils (leftovers she devoured the night before)? NO! Do you want some butternut squash soup (another favorite)? NOOO!!!
Well you pick, what do you want to eat ? She leans back in her chair, pauses, “CUPCAKES! I LIKE CUPCAKES!”.
Guess who had a cupcake for dinner. Yup, she did.
Thanks again!
Nic
ACK! I menat to say DIDN’T. Who Didn’t have a cupcake for dinner. yeesh.
The cookbook looks great! We decided early on at our house to not be “short order cooks” with our kids. Dinner is what is on your plate. We require a “No thank you” bite of everything, but beyond that, eat what you want on the plate. However, if they don’t eat enough dinner, they don’t get dessert. If they are still hungry, they can pick something like fruit or yogurt. So far, it gets the kids to at least try new things. I’ve also found with my two year old if I put something on my plate and DON’T put it on his, he is VERY interested in it and wants to try it. I’ve gotten him to try salad, a Mediterranean vegetable blend, and other goodies that way!
This book sounds awesome! When my son was smaller, he would eat anything, now at 3.5 he would eat mac & cheese daily if I allowed it. This book sounds like the ticket to get us back on track!
I’m fortunate enough to have a really good eater, but then, my husband and I both love food (lots of it, and often). That said, we never really made anything different for our son once he got past the first few months of starting food. By a year old, we just gave him smaller pieces of whatever we were eating. We did dial back the spiciness for a while, and even today we’ll often remove his portion before putting *too much* spiciness. Generally, though, the rule in my house is: be polite and eat when you’re hungry. I try to make sure we’re serving at least one item that I know my son will eat. We never make him eat something he doesn’t want, but it’s rare that we offer him much of an alternative.
Our family also has a severe sweet tooth, though, so I’ve also been known to serve waffles with ice cream and chocolate shavings for dinner (blush).
Hello, this books sounds fantastic. My son has always been a fussy eater, so I could easily fall into the trap of making lots of extra stuff for him. He has to eat what we are eating, but if we want to make something with lots of chilli then I might make a plain pasta for him so that he knows we are reasonable. I find that makes him more likely to try things that I do present to him.
Mom always cooked me something extra. I was bad! I never cooked anything extra. I just said…you had it before, you liked it. Worked into their 20′s! Using it on the 4 year old grandson in my house now !
I’ve been reading Debbie’s blog for a while now and can’t wait to get my hands on the cookbook.
We adopted the “this is what’s for dinner” mantra a while ago and while some of the time we have kids that go away from the table hungry, none of them have ever perished in their sleep from lack of food. I have 5, yes 5 kids ages 14,12,7,5 and 5 and pleasing everyone is a real challenge, especially since we have adopted a mostly vegetarian menu in our house. This after 14 years of meat and potatoe dinners! We are all surviving and it is great to have a book like Debbie’s to help me put together new things that most everyone will like!
We have a winner, chosen with a sterile but fair random-number generator. Mel! It’s you! I’ll email you for your mailing address and get that info to the publisher. Have fun with Debbie’s book.
Man, I missed the contest, but I have been resisting making separate meals and I can report the following:
1) my son has thus far skipped two meals. He did this as a 1-2 year old too, which is what caused me to eventually cave in and make him some separate meals. Now that he is almost 10, I let him go hungry, but I still don’t like it. I serve things that are not too terrible for kids and I always try to have something he likes (or at least has eaten). But he still refuses to eat sometimes. I guess it is a work in progress.
2)Yesterday I made YOUR (I’m talkin’ to you Denise) meatballs (I have your recipe from a while back) and Jack gobbled them up – even on top of his spaghetti! He threw in a nice comment or two too. Some days are good.
3)@Mel: I have been known to make French toast or pancakes for dinner. No ice cream, but plenty of maple syrup. I justify it to myself by throwing an egg and some yogurt (and sometimes applesauce – don’t tell my kids) in the batter.
I’ll try the cheesy pinwheel recipe and let you know how it goes. Looks delicious to me, but then again, I love almost all food…
That recipe looks delicious! As a mom who is ALWAYS dealing with picky eaters (mainly an aversion to all vegetables), this book looks perfect. I hid green beans in my son’s sandwich last week (btw, it worked). I can’t wait to make this recipe.
Love the new philosophy…we have begun a similar one: eat it or starve!!!
The book sounds good. Our new philosophy is slowly taking hold, but I might need some help from an expert.
Since my kids were old enough to eat table food, we always eat as a family and eat the same meal-the only time the kids eat something different is if we have a date night (that’s when I break out the mac’n cheese). We’re fortunate that my husband and I both have jobs that typically allow us to be home by 5pm, so we are able to make interesting, tasty home-cooked meals and eat together.
Of course, being the humans that they are, my kids do on occasion protest and try (I emphasize TRY) to get away with being picky as a statement. When my twins were 2 1/2 years old, they mutually decided to dig their heels in and refuse to eat their oatmeal (which they love and chose that day, no less). My response was to tell them they had to sit at the table until they ate it – I knew they were hungry & healthy, just testing the waters. They sat there for over half an hour until they finally decided that Mama wasn’t kidding and they’d have to eat the oatmeal.
I’ve told this story to friends/family before and I always get the same response – did you at least heat it back up for them? Heck no, it was nice and warm when I served it, and I only cook their food once.
Guess what, two years later and they’ve never tried that trick again. I’ve learned thus far, and hope to keep remembering, that these times can be very trying, but we just have to do the hard (!) work and it’ll pay off.