Five Tips On Cooking For/With Children
Family cooking can be a challenge when there are small children in the house. Adult tastes and kid tastes can be so totally different. Here in New Orleans, the challenge can be even greater, because our Creole dishes can be complex and unappealing to kids. With that in mind, here are some tips for cooking with kids:
1. Creole seasoning is your friend. Not a lot, but just a bit can start kids on their way to appreciating spicy food. Try baked/broiled chicken where you sprinkle just a bit of creole seasoning on the pieces before putting them in the oven. They'll come out with a bit of a crust, and cooking with a bit of salt helps cut back on a diner's craving to put more on at the table.
2. Cook easily-assembled foods. Bagel pizzas and quesadillas are great possibilities. Even if you make tacos with one of those everything-in-a-box kits, the kids can help. Individual pizzas using bagels or english muffins as a "crust" can be tailored to each member of the household. Same for quesadillas or fajitas. There are no rules for toppings and content, everyone gets what they want!
3. Use wine when cooking for kids. Try this--slice boneless, skinless chicken breasts into tender-size pieces. Sprinkle both sides of tenders with creole seasoning and saute in a bit of olive oil until brown, just a couple of minutes per side. Put them in a glass baking dish. De-glaze the saute pan with a bit of white wine and pour the wine/drippings back onto the tenders. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. You get chicken tenders with a much more complex flavor. The alcohol in the wine evaporates while in the saute pan, leaving the flavor and enabling you to cut back on the salt you use.
4. Make it fast! There are a lot of easy alternatives to cooking from scratch that don't involve a lot of work. Buy some pre-cooked chicken tenders. Warm them in a pan and add a bit of white wine, heavy cream, and white seedless grapes. Serve over pasta. Don't put the sauce on the kids' plates. Instead of microwaved chicken, you now have a creative meal!
5. Serve your food to the kids. Take a look at my Chicken Bonne Femme. OK, kids aren't going to get into the sauce, with the onions, mushrooms, diced ham and wine, but they will get into fried potatoes, chicken, and bacon! Go ahead and cook for YOUR palate and dumb down the meal a bit for the kids. Creole cooking is great for this, because the recipes add complex sauces to otherwise simple dishes. Cook crawfish in a cream sauce for you, but pull some of the mudbug tails out before adding them to the sauce. Dust them in a bit of flour, saute, and you get popcorn crawfish!
If you follow the principle of refusing to eat what YOU like, you can let your imagination run wild with ways to accomodate the kids.
And it'll be fun!
1. Creole seasoning is your friend. Not a lot, but just a bit can start kids on their way to appreciating spicy food. Try baked/broiled chicken where you sprinkle just a bit of creole seasoning on the pieces before putting them in the oven. They'll come out with a bit of a crust, and cooking with a bit of salt helps cut back on a diner's craving to put more on at the table.
2. Cook easily-assembled foods. Bagel pizzas and quesadillas are great possibilities. Even if you make tacos with one of those everything-in-a-box kits, the kids can help. Individual pizzas using bagels or english muffins as a "crust" can be tailored to each member of the household. Same for quesadillas or fajitas. There are no rules for toppings and content, everyone gets what they want!
3. Use wine when cooking for kids. Try this--slice boneless, skinless chicken breasts into tender-size pieces. Sprinkle both sides of tenders with creole seasoning and saute in a bit of olive oil until brown, just a couple of minutes per side. Put them in a glass baking dish. De-glaze the saute pan with a bit of white wine and pour the wine/drippings back onto the tenders. Bake for 20 minutes at 350F. You get chicken tenders with a much more complex flavor. The alcohol in the wine evaporates while in the saute pan, leaving the flavor and enabling you to cut back on the salt you use.
4. Make it fast! There are a lot of easy alternatives to cooking from scratch that don't involve a lot of work. Buy some pre-cooked chicken tenders. Warm them in a pan and add a bit of white wine, heavy cream, and white seedless grapes. Serve over pasta. Don't put the sauce on the kids' plates. Instead of microwaved chicken, you now have a creative meal!
5. Serve your food to the kids. Take a look at my Chicken Bonne Femme. OK, kids aren't going to get into the sauce, with the onions, mushrooms, diced ham and wine, but they will get into fried potatoes, chicken, and bacon! Go ahead and cook for YOUR palate and dumb down the meal a bit for the kids. Creole cooking is great for this, because the recipes add complex sauces to otherwise simple dishes. Cook crawfish in a cream sauce for you, but pull some of the mudbug tails out before adding them to the sauce. Dust them in a bit of flour, saute, and you get popcorn crawfish!
If you follow the principle of refusing to eat what YOU like, you can let your imagination run wild with ways to accomodate the kids.
And it'll be fun!
0 TrackBacks
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Five Tips On Cooking For/With Children.
TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.nola-blogs.com/cgi-bin/mt/ruebourbon.cgi/1575
Leave a comment