Image by Muffet

The other night I had a craving for cauliflower, which I love, and decided to make it pureed. It was one of the first chilly evenings of the new fall season, so I planned a menu of a whole, roasted chicken, pureed cauliflower and broccoli.

The chicken was done very simply, the way we usually do it in my house, with salt, pepper, fresh rosemary and olive oil on top and a lemon and onion stuffed inside.

The broccoli was also done simply: boiled until just tender and then tossed in some olive oil and chopped garlic. A little salt thrown on top.

The pureed cauliflower, while also very simple, involved a few more steps than the other dishes, so I’ve included the recipe for you:

Pureed Cauliflower

• 1 head of cauliflower
• 1/4 cup of milk
• 1 Tbsp. of butter
• Salt and pepper to taste

Cut cauliflower into florets and steam until florets are easily pierced with a fork. In a blender or food processor, puree cauliflower, 1/4 cup of reserved cooking water, milk and butter until you get the desired texture. Feel free to play around with the amounts of cooking water and milk to get the consistency you like. Serve with salt and pepper.

Another option, which I often do, but did not the other night, is to add freshly grated parmesan during the pureeing process. Fresh parmesan makes everything better in my opinion.

*This recipe is also great for young babies who are just starting on solid foods. It’s probably best to leave out the extra salt for young babies and don’t go too heavy on the pepper, but everything else about the recipe can remain the same.

My kids (ages 6 and 3) were very happy to be served chicken and gobbled that up no problem. Broccoli happens to be the only green vegetable my son (the 3-year-old) really likes, and so he ate a bunch of that. Broccoli also happens to be just about the only green vegetable that my daughter (the 6-year-old) really doesn’t like, so she didn’t eat much, if any, of that.

When it came to the cauliflower, I think both of the kids each had a little taste, but that was it. This is one of those times where the ‘Golden Rule’ of feeding, which states that kids need to see a new food 15 – 20 times before they’ll try it, applies. I don’t serve cauliflower too often, let alone pureed cauliflower, so I’ll give them a pass this time (and maybe the next 14 times as well – but no more than that!).

Sunday evening we had dinner at a friend’s house. While my friend made Jamie Oliver’s Simple Baked Lasagne for the grown-ups (and any of the kids who asked for it), she took my advice from a recent Parenting magazine article, 6 Ways to Encourage Your Child to Eat Fish, and made a quick tuna ragu for the kids.

The ragu was made using a jarred tomato basil sauce and a can of light tuna, drained. That’s it. I tasted it myself and it was delicious. Even my friend’s husband said he would have been happy having that for dinner. Although, don’t get me wrong, the lasagna was incredible!

The ragu was served over mini cheese ravioli. I’m not sure how much of it Lucie (age 5) ate because she was sitting at a separate table from me (although she did request some lasagna and had a lot of Italian bread!). But Ronan (age 2) who, as you may know, is not much of a dinner eater, gobbled it up. He even took some of the sauce with his fork and spread it on his Italian bread and ate it that way.

As I was perusing the Jamie Oliver site for the lasagna recipe, I found his version of a tuna ragu, which is a little more complicated, but not very:

Our Favourite Tuna Pasta

If you’re concerned about feeding tuna fish to your young child, check out KidSafe Seafood for information on how to do it safely.

Image by Gio JL

Last night I made pizza for dinner and served it with a green salad. We were going to order out, but surprisingly there is no great pizza in this little Brooklyn neighborhood, particularly for take-out.

So, I rolled out some frozen dough, threw on some local Italian deli-made marinara sauce, sprinkled on some grated fontina, mozzarella and parmesan and topped with chopped up pieces of prosciutto.

I served the pizza with a green salad made from romaine hearts and green leaf lettuce and topped with mixed olives from the same Italian deli. My husband makes a delicious salad dressing made from seasoned rice vinegar, olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic, which we used to dress the salad.

Lucie and Ronan both gobbled up tons of pizza. For some reason though, even my little meat-eater (Lucie) did not go for the prosciutto. They both just picked it off. Lucie also went to town on the salad, particularly the olives. Ronan had maybe one olive…or a half of one even. He refused dessert though and asked for seconds on the pizza!

My verdict: very successful!

Image by Karen Apricot New Orleans

We often have taco night at our house. We mostly eat tacos in the summertime, but the other night I couldn’t really think of what to make for dinner and taco night is always so easy, so we went with it.

I am certainly not an expert in making Mexican food (or eating it for that matter). It’s never been one of my favorite types of food. Although I do like it, there are limited menu items that I really know and I just don’t eat it enough to explore all the other options. I have a very good friend from San Diego who thinks there is no good Mexican food on the East coast, so maybe that’s why I don’t try so hard.

Anyway, taco night at our house consists of the following:

Hard taco shells (I prefer hard tacos over soft ones. I have yet to find a good brand of taco shells that is not made with some bad ingredients like partially hydrogenated oils and something called TBHQ? If you know of any good taco shells on the market, please comment below, I would love to know about them.

Chopped fresh avocado

Fresh cilantro

Grated cheddar cheese

Ground turkey (cooked and seasoned with cumin and other spices)

Black beans (heated on the stovetop)

Sliced grape tomatoes

Chopped lettuce

Salsa

Sour Cream

So basically what we do is put each of the above items in individual bowls on the table and then let everyone make their own taco.

Ronan (2 years old) ate about one and a half avocados while I was chopping them in preparation for dinner. So, as you can probably imagine, he didn’t eat much actual taco. He may have had some more avocado and maybe a little cheese when we finally all sat down to dinner, but that was about it. Lucie (5 years old) had one whole taco that she made for herself that included every single one of the ingredients I listed above except for maybe the salsa (for no specific reason). Then, because most of the taco shells were broken when we took them out of the box (damn you Old El Paso!), she made another (soft taco?, burrito? – would love to hear comments on what the actual difference is) with a flour tortilla and ate that whole thing.

My verdict: very successful for one kid, not so for the other

Yesterday we had a traditional Italian-American (which I am not by the way) Sunday dinner of pasta and red sauce. My husband makes a delicious tomato sauce using tomatoes that we jarred last Labor Day weekend. Every year around Labor Day we go to my in-laws’ house on Long Island and buy bushels of tomatoes at the local farm stands and spend a day canning them. This is a tradition in my husband’s family and I feel very lucky to have married into it! There is no better sauce than one made from fresh tomatoes and this way we get to have it all year round.

My husband uses pork bones to flavor the sauce and we also usually add some pork sausage to eat with the meal. So last night’s menu included:

Barilla Plus Spaghetti with homemade sauce

Freshly grated parmesan cheese

Sausage

Salad with green olives and cucumbers

I would normally get a loaf of Italian bread from one of our local Italian bakeries to go with this meal, but I totally forgot yesterday and so we went without.

Did the kids eat?

Lucie (age 5) ate some spaghetti, lots of sausage and a bowl full of lettuce, olives and cucumbers. Ronan (age 2) ate a bunch of spaghetti, a very little bit of sausage and some salad. Normally he wouldn’t touch a green salad, but he and his sister were playing games by putting the olives on their finger tips and pretending that the cucumbers were funny mouths and the lettuce leaves were tongues, and so he ate some by default.

My verdict: Fairly successful

Image by Woodleywonderworks

Last night I was on my own with the kids and I wasn’t very hungry myself (which is extremely rare, trust me), so I decided to make eggs for dinner. Eggs have gotten a bum rap in the past, but they actually are an amazing source of protein as well as numerous other vitamins and minerals. Many brands of eggs now also come fortified with Omega-3 fatty acids. Because of their health benefits as well as the fact that eggs are so easy to cook and so versatile, we are big egg-eaters in our house!

Last night’s menu included:

Scrambled eggs

Frozen peas cooked with a little butter and salt added

Bilinski’s All-Natural Apricot and Rosemary Chicken Sausage

Lucie ate all of her peas and about the equivalent of one-and-a-half scrambled eggs. She only had about one or two bites of the sausage (which actually surprised me because she is a big meat eater). Ronan ate about two or three scrambled eggs (I had to make him extra), one half of a piece of sausage (I cut them in half lengthwise before I browned them on the stovetop) and maybe a couple of peas.

My verdict: A success!

Image by Wordridden

Last night we had a pasta and lentils dish that I make about once a week in the fall and winter. It’s super easy and really delicious.

Lucie (age 5) ate about half of what I served to her. Ronan (age 2) ate a few bites.

My verdict: Somewhat successful

Here’s the recipe:

3/4 cup of dried lentils, rinsed

2-3 Tbsp. olive oil

3 carrots peeled and chopped

2 stalks celery, chopped

1 clove of garlic, chopped

8 oz. pre-made tomato sauce (canned, purchased or homemade) – I always use a bolognese sauce from a local Italian market for this recipe.

8 oz. chicken or vegetable broth

3/4 lb. of small pasta like farfalline or egg bows

Fresh parsley

Grated parmesan and salt and pepper to taste

• Boil the lentils in a pot of water just covering the beans until all the water is absorbed, set aside
• Meanwhile, put a pot of water on for the pasta
• Heat the olive oil in a saute pan and add the garlic
• Cook until the garlic is browned then add the carrots and celery
• Cook the carrots and celery until they begin to soften, approximately 5 minutes
• Add the lentils and stir approximately 1 minute
• Add the broth and tomato sauce to the lentil mixture, stir and simmer
• Just before pasta is done cooking, add the fresh parsley to the lentils
• Drain pasta and add a little of the lentil mixture to keep the pasta from sticking
• Serve the pasta in bowls with lentil sauce on top
• Add grated parmesan and salt and pepper to individual bowls to taste

This whole recipe takes about 30 minutes. I always let my kids add their own parmesan cheese and salt and pepper to their bowls. And, as I mentioned earlier, I use a meat sauce when I make this dish as well as chicken broth, but the dish can very easily be made vegetarian by using vegetable broth and marinara sauce.

I decided I’m going to do a new segment called What’s for Dinner where I post about what I made for dinner the night before and which of the items my two kids (ages 5 and 2) ate, which they didn’t eat and whether or not they ate at all. So, here’s the first one…

Last night I made:

-A whole roast chicken (Bell and Evans)

-Roasted fingerling potatoes (with onion, rosemary and olive oil)

-String beans (boiled for a few minutes and served with butter and a little salt and pepper)

Lucie, my 5-year-old, who generally eats most things, ate a bunch of chicken and had seconds and even thirds of the string beans. She claimed that she only liked the yellow potatoes and not the purple ones (I bought fingerlings that were a mix of yellow, purple and red – very beautiful), surprisingly. So she had a couple of the yellow potatoes, but not very many.

Ronan, my 2-year-old son, who generally eats nothing at dinner, gobbled up a whole bunch of the chicken. He could not stop eating it, which was exciting for me since he usually literally eats NO dinner. He turned down the string beans when I first put them on his plate, but after seeing his sister enjoy them, he tried to eat a couple but never really succeeded. He also put a potato or two in his mouth but never got to the point of chewing or swallowing one.

My verdict: A success!