Try this:
On any day of the week, make a stir fry of beef, broccoli, and bok choy. Season it with a little teriyaki sauce and serve it over rice and call it stir fry. Your children will moan and groan and ask how much they have to eat to get a blueberry juice popsicle for dessert. When you say that they need to eat seven bites, they will make sounds that would indicate a person being ripped limb from limb by a giant carnivore rather than fed a delicious and nutritious home cooked meal. Things like; “This is soooo yucky! Why don’t you cook good things for dinner!” Or, from the younger and more frank “That’th groth!”
The following week, cook an identical meal. This time, upon serving, separate the beef from the vegetables on the plate as though the food represents tiny Islands that can only reach each other by boat. No matter what you do, don’t get any “juice” on the rice. Title the dinner, Rice and Meat and serve with a smile. Get ready for the amazing part. Now that the rice, veg and meat have been segregated, the EXACT same meal so heartily rejected only seven days before will be gobbled up like a Happy Meal. This is just the excuse I need to buy those snazzy cafeteria type trays I have had my eye on.
Don't think I'm not paying attention to these nuggets of wisdom and experience!
Posted by: Liz Keough | March 30, 2010 at 02:08 PM