The Food Post
So. Expanding the kids' food horizons. During the week, they have their lunch at school. Since lunch is the main meal of the day, it is usually fairly substantial, consisting of they typical
primer plato,
segundo plato, and dessert.
Primer plato is either some type of vegetable (like Broccoli Au Gratin), legumes (lentils, beans, garbanzos, etc), rice or pasta (lasagne, paella, spaghetti), soup (broth with tiny pasta stars, pureed vegetable soup, etc.) The second course is meat, fish, or egg. Dessert is either fruit or a dairy-based pudding or yogurt. They also get bread and water, and if the dessert is fruit, milk. There is a wide variety of dishes over the course of a month, and generally the kids eat whatever is served. Their teachers eat with them and encourage good eating habits, and sometimes Pedro says "I don't have to like it, but I can still eat it." Which I think is brilliant, rather than telling the kids: "You don't have to like it, but you have to eat it." The main course may occasionally be of the fried chicken fingers variety, but mostly it is prepared in the same way that it would be served to adults (
merluza a la bilbaina, anyone?)
So they are getting a decent hot midday meal during the week, which to some extent takes the pressure off dinner. They get out of school at 5, just in time to eat the next meal in the Spanish daily routine,
la merienda. Generally, this is a sandwich, though it can be anything. Sometimes it is packaged foods, like donuts or little cakes (not at our house, except occasionally), or sandwiches of dubious nutritional value, like Nutella on white bread. Often this is eaten in the park so the kids can let off steam, though our kids prefer to decompress at home for awhile before going anywhere else.
In any case, this snack is one place I want to improve, by planning ahead and making sure it is a decent contribution to their overall daily intake. They usually get fresh-squeezed oj, or milk, and a sandwich of
jamón serrano or cheese, or something else-- a muffin, quesadillas, fruit, yogurt, etc. So we're already doing pretty well, but planning will help.
With a snack at 5 (actually closer to 5:30, once they get home and settled), dinner at 8 doesn't need to be a major affair. We have a few old standbys that are relatively quick and child-friendly, since we adults don't usually eat with them. But here too I want to plan ahead and add more variety and new foods.
Recently I've found a few things to add to the repertoire, like oven "fried" chicken fingers (dipped in egg and coated with crushed Special K flakes) and cod cakes (made with the salted cod, not fresh.) An unsuccessful attempt was made with
this wonderful cauliflower soup, recipe courtesy of
Beck (whose weekly meal plans are divine, and I hope to approach their greatness.) I had tried Cheesy Cauliflower Soup before, to the same unimpressed reaction from the kids, but this one was great, even without the cheese. It's super creamy and mild, I thought, though apparently not so much because Elías only got one bite down before announcing "I don't like it" and refusing more. Pedro ate a bit more. doctored with cumin, but still left most of it.
All the experts say that it can take 10 to 15 times of being offered (and tasting) a new food before kids accept it, so I'll try the cauliflower again with another recipe (though I'm pretty sure they both eat cauliflower when it's served at school-- it probably helps that they are hungry and not at the very end of a long day when they are faced with it.) This recipe is one of those "hide the veggies" ones-- hiding cauliflower in mashed potato-- though I imagine the flavor will still be there, if only subtly. Maybe from there we can move on to the soup. (Okay, I couldn't find it online to link to, but it is this: Boil 3 large potatoes and half a head of cauliflower, all chopped. Drain and puree, add 2 Tbsp butter, spread in baking dish. Top with dry bread crumbs and parmesan. Bake 20 min.)
There was
a good article in the April issue of Wondertime, opposing this popular "stealth vegetable" trend of feeding kids vegetables disguised to the point that they aren't recognizeable as such. I agree with
the author that it is important to get kids to like (or at least eat) actual vegetables, though I am also in favor of punching up the nutritional quotient of other foods by smuggling in, say, a little white bean puree. (Not that white beans are vegetables, but still...)
To be fair, our kids do eat quite a few vegetables. It remains to be seen whether they will grow to like American-style cooked veggies (that is, brightly-colored, firm texture, perhaps even a bit of crispness) along with their Spanish-style ones (boil the living daylights out of those suckers.) My main goal is not to get them to eat their veggies, but rather to gradually increase the range of meals that we can all eat together. Weekends we often do lentils or
cocido (chick pea stew.) Other times we do homemade pizza (dough in the bread machine) topped with broccoli and ham, and often we get a rotisserie chicken from a nearby shop. But, it would be nice to have more options.
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They say that being a picky eater is in part hereditary, whether due to genetics or environment. I never considered myself a picky eater, but here, apparently, I am. Mostly because meat is such a big part of every meal. When I arrived here almost ten years ago, I was no longer a vegetarian, but still shunned red meats. After awhile I started eating beef again, but generally speaking, I prefer my meats skinless, boneless, and in chunks or strips, often with some kind of sauce (mole, curry, etc) and most especially, devoid of unsavory elements such as fat, gristle, tendons, etc. The Spanairds, however, eat their meat with gusto, undeterred by the aforementioned parts. Summers in the village, every year Santi's family does roast lamb a few times for the fiestas or other occasions, and I always either fill up on the first course, or have a quick alternative on hand. Roast lamb, you see, is particularly greasy, and though I could deal with lamb prepared in other ways, I just can't stomach the roast.
Similarly, I don't enjoy having a mouth full of bones when I eat fish, so I am perhaps overly meticulous in separating them out when served certain varieties, despite my mother-in-law's insistence that the bones are small and it doesn't matter if you eat them. Um, yeah. (Here they refer to fish bones as
espinas, not
huesos, and I suspect in English there is an equivalent distinction-- anyone know?)
Because of these, and probably other quirks that I'm forgetting, I am considered a rather picky eater here, though people are too polite to actually say it. Unfortunately, Pedro is taking after me in this regard, insisting that the thin rind of gristle be removed from his
lomo adobado before eating it, when really that is where all the adobo flavor is, or attempting to remove the skin from his
pescadilla rebozada. I suspect that a large part of this is due to his own character and proclivities, but likely it is reinforced by observing my picky habits as well (though I try not to display them in front of him.) Which is unfortunate, as life is so much easier when you are like Santi, and can eat anything without issue.
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Does anyone know of any more blogs that post weekly meal plans (families with kids)? I can always use more inspiration...
