8 posts tagged “food”
All this talk of bananas has made me crave a Rocket Fuel Smoothie from Fresh by Juice for Life. One of my favourite restaurants in the T-dot, since it is vegetarian, but I always leave feeling stuffed. Since I can't get downtown, I looked up their on-line menu, and it looks like it includes espresso, banana, maple syrup and cinnamon, and your choice of milk. Hmmmm, my choice is Silk Vanilla Light soy milk, which just happens to be in my fridge right now. Gotta go get fueled!!
Man, I'm blogging about my mid-morning snack, what am I avoiding???
So don't all rush at once, but we just found out that a wine bar here in Port Credit not only has a kids' menu, but kids eat for free on Sundays. At the wine bar. I can't make this stuff up.
It's called ten, but it's actually at 139 Lakeshore Rd. East, at Hurontario.
As our lil'ReRe grows up, and gets closer to eating regular food at every meal, we've been having a real struggle getting him to eat outside of a few choice foods: yoghurt, bananas, cheese, mac'n'cheese, scrambled eggs, cold plain chicken breast, steamed veggies and apple juice. Every once in a while he will devour some new food, and there will be much rejoicing, but then when he sees it again, he pushes it away, or reacts in my least favourite way, the full body shudder, like I'm making him eat raw eel or something. He's caught on to the fact that we want him to eat more than he actually wants to eat, and I think he's feeling the power that he holds in this equation. I do know that a majority of the food put in front of him will get eaten, if its only as left-overs by myself. But far too often, in the rush of activity that usually follows every meal, something gets left out, and I'll find a banana too far gone to eat, some room temperature yoghurt that would have been salvagable if it weren't for the bloated, congealed rice puffs in it, or some animal crackers that were perfectly fine, except for the apple juice spilled on the plate. Too much food in the garbage. It drives me crazy.
So I'm thinking that my fatigue with food waste and a power-hungry toddler pushed me to take some action last Friday. We had driven downtown for an early doctor's appointment, and while heading back to Mississauga, I was trying to get ReRe to eat a snack before I dropped him off at daycare. I had only managed to get him to eat one bite of banana, and we had to get on the highway, afterwhich feeding him from the driver's seat would become extremely dangerous. We were stopped at the intersection just before the on-ramp onto the Gardiner Expressway, I was trying to convince ReRe to take another bite, and he was giving me that "think you can sweeten this deal, hmm?" bemused look that he has inherited from his father. I glanced forward to see if the light had changed, and noticed a panhandler standing there with a sign that said something like "homeless and hungry - any help is appreciated". I looked back at my son. looked out the window. looked at my son.
I rolled down my window and gave the half eaten banana to the panhandler.
He thanked me and told me to have a nice day. This was the most appreciation I'd received for my food provision duties in a while. But instead of feeling good, I thought, I've just given away my son's food. I looked back at him, and he had this slightly confused, "What the - ?" look on his face. Just then, the light changed and we headed onto the highway. ReRe was completely silent the rest of the way out to Mississauga, until just before we hit our off-ramp. From the backseat, in a quiet little voice, I heard,
"More banana please."
I apologised and said the banana was all gone. About 30 seconds later, we were at his day care, and they were heading into the bigger kids' room to meet a firefighter. He didn't even turn around to say good-bye before getting in line with the rest of his class, which I tried to not take personally, and told myself it didn't mean he was mad.
I've had really mixed feelings about this, since on the one hand, I wanted to teach him that food isn't something to just throw away, and thought the whole scene was quite humourous. But on the other hand, he's just so young, and obviously didn't 'learn a lesson' that he is turning down food while other people are hungry. If however, he continues to refuse to eat his dinner as he gets older, I may find myself saying "I know a guy, just under the Gardiner..."
While I should be putting the finishing touches on my business plan and continuing my marketing/networking for my consulting practice, this morning has been all about productive avoidance. It's productive because I did actually get things done that are important to that other thing I do, that is being a mom and wife. I spent part of this morning at Supperworks, a meal prep operation, where you place an order ahead of time for meals from their monthly menu, they prepare the fresh ingredients, and you go and assemble the meals in zip-lock bags, ready for the freezer. As my sister confesses, we're not great cooks, and after my toddler son reacted to my last attempt at something new (I'll refer to it euphemistically as Huevos Rancheros for Toddlers) with a full body shudder, I finally admitted I needed help too. So I ordered 12 meals (I'll get to them later) and showed up with my laundry basket to carry them home. The location is in a strip mall close by, and is set up like a restaurant kitchen with different stations for each meal. They gave me an apron and said get to it. Within an hour and a half, I had everything done. Witness the fruits of my labour:
I would NEVER have attempted to make Chicken Wellington had it not been facilitated like this. I just had this little bundle of tastiness for lunch, and it was awesome. So in addition to having a freezer full of ready to cook meals, I also have greater confidence in cooking these same dishes on my own.
I had planned on only making 6 dishes, but once I saw the menu, I opted for 12. This cost me around $300, but for that I got:
- 12 individual Chicken Wellingtons
- Asian Beef Wraps for 3-4 people
- a big pot of Black Bean and Corn stew, with 6 whole wheat rolls
- Cabernet Beef for 4-6
- 4 Broccoli Quiches
- 2 x Indonesian Ginger Chicken for 4-6 people
- 2 x Sirlioin Roast with White Wine Mushroom Sauce for 4 people
- 1 puffed Apple Bake for 4-6 people
This comes out to $3-4 per meal per person, with no prep and clean-up beyond actually cooking the dishes, plus the latent learning I'm doing cooking-wise, since none of these recipes were rocket science. I'm dropping a few of the meals off for a friend who just had a baby, and I'm going to keep this in mind for other friends as a baby shower gift.
My second diversion is curtesy of abigailvr, who posted about the Winter Edition of Knitty. I have to say, whenever a new on-line edition is posted, my life comes to a screeching halt as I drool over the patterns, and discover all kinds of knitting ambitions, But this time is for real, as this edition has a pattern for the perfect toddler toque - it completely covers their head, ears and neck, and will never fall in their eyes. It also takes care of that dubious decision as to whether a scarf on a toddler is a good idea. Obviously, I MUST go straight to the yarn store IMMEDIATELY, since my son will be done with nursery school in 2 hours, and he NEEDS me to knit this, not work on overhead estimates, right?
I've been asked to clarify that, while I may have been fed white bread as a child, I too was a picky eater, and hardly ate more than a couple bites at each meal. I've been reminded that we were on a limited income, especially for four kids, and we got the food that could be afforded (actually, that comment is for you, greenhow) at the time. If our meals were cooked in one pot, it was because it was expedient. We were raised with love and concern, and every generation thinks it is doing what's best for its children.
K, did I get it all in there? Fine, I'm going to my room now.
I had a couple old friends from Ottawa over last night, one of whom has just had her second son a couple weeks ago. These are people who have known me for a while, so I wasn't surprised when she noticed the loaf of enriched white bread on the counter and said "Um, Margot? Who in your house eats white bread?". She knows that I come from the school of nutrition that believes white bread is akin to eating asbestos with a side of dioxin (even tho I was raised on it), so it's presence did need some explanation. The truth is, I'm still having a heck of a time getting lil'ReRe to eat more than a few mouthfuls at each meal. Well, a couple Sundays ago my husband came home with the little guy from one of their Guy Mornings, when they go to the Orchard Family Restaurant for breakfast. Not only did ReRe eat off my husband's plate, he ate so much scrambled eggs and WHITE TOAST that my husband had to order more for himself. So I gave in and bought white bread to make him toast. And you know what happened? When I made it, HE WOULDN'T EAT IT. I needed to take a little walk around the house by myself when that happened. So I went back to giving him the very few things he likes to eat, which are basically yoghurt, fresh fruit, cheese, eggs (which he only nibbles when I make them) and pasta. Every couple days I try something new for a couple of days, but he's taken to not just pushing it away, but taking a bite and spitting it out, just for dramatic effect. I hate wasting food, and now I'm stuck with this bleeding loaf of white bread. I'm thinking I'll try making french toast with it, if it doesn't dissolve in the egg. I swear, I'm going to go to the Orchard and demand to know what they do to their food to make it so irresistable to my son. I'm sure it involves a pork product.
By the way, yesterday they went out for breakfast again. When they got home, I asked my husband, "did he eat?" and he pursed his lips, looked like he had bad news, and said, "yes, two pieces of white toast and the equivalent of two eggs scrambled." I cut my eyes at my son, who just opened his eyes all innocent-like, raised both hands palm-side up, and said "Bek!"
I've been thinking about going to the Mommy Chef classes at Sprout Right, where the nutritionist who owns the business provides all the ingredients (organic, healthy, fresh) and the recipes, and you and 5 other moms make enough food to feed your little one for a week. It's in 5 week sessions, so you learn a whole bunch of recipes. My husband's reaction was "you know you have too much money, when...." but per serving, it's actually quite reasonable. My fear is that, we'll get home, I'll have a freezer full of this fantastically healthy food, and my son will take one bite, and spit it across the room. And I'll have nothing to say except "Bek!"
Well, our little Canada Day bbq ended up turning into a neighbourhood get together, with the majority of people here being our new neighbours from up and down the street, plus some other folks who I've met cuz they have kids the same age as lil'ReRe. This was great, cuz I got to finally meet a bunch of people I haven't met yet, and also to thank the people (our immediate neighbours on both sides) who have been unbelievably friendly and welcoming. It turns out that many more people know about us (particularly me and ReRe) cuz of all the morning walks we take around the neighbourhood. One couple told me that they have been thinking about doing something like this for years, but never got around to it, so I guess it really did look like a neighbourhood bbq, so I'm sure we'll try to do it again next Canada Day.
HOWEVER, THAT BEING SAID.....
I have a lot to learn about entertaining. Like how to organize the food and drinks to make them accessible, how to make sure that all the food is ready and the right temperature when people arrive, and to keep it fresh and the right temperature the whole time. I also have to keep a tally of what is popular on the buffet, and what isn't. This always surprises me. You know, I still don't see why it was funny that Lisa Simpson made gazpacho for a bbq, I love gazpacho, but I know I'm in the minority. So I tried a couple different dishes, but I also learned, you don't make friends with Salad. Evidently, you make friends with meat (but not friends with animals). The burgers and chicken wings flew off the table; the homemade coleslaw, not so much. I got Canada Day cupcakes for the kids, and the store-bought brownies seemed to go well, but the rice krispie squares were hardly touched. I don't get it. What am I missing here?
One area where I really scored, without even trying, was getting my husband interested in entertaining FOR ONCE. Getting him to help out with these things is like pulling teeth, but at the end of the day yesterday, he was talking about, maybe next time, we rent some lawn chairs and a couple serving tables, and put the drinks out on a table on the lawn, and a few other things that would have made it better yesterday. This is fantastic, since it means that, next time, I'll be able to count on his help.
So friends, just in case you have a second to give me some suggestions for future reference, what do you love to see at a bbq? Plates stacked with fried chicken? This would be a stretch for me, but if it makes people happy, I may try it.....
This seems to be my new philosophy when it comes to feeding my little guy. This would be why he had MY breakfast of grapenuts in fat-free vanilla yoghurt, while I had 4% organic yoghurt with mashed bananas. Not bad really, I'd forgotten how good foods with fat in them can be. But seriously, while I have tried very hard to give my son foods that are organic, whole grain, etc., if he won't eat it, but will eat the food on my plate, I'm finding myself letting him eat that. I do draw the line at some foods (tandoori chicken, for one), but honestly, if it goes in his mouth and stays there, then I'm happy. I'm trying to figure out whether he really doesn't like the taste of the foods I've given him, or whether things taste better when they come from mom or dad's plate simply because they came from our plates. For example, the other day, after struggling to get lil'ReRe to eat a piece of whole grain toast with boiled egg yolk, and losing that fight, I find him macking down on a white bagel and cream cheese supplied by his dad. Now, is the yolk-toast really so awful, and the cream cheese bagel really so delicious, or was it because it was Daddy's lunch? No need to answer that, I know that you'll never see boiled egg yolk on toast on any cafe menu, but lil'ReRe doesn't know that.
So the next day I actually mixed the egg yolk in with some cream cheese, and put it on the toast. He licked the egg mixture off and left the soggy toast on the table. That's one clue that tells me its the taste of the food. If I could just get his dad to eat the soggy toast now, then this hypothesis could truly be tested.......
