Ying Yang Pickey kids and a mom who can't cook. What do I do?!
Answers: My kids never like the same things and I'm not a chef. We end up eating hot dogs, instent soup,cereal and when i do cook it's rice porkchops corn, chicken, meat.(everything fried) my son only likes corn for vegies, gives me a hard time to eat meat but don't like salades only some fruites.Likes cereal in the mornings and my daughter will eat anything as long as it's not cereal and taste good. She perfers hot breakfeast in the mornings. Only thing they both like is pancakes. As for me I like spanish food but my cooking sucks. My rice is eaither too soggy or still hard. And i don't like spagetti.
get a kid friendly cookbook. start making things out of there, they should be pretty easy and you can have the kids help out in preparing the meals. that way they will take more pride in their food and really want to eat it!
maybe premake scrambled eggs or french toast the night before and just reheat them in the microwave for your daughter in the morning to save you some time.
practice makes perfect- so keep tryin on the cookin!!! you'll be a pro in no time!
I am a great cook, but I don't like being a restaurant when it comes to dinner...or any meal! My kids know that what I put in front of them they will eat or go hungry. When they get hungry enough they will eat anything. Now there are some things that my kids just hate and will get sick on if I feed this to them, so I don't do those. My kids have to try everything and sometimes they do like it! You are the parent and you control your kids, not the other way around!
Hot dogs, instant soup, cereal and pancakes are horrible nutrition for kids as well as adults. While there may be a handful of exceptions in the cereal category like Müesli which is delicious on flavored yogurt.
Start getting your kids involved in the decision making process. Go to http://allrecipes.com/. You can search recipes by type of dish, by highest reviews, or by ingredients you have in your pantry. Read the reviews because they'll give you tons of tips from people who've actually made the recipes.
Choose three recipes that look interesting for each of your children to choose from. Make it fun for them. Let them help you cut the vegetables or make the dish in any way their age and capabilities allow them. Get them excited about trying new ingredients or old ingredients cooked in different ways.
If your own rice is too soggy or too hard, get a $12-$20 rice cooker from a place like Wal-Mart. If you get the Food Network, tape some shows to see which you like best and then start trying some recipes. Easy Entertaining with Michael Chiarello might be a good one for you.
It's a good way to, as a parent, teach your children life skills so they can feed themselves properly when they grow older. There's nothing worse than being dependent on someone else for food.
Remember, keep it fun and get them involved.
you need to give your kids the proper nutrition otherwise they will not develop properly both mentally and physically.
Meat can be broiled very quickly and easily- think no more than 10 minutes total.
Veggies can be steamed or boiled in under that time.
Baked potatoes are safe and easy plus nutritious. You can also boil them or broil them.
Fresh fruit can also be served as a nice side dish for any breakfast.
Remember you are the parent and if they don't eat what you prepare then let them go hungry. They will come around very quickly.
Cooking is not that hard. It would serve you well to learn to cook one HEALTHY dish per week. The second week, serve your new dish plus the one from the week before, and so on. In seven weeks, you're putting seven healthy meals on the table. Save frying for a few special items--it's really, really bad for your health, and bad to give your family a taste for fried foods.
Who's in charge here, you or the kids? You're within your rights as a parent to insist everyone take one bite of every dish.
What we did about fussy eaters is make sure there was one thing that each child would eat on the table, so nobody fussy had absolutely zero choices. Maybe all they got was corn (while the rest of us had broiled chicken and roasted garlic potatoes, too).
Get yourself a basic cookbook or find recipes online. You don't have to be a great cook to make a decent meal in 30 to 45 minutes. I do it every night.
Give them some backbone...which means, Tell them mom is cooking dinner. If you don't like it, don't eat. Trust me they won't starve, they'll eat pretty soon. Also, don't let them make their plate, you prepare their plate, put a little of everything that you prepared for dinner. If they don't eat, that's their choice. This is how I started my children. They never prepared their own plate when young. Now we have no problems with picky eaters. My son's eat all kinds of vegetables, squash, leafy greens, including spinach. They eat all types of potatos too. What many people don't know is that it takes a child about 15 bites or trys of a food to gain a liking for it. If we as parents don't make them try different foods we are limiting their world. For my kids, if they saw something on their plate that they weren't sure they'd like, I would (and still do ) tell them, if you never try it you'll never know. The rule at our table is you must try one bite before you get to say you don't like it. If it makes them gag, let them spit that bite out, but introduce it again a few weeks later. So far as the fried foods, just cut them out of your repretoire completely. Bake things, grill, sautee....anything but fried.
To make rice, try this. 1 cup long grain rice, 2 cups water, 1 TBSP butter, put it all in a pot that has a lid. turn on the heat, cook until it boils for 5 minutes. Put on the lid, turn off the heat, in 20 minutes it will be perfect. DO NOT LIFT THE LID during the 20 minutes.
Try this for vegi's.
green pepper, in strips
red pepper in strips
onion in strips
sugar snap peas in shell
broccoli crowns
thinly sliced carrots
put a little olive oil in a pan, put in all vegi's, stir fry until the color deepens, then put on a lid for about 3-5 minutes. serve with a little butter, salt and pepper or ranch dressing.
Instead of frying chicken, bake chicken breast in the oven, at the end cover in BBQ sauce, let sit in oven about 5 more minutes then serve.
Try involving the kids in the cooking. Go to the store, buy a couple of cookbooks. Then everybody gets to pick a recipe to cook for dinner, one chooses the main dish, someone chooses the vegi dish, the other chooses the grain/starch dish. Everybody cooks together. It might drive you nuts the first couple of times, but involving them in the process might make them more prone to try new things. Make sure you let them know that you are going to cook healthy balanced meals. give them a section to choose their dish from. My favorite cookbook is the Better Homes and Gardens Cook Book, it's the one that is red and white checked on the outside, like a tablecloth.
it's not that bad , you just have to only have the choices avail. to them that you are willing to make , pickiness is learned not inherited , i get so tired of hearing parernts saying their kids won't eat this or that . if there is only so many choices to pick from they will eat , and don't beleive that they don't like all this other stuff , it's that they don't want to eat anything but their favorites al the time . p.s. get a couple of good cook books + a rice steamer
for the rice get a rice cooker about 60.00 well worthit
as for the chidren try small amounts of diffrent foods .
this willl; give you a larger base to work with and try letting them help or at least let them think they are helping a posaitave and fun exprince with food will help improve their posatiev reaction to their meals..... and dont put the wieffs grual down in front off them. best of luck chef on the loose....
and have patients.........................
1. learn how to cook-everyone else can. why not you?
2. learn how to spell. why not you?
3. teach kids how to cook.
4. everyone should learn to eat (and like) the same dishes. if everyone is so picky, some of you just might starve.