What's cookin' ?

[earthJoker]

I'll have to try the cucumber in stew sometime. Assuming it's not peeled first?

I peeled it as it was that was written in the receipt.

[GGT]

I peeled it as it was that was written in the receipt.

Good to know. Peeled cukes are very different from ones with skin.


This is the strangest yet loveliest thread! Somehow "what's cookin'?" turned into philosophies about feeding children, not just recipes or whatever.

Rand, you have some pretty old fashioned ideas about nourishing children. It may have worked for you, but that doesn't mean it works for all other kids. I used to hide brussel sprouts in my napkin, tried to feed broccoli to our dogs under the table, and would pretend to eat peas by drinking milk and leaving an inch in the bottom of the glass, filled with peas.

I hated vegetables as a kid. HATED them. Hated their color, texture, smell, taste. Especially green peas that would POP in my mouth, and extrude this awful, nasty, disgusting, mushy ooze. It was enough to make me barf, literally. Some of that is because, when I was a kid, almost all of our veggies were canned or frozen. I hadn't tasted fresh broccoli or asparagus (or peas) until my late 20s-early 30s. We never had a fresh spinach salad at home, and didn't know what mescaline meant *other than a recreational drug*. Ask any kid raised in the 60s what their vegetable memories are, and if they didn't live on a farm....it's probably not a good memory.

Anyhow. Kids consume their calories and nutritional needs over a week, or even a month. It's silly to think a child's diet can be balanced daily. That's actually detrimental and can set up eating disorders and future power/control issues. Sometimes little kids will only eat cheese and fruit, every damn day. Or cereal with milk, every damn day. Then it turns to noodles and hotdogs, every damn day. But over a week's or month's time, they did indeed get all their nutritional requirements, with some icky greens snuck in by blending them in spaghetti sauce or a smoothie.

It always seemed like a power or control issue, or some type of denial, if a parent keeps insisting that small children eat what's put on their plate. Especially if the parent knows their child HATES certain things, but keeps serving them. It also seems cruel to send that child to bed on an empty stomach, simply because their "tastes" were ignored. Really, it's no big deal to give a kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, with a fruit and yogurt, and a big honkin' glass of chocolate or strawberry milk......instead of expecting them to eat scallops sauteed in garlic with an endive salad and balsamic vinaigrette dressing.

Seriously. Tastes for foods and their complexities can take a lifetime. Forcing it on anyone won't make a damn bit of difference. Depriving little kids of nutrition, well that's something else entirely.