Food Stuff

Tonight I took my weekly trip to the grocery store (yes on a Friday night. I feel like shopping eats too much into my weekend if I go during the day). Anyway, lately I've been thinking a lot about the food we eat and how we really don't eat healthy enough. I grew up as a overweight kid and really don't want that same fate for my boys. Each day I instruct Curt what to make for dinner (he usually cooks since he gets home from work earlier than I do) and every night this week I came home and he hadn't made a vegetable to have with our meal. Now I usually instruct him just on the main dish, figuring that he knows enough to make a veggie to have with it. Every night I found myself pulling a random veggie out of the freezer and tossing it in the microwave. Boring. Also our side dishes are really lacking. Mac & Cheese? French Fries? It just makes me feel bad to keep feeding this stuff to the boys night after night. So this week I took the time to plan a meal and a nice side dish and a veggie for each night. Ok, one night I did plan Mac & Cheese as the side, but we are having fish that night and I need a good back up for Bodie - and me since I don't eat fish :). Fish night is becoming a weekly staple in our house now (for two whole weeks so far). I grew up very picky and hated fish (still do) and, even though I won't eat it, I still want the boys exposed to it. Hopefully all of these little changes and planning ahead will help us form some more healthy habits.

Stick a fork in me...

I know I've written in the past about Bodie's eating habits - loves fruit, pretty good with veggies, hates meat. Well last week we discovered the missing magic tool to help him eat...the fork! One night we were eating pork chops, broccoli, and a Parmesan PastaRoni side dish. I figured he'd eat the broccoli and nothing else. Since we were having a pasta dish I gave him silverware (usually I don't bother because he just uses it to toss his food around or put dents and scratches in our table - but if it is something strange textured I feel bad not offering him silverware). His toddler spoon was dirty so I gave him the matching fork. It was like a powerful new toy! He gobbled down his broccoli with the fork. It was kind of funny to watch because if he couldn't stab the broccoli to pick it up, he would pick up the broccoli and stick it on the fork. After the broccoli was gone, he asked for more (he ate all that I cooked) so I put a bite of pasta on the fork. Now I should say that he loves spaghetti with red sauce, but I've never seen him eat any pasta with a white sauce. The magical fork must have done the trick. He ate all the pasta I gave him, and then I ended up giving him half of what I had on my plate because he had eaten it so well. The fork couldn't bring any magic to the pork chop though. When I put that on the fork he gave me the big head shake.

The next night we ate Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta which I didn't think Bodie would touch with a 10 foot pole. That magical fork worked again though, and he ate about half of what we gave him. He still wants nothing to do with meat, but hopefully this is the beginning of him becoming a little less picky.

One note about the Chicken and Bow Tie Pasta...It was pretty tasty and I'm sure we'll make it again. It did taste like it was missing a little something though. Next time I'll experiment by adding some onion and possibly seasoning the chicken while it is cooking.

Eating Healthy

This is something I struggle with. You want to eat healthy but you want to eat things that taste good (to me these are completely different food categories). Last week I noticed my yogurt had High Fructose Corn Syrup in it. This ingredient is something I've tried to avoid eating in my breads, but never paid attention to what other foods contain HFCS. This weekend I bought dannon all natural yogurt, which is HFCS free, although the containers are smaller and the calories higher than my old fat free yogurts. I haven't tried them yet but I suspect I won't be as satisfied with them. I'll keep you posted.

Also this weekend I tried my hand at making homemade English Muffins. Not sure if I will try this again in the future. I bought a set of biscuit cutters which were crap. First the recipe called for a 4" cutter and the biggest in my set was 3". I used the "handle" on the cutter to press into my dough which, more often than not, caused the handle to bend and put my knuckle prints in the dough. When I would try to hold the edge of the cutter, instead of the handle, I was left with 3 nice cuts in my thumbs. Finally I got them all cut and was ready to "bake" them on my electric griddle. The recipe says to cook each side for 10 minutes. Even though my biscuits were an inch smaller, I cooked them for no less than 15 minutes each side and I think they still taste a little doughy. My muffin this morning really wasn't big enough for my measly 1/4 c egg beater and slice of cheese sandwich.


***Eating update...tonight we made popcorn chicken for dinner. Not only did Bodie eat all of it, he also ate Beets!! I couldn't believe he actually ate them. When I asked Curt for some side dish ideas for this week he wanted Beets (I did not have any). The chicken was very tasty...I ate mine on a bed of romaine. I think when Bodie runs out of his Schwans man chicken nuggets I will make these to keep in the freezer for him. I feel much better when I know exactly what we are eating.