(no subject)

[the_rck]

I'm trying to make up a grocery list. Cordelia's making it harder because she absolutely doesn't want to eat either chicken or pork (she's also, without ever trying it, banned tofu). We bought some baked beans for her, but she says they're too sweet. She likes whatever brand is served with school lunch, and we have no idea what brand that is. I suppose it's a good thing I like baked beans (Scott doesn't care for them).

We can still get her to eat things we make with ground turkey, but that's expensive and doesn't stretch very far. We can buy enough chicken or pork that we only have to cook once every four days. With ground turkey, the best we can do is meatloaf which lasts two days (with enough leftover for one person to have an additional meal). When I make pasta sauce or taco meat with ground turkey, there's never enough left for the three of us to have a second meal.

I do have some tofu, and I plan to try one of the recipes evalerie gave me a while back. I'm just afraid that Cordelia won't even try it because she's already decided that tofu is bad.

Comments

[fjm.livejournal.com]

I know Cordelia is having anxiety issues but are you absolutely *sure* she isn't also pushing you as far as she can? It might be time to (re) start the "we are having x but you are far too young for it and won't like it" approach.

And I'm writing as someone who lived on mashed potatoes with sweetcorn for about three months at the same age.


hugs tho. You have my huge sympathy.

[the_rck]

I'm not sure that would work. We're not capable of preparing our food in any way that's much different from how we do it now, so I doubt Cordelia would fall for it. We don't put anything on the meat during the warm months because Scott grills it and I hate charring. Everything we've tried has made the meat burn enough that I can't eat it. During the cold months, I mostly bake the chicken (or occasionally pork). We have a crock pot, but I haven't found a good way to use that that produces meat that's not dry.

Basically, I can handle about fifteen minutes of food preparation. Anything beyond that exhausts me enough that I can't do anything else that day. Browning meat for spaghetti sauce is about as much time as I can handle. After a full day of work, Scott's not available to start cooking until six-thirty at the earliest. During warm weather, he grills every four days or so, and we just have dinner very, very late those nights (with leftovers the other nights).

We're running into a combination of limits. There's what Cordelia will eat, and there's what Scott and I can reasonably prepare.

We do occasionally have vegetables that Cordelia won't eat. We see no reason that we should be limited to broccoli, green beans, peas and romaine lettuce. We just make sure we have something else green those nights that Cordelia will eat. I think, too, that we'll start having more grains that Cordelia won't eat. She limits herself to pasta, rice, etc. that has no spices, sauce or flavoring, while Scott and I prefer stuff with more character.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Got it. It really is tricky. Maybe when she is 12 you could send her on a cooking course and hand over the cooking :-) (I did most of the household cooking from that age).

[evalerie.livejournal.com]

I am curious which recipe it is. I'll be surprised if Cordelia tries tofu, whichever recipe it is -- tofu does seem pretty creepy to people who aren't familiar with it. Let me know how it comes out? Even if nobody likes it, I'd appreciate knowing that.

[the_rck]

I haven't decided which of the three recipes you sent me to try. You sent me golden crispy tofu, fried spiced tofu and Oriental salad.

[ramenkuri.livejournal.com]

What if you mix ground chicken and pork? Or mix one of them with turkey?

Or mix tofu in with the turkey?

Sorry, I'm sure none of this helps.

[the_rck]

I don't know where we'd get ground chicken or ground pork. Neither Kroger nor Busch's carry either, and that's it for grocery stores on this side of town. If we could get one or the other, it might be worth trying.

I'm not sure how to mix tofu with ground turkey. It sounds worth trying. Both ground turkey and tofu rely on the cook adding flavor, after all.

[ramenkuri.livejournal.com]

Oh interesting! I guess I didn't cook much in the US so I didn't realize that ground pork was uncommon. In Japan it seems to usually be available. Ground chicken is also not too hard to find here for some reason.

The easiest way might be to mince up the tofu into tiny bits and mix in with the ground turkey, then cook, but i think the texture would be noticeably different from regular ground turkey, so odds are it wouldn't be an effective combination.