Recipes for Picky Eaters No. 1

I'm going to start a regular series on this blog called, "The Domestically Challenged Mom: Recipes For Your Picky Eaters." (Basically Jessica Seinfeld without the time or talent.)

All around me, I see kids the same ages as my kids eating all kinds of healthy, interesting foods — deli sandwiches with mayo and lettuce, vegetables of all varieties, dishes with several ingredients mixed in together — gasp. Not my kids. They are strictly no-food-touching-any-other-kind-of-food purists. Between 18 months and 3 years, Sawyer's entire diet consisted of dairy and white-colored carbohydrates. He just this year added apples and oranges to his fruit repertoire and I about fell over when he asked for broccoli. He's finally trying exotic new things — like meat and chicken.

Arden's no less picky, but she's likes the opposite things. I can actually get her to eat an entire bowl of broccoli (as long as there's a vat of melted butter nearby) but she won't eat a single piece of chicken. Ask me tomorrow and they will have both flip-flopped their preferences. I can't keep up.

So, I have come up with a few interesting meals to improve the variety in their lives, which I will share from time to time here. I'd like to dedicate this to my mom who taught me everything I know about melted butter and who invented many of these Domestically Challenged recipes for me — the original picky eater.

RECIPE NO. 1: CHICKEN ON A STICK


The first lesson for any chef trying to please a picky eater — it's all about the packaging. The big wigs in the food industry figured that out a long time ago. I mean, look at the Sarah Lee Sandwich Bread with the Toy Story wrapping. My kids are convinced that the bread was hand-kneaded by Woody himself. Pleeease can we get the Toy Story bread? Who cares that it's a full dollar more than the generic brand. And, just try to get them through the soup aisle without cans covered with Cars and Princesses magically ending up in the basket — who cares what's inside — they don't even like soup.

So, Armstrong family legend also has it that one of my early favorite foods on Guam was Chicken Yakatori — aka chicken on a stick. A perfect example of how it's all about the packaging. My kids won't eat plain cubed up chicken, but put it on a stick and watch out. It's oh-so-fun.

I make up my own sauce, which involves melting a big scoop of creamy peanut butter in a sauce pan and adding drizzles of soy sauce and drops sesame oil until it tastes good. My kids think its chocolate sauce. The grocery store also carries Thai peanut sauce in a jar, but it tends to be too spicy for my kids.

I soak the sticks in water, coat the raw cubed chicken with the sauce and then skewer it. (Cut off sharp tip for little kids.) I bake it on a tin-foil lined cookie sheet at 350-400 degrees until it's done (white and flaky).

For the side dishes this time, I made plain jasmine rice and edaname — something green that the kids actually seem to like in small doses as long as it's doused in soy sauce.

Don't forget an extra bowl of sauce for dipping!