Make A Main Ingredient Something They Love

One great way to foist something new on your kid is to make part of it not new. My son Harry, for instance, loves onions. Neither his father nor I are crazy about them. Maybe he’s channeling Aristotle Onassis, who was known to wolf down plates of raw onions. (No wonder Jackie supposedly had a contract requiring her to kiss him no more than once a month.)

Because of his love affair with onions – Harry’s, not Onassis’ – I often substitute onions for the vegetable element in recipes I try. That way, when he looks askance at his dinner plate, and asks, “What’s this?” I can truthfully respond,
“It’s mostly onions. You love onions.”
Not surprisingly, the first recipe I’m giving you here contains a fair share of onions. Not to worry if your kid doesn’t share Harry’s onion obsession; because they’re sautéed, they aren’t spicy, and they match well with the other main component in this dish – tuna.
“Tuna!” I hear you shrieking. “What are you trying to do? Turn my kid into a mercury-addled zombie?”
No, of course not. My understanding of the tuna situation is that if you have it no more than once a month or so, that’s fine. And if you’re really paranoid about it, you can always substitute canned salmon for the canned tuna.
Or you can just skip that recipe – delicious as it is – and move right onto recipe #2, which features an ingredient every kid loves: bacon. Whenever I make a recipe with bacon, I always make an extra half pound, knowing that my husband and son will hoover up every bit of bacon they can get their grubby mitts on. I make all the bacon, hide what I need, and wait patiently for the hoof beats from the family room followed by the inevitable question: “Do I smell bacon?”
The recipe is for something really nobody should eat very often: Bacon Fried Rice, which is every bit as delicious as it sounds. I’ve made it somewhat more saintly by replacing the eggs in the original recipe with tofu, but really, any dish replete with bacon – and with bacon grease as the sauté medium – can only be considered so healthy. I guarantee, however, that your child will not go to bed hungry on the nights you serve Bacon Fried Rice. And isn’t that most of the point?

Skillet Tuna Casserole (dairy-free)

1 T. vegan margarine (or unsalted butter, if you don’t mind dairy)
2 6-oz. cans tuna in oil (Genova makes the best; it comes in green cans and goes by the Italian name “Tonno”)
1 large-ish onion, diced
3 T. flour
2 c. plain unsweetened Silk soy milk (or regular milk, if you don’t mind dairy)
2 tsp. garlic salt (plus more, to taste)
1 tsp. freshly-ground black pepper
8 oz. noodles (farfalle, orechiette, shells, or any other shape you prefer. My son Harry likes the tennis racquets), prepared according to package directions

Melt the margarine in a large skillet over medium heat. Add the oil from the cans of tuna. Saute the onion in the margarine/tuna oil for five minutes or so, until the onion is translucent but not browned.

Add the flour and stir until the flour turns golden brown, a minute or two.

Pour in the soy milk, and cook and stir until the sauce thickens. Add the garlic salt and pepper and check for additional seasoning. (Seasoned salt makes a nice addition.) Add the noodles and stir to coat. Serves 4.

Bacon Fried Rice

1 pound of bacon (you only need six slices of bacon for the recipe, but you know your family will snarf up the rest)
½ package firm or extra firm tofu, drained well
1 cup rice, prepared according to package directions (or 2 cups cooked, leftover rice)
6 scallions, white and green parts, sliced thin
Soy sauce to taste

Saute the bacon in a large skillet over medium heat. When browned and crispy, remove, drain, and crumble six of the slices. Pour off all but about 2 to 3 tablespoons of the bacon fat, or as much as you think your arteries can stand. Truth be told, the more bacon fat you leave in the pan, the better the fried rice tastes; fat, after all, is what makes Southern food so good.

So when you’ve wrestled with your conscience over the bacon fat issue, make yourself feel virtuous and crumble the tofu into the pan, leaving it in fairly good-sized chunks. Saute until the tofu is lightly colored. Add the rice and scallions, and cook and stir to heat through. Add the crumbled bacon and soy sauce to taste. Serves 4.