How I’m Surviving Cooking for My Kids Right Now
Cooking for kids can be a struggle at the best of times, and I think we can all agree that these are not the best of times. With the three meals a day I’m now churning out on the fly, I feel like I’m operating a pop-up sleep away camp for criminally picky eaters—minus all the activities that actually make camp fun. Mealtimes now seem to bleed into each other, breakfasts oozing into lunch, snacks spilling into dinner, ending only after the inevitable statement that comes once everyone has already brushed their teeth: “I’m hungry.”
Here I am, still with relatively good access to groceries in my neighborhood and the ability to make pizza dough on weekdays in between Zoom meetings, or riff on any of the hundreds of recipes I have developed for Bon Appétit. We can eat long lunches together at the dinner table on a Tuesday afternoon and bake off chocolate chip cookies for dessert. In some ways, this ability to cook and enjoy meals together is what I always professed to want, the opposite of my “old” life spent hurdling between school, work, afterschool, and home. Yet this is nothing like what I pictured.
What I’ve come to realize is that this isn’t the time to make my kids Coq au Vin just because I theoretically have the time to. I am finding, though, that leaning, hard, on some basic comforting dishes like pizza, roast chicken, and tacos is giving my kids what they want, while still leaving room for adding flavors and complexity that I crave. The dishes here are the ones currently in our heavy rotation. They’re just basic enough to work for my kids, but flexible enough to still excite me.
One disclaimer before we get into it: The nature of parenthood is such that you will probably say to yourself “my kids would never eat that!” to half of what I recommend below. That’s ok. As a parent I have become so lost in the idiosyncrasies of my own kids’ behavior and desires that I barely know what is typical anymore. The important thing is not to give up, to keep evolving your repertoire by building on what you know works, and bringing new ideas and foods in one step at a time.
Alex Lau1/9Fried Brown Rice
I use this fried rice recipe all the time because at its heart, it is just a simple stir-fry of cooked rice and vegetables, with just enough flavor to bring it all together. The rice doesn’t need to be brown. You don’t need turmeric, or kale for that matter. My kids will freak out at the sight of bits of egg in their rice, so I just skip it. I try to forgive them by reminding myself that their brains are developmentally wired to distrust any food they don’t already know and like. (Still, we can all agree that fried rice without egg is kind of bullshit.) This is also where I can work in leftovers like thin slices of cooked sausage crisped up before the vegetables go in. Or shredded chicken or braised meat can just be tossed in toward the end. Flavors are where I have a bit of runway to maneuver. If I don’t want to risk a dinner meltdown, I can pull out half the finished rice for the kids then punch mine up with a drizzle of soy sauce and a dab of Thai shrimp paste, chili oil, or sambal. Everyone wins.
Photo by Alex Lau, styling by Claire Saffitz2/9Cast-Iron Skillet Pizza
Pizza on a weeknight. Starting dough the day before, using a recipe like Joe Beddia’s from his book Pizza Camp (now THAT is a camp I would go to), or the Grandma-Style Pizza Dough is a snap when working from home. I love anchovies, calabrian chiles, and sliced garlic on my side of the pie. My kids would eat just plain baked dough if they could. Maybe not even baked. I like the drama (and the shattering crust) that comes with starting the dough in a hot skillet. You can also make them grandma-style in well-oiled baking sheets and designate one a kids’ pizza, and the other a place for you to live out your wildest topping dreams.
Photo by Chelsie Craig, Food Styling by Yekatarina Boytsova3/9Chicken Tinga Tostadas
Somehow, my kids will eat tacos. Hard or soft, are fair game, but the only fillings they will eat are chicken tinga, refried beans, and shredded orange cheddar cheese. Yes, it has to be orange. Leave it to my friend and BA contributor Rick Martinez to figure out a crazy-simple method for a fast braisy protein in a super simple sauce with mild-yet-not-boring chile flavor. Rick is a bean whisperer, and his method for turning humble canned beans into creamy, cravable refried beans is simple and delicious. The fact that I can add an endless variety of other toppings keeps us all happy.
I also often use these ingredients to make nachos, and just the other night got my older son to try them for the first time. He seemed to like them, until an extra crispy chip knocked out a loose tooth which he then swallowed, setting off 20 minutes of hysterics that the tooth fairy wouldn’t pay him without it. But still.
Marcus Nilsson4/9Spaghetti and Meatballs
These meatballs might seem complicated, but let me tell you a secret: You don’t really need most of the ingredients for them to work. Meatballs are about the tender union of meat, bread, eggs, and salt. Everything else is gilding the lily. I made a version of this recipe using just meat, bread, eggs, Parmesan, salt, and pepper. I put in garlic powder instead of fresh garlic because that is all I could handle. They were still great!
5/9One Skillet Steak with Spring Veg
I crave tons of vegetables. My kids crave meat to fuel their cave-man brains and behavior. This recipe by BA contributor Claire Saffitz is one of my all-time favorites of hers. A one-skillet ensemble of protein and vegetables with an assertive sauce to finish it all. My kids will only eat broccoli or carrots, eschewing even baby peas. Peas! What kid doesn’t eat peas even if you pretend to sneeze them out of your nose, or claim that they come from Greenland where they fall from the sky!? Mine. But it works with pretty much anything. I also love that the choice of protein doesn’t really matter here: steak, skin-on chicken, fish, sausages, or even eggs will all work.
Photo by Alex Lau, Food Styling by Susie Theodorou6/9Chicken and Beans Stir-Fry
Sometimes my kids don’t question things with big flavor as long as there aren’t too many competing textures. This recipe uses a very simple DIY curry paste that evokes the flavors of Japanese curry and works with most any quick-cooking (or finely chopped) vegetable. I have made it just with green beans, just with baby peas, and just with sugar snaps, but also a combination.
The sauce is worth making just for its own sake, turning into a golden gravy packed with flavor that I keep on hand as an instant flavor-boost for steamed or roasted vegetables, and for chicken katsu. My son who will only eat a green bean by bisecting it lengthwise and plucking out the seeds within, will happily house chicken katsu wedges dunked in this gravy.
Marcus Nilsson8/9Cast-Iron Roast Chicken With Crispy Potatoes
The only form of potato my younger son will eat is a French fry. You might expect then that he’ll be just as excited to eat the schmaltzy, chewy-crispy potatoes that cook in the same pan as this chicken. He won’t. But he will eat the bird and its burnished, crackling skin. The pro move is to make the potatoes as written, then roast a separate sheet tray of other vegetables like carrots, red onion wedges, broccoli, or cauliflower, which make fantastic leftovers for salads the next day. My son won’t eat any of that either; just steamed broccoli or raw carrots. Take a minute with that. For the rest of us, this hands-off dinner is a big win.
Photo by Laura Murray, styling by Anna Bilingskog.9/9Cocoa Brownies
Sure I have made a couple batches of BA’s Best Chocolate Chip Cookies, the joy of which is freezing scoops of dough and baking off a few at a time (no need to defrost first). The other dessert that slays every time is Cocoa Brownies. No double-boiler or special techniques needed, just a clean shot of deep cocoa flavor in a lovely fudgy package. I make them gluten-free by using Bob’s Red Mill 1:1 Gluten-Free Baking Mix instead of wheat flour so my wife can eat them too. Making brownies she can eat increases my chances she will want to help out with the dishes.
