Sunday, January 23, 2011

Dim Sum Sunday - Vegatables Kids Will Eat

Big Shamu over at the Karmic Kitchen has resumed her popular food challenge for those of us that are cooking challenged - Dim Sum Sunday. The theme for this week (as I understand it) was to prepare a vegetable dish that kid's will eat. This was suggested by Making Space whose kids are fickle when it comes to eating vegetables.

A go-to simple recipe that I use all the time with my 17 and 12 year old boys is Buttery Cooked Carrots that I lifted off of AllRecipes.com some years ago. This is as simple as it gets and it has butter and sugar, two food groups that kids love.

Here's the ingredients with the carrots in a steamer already going (I was running late this week). The recipe calls for boiling, but I thing they get a little too water logged that way. I retain about 1/2 cup of the carrot juice water for use with the recipe.

Here's everything mixed with the carrots soaking. I try to leave them in as long as possible.


Here is the finished dish. You can pour some of the sauce over it if you want. The Mrs says it's too sweet that way, but the boys like it that way.


And here was dinner. Carrots, rotisserie chicken (Shoprite) and Rice-a-Roni, that San Francisco Treat. Everyone was good with it.


9 comments:

MakingSpace said...

Buzz I'm going to try this. This is exactly the kind of food my kids go for - every ingredient clearly visible. Haha

Sweet carrots with butter. I bet even my carrot-hater would try that.

Happy Dim Sum Sunday!

Dani said...

Elizabeth is gonna love this!

Happy Dim Sum Sunday

Sharon Rudd said...

I might be with the Mrs. on finding this too sweet - cooked carrots already have a lot of innate sweetness to them. But hey, I don't have kids to cook for - otherwise, I would probably never cook the way I do :)

You know, Buzz, this reminds me of a dish with carrots and sugar snap peas (another innately sweet veg, plus it has a nice crunch). After my dad’s bypass, a kind friend had a personal chef bring a few dishes over, which my parents could heat and eat at their leisure, and this one was a hit. Wonder how kid-friendly it might be.

Happy Dim Sum Sunday!

MakingSpace said...

Eggy, my kids LOVE sugar snap peas. Do you have a recipe for the carrot/sugar snap pea dish?

Sharon Rudd said...

Buzzy, these look like they might do the trick. The first uses mostly orange juice for sweetener. The second has brown sugar and a bit of lemon juice. If you try, let me know what you think.

http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Snap-Peas-and-Carrots-108512

http://southernfood.about.com/od/peas/r/r70125b.htm

MakingSpace said...

Oh thanks, that was me, Ye Olde Making Space, that asked for the carrots/n/snap peas recipe. I'm going to add these to the menu rotation and hold my breath for good luck. Thumbs up!

Big Shamu said...

You know I applaud all those parents who take the time to cook for their kids. It's not easy. They incredibly picky. And stubborn enough to starve if you tell them it's what I make or nothing (to quote my own mother). So if this carrot recipe works then I'm betting it will work for other kids. Thanks for putting up a dish tonight especially with two big football games to watch.

HAPPY DIM SUM SUNDAY!!!

Sharon Rudd said...

Oops, MS. Guess I got carried away by the bounty of everyone's post this DSS :) Hope the Sweeties likee. And, Buzz, if your and your clan try them, let me know too :)

Buzz Kill said...

MS/Dani
This is a simple and relatively healthy (butter and sugar - I know) way to get them to eat carrots. Hope it works out.

IE
I've made a variation of the carrots where I use OJ instead of the carrot water, but I personally don't like it as much. I like the snap peas idea and may just add them to my recipe.

Shamu
I went simple and fast with dinner so we could eat between games. That almost worked out. I'm definitely going to try the roasted cauiliflower idea because I'm starting to get in a rut with my cooking. The Mrs probably won't eat it but if the kids and I do, she'll just have to eat salad.