Beef Bourguignon and Risotto Milanese

Typically Risotto Milanese is served with Osso Bucco, which I love too.  But tonight, being minus a billion outside. I felt like beef stew.  I really wanted to make veal stew.  But No Frills sucks donkey balls and there was no veal.  So old man cow it is.

I usually use Ina Garten's recipe  Over time I have pretty much memorized it.  Same goes for the Risotto.  The recipe I use is from Joy of Cooking. 

If you have kids.  You know stew is the most offensive thing you could ever serve them.  Partly because it's got that whole barfy gravy going on.  But mostly because ALL OF THE INGREDIENTS ARE TOUCHING!  Good Lord.

I have mastered the art of plating food like an artists paint palate.  That's fine.  But I don't want to be substituting or removing ingredients because my kids are assholes.  That's where I draw the line. But I can tweak it.  That I am willing to do.  I know that my oldest daughter hates cooked carrots.  Actually, because the carrots are in the stew touching the (ick) gravy, no one will eat it.  So I have to think of another veg.  But I don't want to actually cook something else.  That's why Risotto is perfect as a side dish.  I might be lying, but I am pretty sure the Joy of Cooking suggests adding frozen peas.  My kids LOVE frozen peas.  Done.

The stew calls for mushrooms and onions (pearl onions, which I usually have time to par boil and squeeze out of their skin but tonight, nope) to be added in the last few minutes of cooking.  But my kids HATE both.  I can hide the yellow onions in the stew and risotto because they are cut  up really small.  But these are kinda big and pretty much impossible to fish out once all stirred together.  So sauteing them and adding last minute works out well.  I get to enjoy the whole dish as it was meant to be.  The kids don't have to eat grodie mushrooms.

Kids meals are plated so NOTHING touches.  Meat over here.. risotto over there.  And we all love bread so yay.  'xcuse the drop of gravy.  I'm not a chef you know.

Now the adults. A nice touch with Risotto Milanese is the lemon zest and parsley you add at the end.  And well parsley is green, so that won't go over with the kids.  But again, you can add it to your own plate, and everyone wins.  Yes that's a big old glass of wine in the background, because you know that even with all of this special kid friendly prep, you will be critiqued. 

This is my eldest face when she saw her dinner (Eddie looks like he'd happily eat it though).

And this is the feedback:

"I thought we were just having pork"
"OMG Carrots!?" (to which I pointed out only I was eating)
"I don't like the crust of this bread.  It's too crusty"
"Why can't we have normal  hard rice.  This rice is disgusting"
"Can I have more milk? I am going to just swallow it down with milk so I don't have to taste it"
"Blah. I'm done".

Defeated? Yes. But I have my wine.  And I didn't have to eat chicken fingers.

Until tomorrow!

Why is it so hard to feed kids!?!

Right?

I mean, obviously it's an age old battle.  There is no shortage of cook books out there with kid friendly recipes.  Half of which basically recreate chicken fingers in bold new ways, or hide vegetables so kids have no idea they are eating them.  There are also well known Canadian Magazines boasting family meals that everyone will love.  Um, ya... no.  I for one thought my kids would be more adventurous, since I was such an avid cook.  But I forgot what it was like to be a kid.  Food doesn't taste the same as it does now.  I didn't eat half of what I eat today, not just because it wasn't as fashionable or because my mom had a life and wasn't going to spend 6 hrs making gourmet dinners.  But because if she had, I would have turned my nose up too!.

But there ARE kids out there who eat!  They eat sushi, Pho, antipasto, calamari, beef tartar. I see proof on social media and I want to scream! What did those parents do right?  I guess, introducing my kids to my fave fast food restaurant (you know where I mean) and all of my go to canned and boxed food items, might have been a mistake.  But I have been trying to salvage their palates everyday since.

My husband and I went to Paris last year for an anniversary trip.  There were no kids in restaurants there.  Well not during the week.  But on the weekends, Sunday in particular, there were hoards!  All dressed up, and so well behaved.  Eating whatever their parents threw on their plates.  I didn't see any mothers fishing out onions, or green things, or making sure the different things on the plate didn't touch. I heard no crying, no yelling, no child got dragged out the door, parents faces flushed.

My kids would love to go to Paris.  I would love nothing less.  Ruining my fancy dinners out? No thanks.  We decided maybe a bit closer to home.  New York City!  I warned my spawn that there would be no golden arches in NYC.  No fast food period.  I made my first mistake by not researching restaurants in the areas we would be visiting.  I sort of thought there would be so many, and being NYC they would be busy, but have a high turn around.  I also wasn't sure where we would end up and when.  That was a mistake.  Our first night ended up to be OK, except the $23 hot dog part.  In hindsight, we could have ordered 1 and cut it into pieces and fed the kids with some left over.  But thankful to have found a place to sit, and kids being in good moods and promising to eat it all, we were idiots and ordered 2.  My middle daughter insisted she'd finish a whole hamburger ($25) but alas, she's 9.  Why do we listen to  her?

So the kids enjoyed $15 milkshakes, and we boxed up 2 hotdogs and a hamburger, which of course, we left on the table all night in the hotel, and threw out when we left.  So that was a waste.

I learned from that. I made a reservation for the next night at an Italian restaurant that had pizza.  I knew the kids would like this pizza because we have a place close to us in Toronto which serves the same wood oven style and they love it.   After getting lost, and showing up an hour late, we sat down ready to order. I looked at the menu and saw dishes that I thought MAYBE my girls would try.  I asked... offered money, begged.  Nope. Pizza.

It was great.  I got to eat beef carpaccio and short ribs.  They ate pizza.  It was fine.  But I was so disappointed that they didn't even try.  I won't even mention our last night.

At any rate.  I will continue to cook nice meals at home.  I refuse to do the "kid friendly" thing because I personally don't want some variation on chicken fingers.  Nor do I want to make two separate meals. But I admit, I do make two meals in one.  That is to say, I make stuff I like, but cook some parts of it it separately so that the kids are happy (not really, but they eat it) and so am I.  And maybe one day, they will go out and eat something in a restaurant and say "Hey! I've already had Coq au Vin! I remember my mom making this at home".  At these words, I will die happy.