How many times have you tried a new recipe just to have your masterpiece turn out terrible? For many, this is what discourages us from healthy eating and from venturing outside of our normal 7-10 old faithful meals with kids.
I often say if our kids eat everything we put in front of them, then we're not feeding them the right kinds of things. Kids rarely balk at processed foods and fast foods. It's when we venture outside of their comfort zone that it gets tricky.
Moving outside of our comfort zone takes experimentation. Lots of it! In fact, I generally have 2+ failed recipe attempts each week. It doesn't sound like much, but that's a lot of money and healthy food that goes down the drain.
Two massive failures in the kitchen:
A few months ago I purchased a whole free-range, organic turkey. It was quite expensive but I knew it would serve at least 3 meals (2 with the meat and one for soup). After we roasted the turkey, I cooked the bones, vegetables, and herbs cook down all night so that we would have the most nutritious bone broth for soup.
Last week I pulled out our most precious homemade bone broth and began making soup for the kids. I made one big mistake of putting the noodles in too soon and ruined the ENTIRE pot of soup. I should have known better. We are working to eliminate gluten from our diet, so I used gluten-free noodles thinking it would help the kids adjust to the soup (that's what I get for cheating - should have just went without). I didn't stop to think about how starchy the water gets during the boiling process. Ugh! It was a sloppy mess. The soup was terrible, the kids hated it, and I ended up literally dumping the most precious nutrients down the drain.
It hurt, but that's what it's like to experiment in the kitchen. Not only are recipes finicky, but add to that picky kids and tired moms, and it truly becomes a case of rolling the dice with every meal. As painful as it can be though, these experiments in the kitchen are the only way you'll truly break through the cycle and change your eating habits.
A few weeks ago I purchased a most wonderful Gluten Free Zucchini Bread mix. We work hard to keep packaged foods out of the home, but I wanted to try this before I invested in making one of our own. To my surprise, the kids LOVED it. Now it was time to create our own version. The homemade version actually became the topic of Episode 3 of our new Healthy Kids, Busy Families YouTube show. I couldn't wait to experiment with it on camera. I strategized the ingredients and was certain it would work...but it didn't. Even I couldn't disguise on camera just how bad it was. Local honey, good flours, coconut oil, farm fresh eggs, organic zucchini...all down the drain. I don't care how much time you spend in the kitchen, it hurts every time a recipe flops.
Lesson learned: try, try again.
We owe it to our kids to expand the foods they eat, to constantly experiment with new foods, to expand their fruit and vegetable consumption (beyond just bananas, apples, and carrots). It's not easy and can sometimes be expensive, but every failed attempt gets us a little closer to that perfect recipe. In fact, we learned our lessons from the gluten-free zucchini bread and rebounded with an amazing recipe that knocked our socks off (see below). So be sure to check out our Improved Zucchini Bread recipe below and check out this episode of Healthy Kids for Busy Families. Failed recipes are common and happen in every family (even ours, and even on camera).
