Kids' Meals That Grow Up
Double-duty recipes start bland to appease picky children, then bring on the flavor for adults

By Stephanie Witt Sedgwick
Special to The Washington Post
Wednesday, October 11, 2006

It's an old dilemma. How do you make one meal that satisfies adults who crave flavor and children who recoil at it?

Maybe you were lucky or canny enough to have avoided this problem, and in your family, everybody eats everything. Enjoy your good fortune quietly, and try not to torture the rest of us.

This strategy, then, is not for you. This is for everyone whose kids can't stomach the curried chicken, won't touch the vegetables if the vegetables are in turn touching the meat, and won't even sit at the same table with Brussels sprouts. To get you and yours through dinner without requiring you to cook multiple meals, it's all in the tweaking.

For the children, keep everything simple, even bland. Shove the spice rubs and marinades to the other side of the counter. Leave the sauces off and the strong flavors out. Now, for the adults, add it all back in. Everybody's eating the same spaghetti, but not quite the same sauce. Sliced steak is on tonight's menu, but it won't look the same on the adults' plates as on the kids'.

In other words, you cook one meal and then step it up. The basic dinner might consist of no more than broiled chicken, plain pasta and a simple vegetable or fruit, but in the adult version a zippy sauce livens up the chicken, and the same vegetables take on new life with an extra flourish here or seasoning there. Yes, it's more work, but not much. Better yet, everybody wins. You get flavor; they get a safety zone.

Even with a more complicated dish such as stew, adopt a simple coping technique. For the adults, merely serve the stew, vegetables and all. For the kids, segregate vegetables from meat. They'll probably eat some of both, especially if there's enough space in between.

In need of further convincing? This plan has another upside. The kids see what their food looks like when you apply some extra magic to it. If you're lucky and patient, they might even reach over to try some of yours.