Dinner Together: Vegetable Macaroni and Cheese
My husband had a theory about why our last couple of Dinner Together recipes weren't very successful with the kids (although we liked them). "These aren't foods they recognize," he said. (I thought last week's pizzas were a pretty familiar concept, but he said the portobello "crust" took things too far.)
So I promptly put him in charge of finding this week's recipe. And I learned that when you have dinner together, sometimes it's the parents who have to try a not-so-favorite thing to take one for the team.
John chose a homemade vegetable macaroni and cheese from familyfun.com. I'm not a huge fan of macaroni and cheese, but it's definitely a familiar food to my young ones. Only it's usually a little more orange in color, and not from the carrots you see here....
(Photo by me)
The good thing about this recipe is that it's designed to use up leftover vegetables you might already have prepared in your fridge. We omitted the broccoli that was in the original recipe to save prep time, and reduced the Tabasco to just a few drops for tender young tummies.
This wasn't the fastest recipe this column has seen, but it did come together in about an hour. It was cheesy and colorful, and I liked it enough to take leftovers for lunch another day.
And the kids? Not thrilled, even when I presented the dish in a heart-shaped plate to make it more fun. But they're very slowly getting used to the new rules of the dinner road, and that's what counts.
Vegetable Mac and Cheese
Serves 4
2 cups dried tubular pasta, such as elbow macaroni
3 medium carrots, peeled and cut diagonally into 1/4-inch slices
10 ounces frozen or fresh broccoli, stems sliced, florets separated (optional)
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1 cup low-fat plain cottage cheese
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard (country style)
1/4 teaspoon Tabasco sauce, or to taste (I used just three drops)
Salt and pepper to taste
6 ounces sharp cheddar cheese, coarsely shredded
4 ounces part-skim mozzarella cheese, coarsely shredded
1 tablespoon grated parmesan cheese
Heat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease a 2-quart baking dish with cooking spray or margarine. Cook the pasta in a large saucepan of boiling salted water for 4 minutes. Stir in the carrots and cook for 2 minutes. Then add the broccoli, if using, and cook for 2 minutes more. Drain, reserving 1/2 cup of the cooking liquid, and return the pasta and vegetables to the saucepan. Stir in the peas.
In a food processor, combine the cottage cheese with the reserved liquid from the cooked pasta. Add the mustard, Tabasco sauce, salt and pepper and blend until smooth. Stir into the pasta and vegetables. Mix in the cheddar and mozzarella and pour into the baking dish. Sprinkle with parmesan.
Bake uncovered until the top is golden brown (about 20 to 25 minutes), then let it set for 10 minutes to firm up.
--Adapted from familyfun.com
Per serving: 529 calories, 33 grams protein, 21 grams fat, 13 grams saturated fat, 52 grams carbohydrate, 5 grams fiber, 69 milligrams cholesterol, 767 milligrams sodium. Analysis by registered dietitian Jodie Shield.
Categories: Dinner Together, Food and Recipes
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Comments
I was *just* looking for a similar recipe last night. I'm making this ASAP -- for me!
Posted by: mary | March 19, 2008 10:07 AM
I look forward to reading "Dinner Together" because you make such an earnest attempt to cook healthy foods that your children summarily reject. It's amusing because as a mom of 3 (7, 14, 17), I find it utterly predictable.
I rarely buy convenience foods and I make as much as I can from scratch. Don't give up; it takes awhile to readjust their palates.
Do you know what was fundamentally wrong with the mac and cheese? OMG, Mom! What are those orange and green things in my mac and cheese? Aaaarrrgghhhh! (run screaming). Kids DO NOT like stuff all mixed together. Nope.
So make the healthy mac and cheese, and then make one of the veggies on the side. My daughter (7) loves anything with a "dip". We use salad dressings, soy sauce, cheese sauce...almost anything runny. Dip cooked broccoli, carrots. She likes peas served in a shot glass, so she can "drink" them.
Your husband's right about the familiar, but don't expect them to embrace tofu dogs just because they resemble an Oscar Meyer weiner. Baby steps here...
Enlist them to help you cook, to help you choose the menu. How can they say the food they cooked themselves is yucky? Better yet, take them to shop for it. Take them to the Waverly Farmers' Market and introduce them to the people who grow the produce. I have yet to meet a farmer who wasn't thrilled to sell a $2 basket of zucchini directly to a small child.
Hmmm, this could be a whole article for The Sun....or a short series of articles that includes samplings/reviews from kids' cookbooks. Let me know if you would be interested. I freelanced many years ago, and wrote a few articles for the Sun's food section. I also wrote dining articles for the now-defunct Where Baltimore travel mag.
Posted by: Paula | March 19, 2008 11:14 AM
How can anyone NOT LOVE MACARONI-AND-CHEESE?!!!
You must be a commie.
Posted by: Cynical Eastern Shore Girl | March 19, 2008 1:34 PM
I have a great mac and cheese recipe from Cat Cora that uses whole wheat pasta and ricotta cheese and peas. My super picky son gobbles it up.
Posted by: Kayris | March 20, 2008 2:08 PM