Today, we will observe the two test subjects in my own personal study on Strategic Ordering In Childbirth, a little known phenomenon in nature that simultaneously discourages only children and caps a family’s total number of offspring at two. My results, so far:
Child One
Age:13
Potty training finalized: 2 years, 1 month
Sleep patterns: Rip Van Winkle
Trips to the emergency room to date: 1
Gray hairs, direct responsibility for to date: 7
Child Two
Age: 5
Potty training finalized: 4 years, plus the time it took me to arrange for a changing station at Senior Prom ’25 and finalize the details on his future marriage to a really pretty astronaut
Sleep patterns: Guardians of Ga’Hoole
Trips to the emergency room to date: 4
Gray hairs, direct responsibility for to date: 62
As you can see, Child One made children look like these cute little things we just do for fun. Like a great hair accessory.
Then came Child Two. He made me realize that I probably deserved to have my upper armed pinched really hard every time I looked all curious and confused when I heard people talk about how “difficult” kids can be. It was something of a bait and switch.
Fortunately nature is a lot more complicated than a set of statistics, so in spite of the wildly different numbers they’ve put on the board I love One and Two with exactly the same sickeningly sweet gusto. I didn’t think to name them Yin and Yang, but it seems like a more useful way to describe them than through simple comparisons. Their eating habits are no exception. Jack’s tank never gets full, and I’ve done things they usually only do in the circus to try to get Liam to eat.
Given their, um, fierce individuality, you can imagine my surprise when I opened my friend Debbie’s new cookbook Parents Need to Eat Too and instantly felt like it was written for both One and Two (and me). This is even more remarkable considering it was actually written for new parents who are short on time, sleep, and dinner ideas beyond “Call for takeout”, so that can only mean that it’s just a really kickass cookbook.
Just how kickass it is became evident the second I sat down with the boys to select a single recipe to try for Debbie’s virtual blog tour and this post.* I mean, can you imagine? Arriving at one recipe that they’d both be into? Yeah right. We sat down with their very different personalities and these, my biggest challenges when it comes to feeding them…
Child One, biggest food concern: He’d live exclusively on meat if given the option. I’ve considered administering green vegetables via IV.
Child Two, biggest food concern: His plate has to be visually exciting and/or singing or blinking for him to take an interest.
By some miracle (also known as Debbie’s brilliance) we arrived at the recipe for Broccoli & Cheddar Pinwheels.
They were, in no particular order, fun, delicious, full of green veggies and whole wheat goodness, and easy. So easy that One and Two jumped right in to help with the assembly. And the eating? Everyone knows dinner tastes better when you’re a kid and you make it yourself, so let’s just say the photos I intended to add of them enjoying their hard work were nixed because I wasn’t fast enough with the camera. Tonight I’m recording a new statistic.
Best family cooking experience, Child One, Child Two, and Parents (Who Need to Eat Too): Broccoli & Cheddar Pinwheels
We cannot wait to tear into the rest of this book. If you would like to enter to win your own very own copy of Parents Need To Eat Too, for yourself or for a gift, please comment below with your finest cooking moment. I’ll let you define the word “finest”. The winner will be chosen at random on 2/28/12, but you’ll still get serious points for being your funny, delightful selves.
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Update: Congratulations to Summer! Her name was selected as the winner by RandomPicker.com, and I’ll be getting in touch to see where she’d like her book sent.
Thank you all so much for participating! 🙂
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In the meantime, please enjoy Debbie Koenig’s recipe for Broccoli & Cheddar Pinwheels, and join me in congratulating her on a job well done. If she can find the point where my children meet, I know she’s a genius.
Broccoli & Cheddar Pinwheels
Makes 8, and doubles well
Cooking time: 1 hour (20 minutes active)
1 pound prepared pizza dough, white or
whole wheat
2¹⁄₂ cups finely chopped broccoli, or one
10-ounce package of frozen chopped
broccoli, defrosted and finely chopped
(If you don’t mind the additional cleanup, you
can do the fine-chopping by pulsing in the
food processor. It’s important that the pieces
be quite small, or you’ll have trouble in the
assembly)
1 to 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese,
depending on how much you like cheese
1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 425°F. Line or grease a baking sheet.
1.Remove pizza dough from the refrigerator 30 minutes to 1 hour before you plan to use it.
2. Steam the broccoli until just tender, 5 to 6 minutes. Cool slightly, then combine broccoli with the Cheddar, mustard, and salt and pepper to taste.
3. Roll or stretch the dough on a floured work surface into a large rectangle, about 10 x 14 inches. Don’t worry if you can’t get those exact measurements, but take care not to stretch the dough so thin it rips.
4. Spread the broccoli mixture over about three-quarters of the dough, leaving an uncoated portion at one short side. Begin to roll the dough from the short side covered with the broccoli spread, and keep rolling until you’ve got a nice, neat log of dough.
5. Using a serrated knife or a pastry scraper, cut the log into 8 equal pinwheels. Carefully lay the pinwheels flat on the prepared baking sheet, and bake until crust is golden brown and the cheese is melted, 15 to 20 minutes.
*This post is actually being published several hours after the end of the blog tour (see Child Two, Trips to the emergency room to date). However, the good news about me being way super ridiculously behind is that today is the day, and Parents Need To Eat Too is now officially available at all of these fine retailers, including a couple of my favorite local shops.
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