Urgh….it fills me with dread thinking about what to cook the kids for dinner (and I love cooking!), what a palava! For those of you who have young children, you’ll be all too familiar with comments such as ‘I don’t want that’,  ‘yuk!’ (thanks kids!) or, my personal favourite and the most over-used dinner time phrase in our house, ‘I don’t like it’ (before they’ve even tried it) whilst you’ve spent over an hour preparing a new meal in your effort to get them to try something new. So instead of forcing it down them, if they don’t eat it, it gets thrown away and NO! you may absolutely NOT have dessert! They frown …I wait…and there it is…impending doom descends down upon them and  they melt into pools of hellish goo on the floor.

So…to avoid these situations I have told them, in no uncertain terms, this is the way it’s going to be; they WILL try at least one new thing a week, if they don’t like it, fine, but they MUST try it, they will mark them out of 10 and if it’s a ‘YAY’ (6 and over) it’ll go on the menu again next week, if it’s a ‘BOO’ we will wait a few weeks before trying it again (weirdly this seemed to work, I think because they have no concept of time and they think ‘a few weeks’ is an eternity (Mummy 1 – Kids 0)….evil laugh.

This is the first of many (I hope) recipes that The Bear and Boo have actually NOT responded with impolite, ungrateful language.

And so it begins……

Soy Chicken and Rice – YAY! (Bear 8/10 Boo 9/10)
http://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/4412/soy-steamed-chicken-with-oriental-rice