Kid Vs. Produce

Artichokes. They aren’t the most reasonable vegetable to approach a produce-averse child with, but I figured it was time. I love artichokes. And although the Chef and my husband will eat them as well, The Boy has never willingly eaten a plain, steamed artichoke before. (He’s had them in that spinach pie I made, and I’ve sneaked them into casseroles.) I figured this would be a one-biter before he ran screaming into the night.

To up the chances that he’d eat SOMETHING, I decided to pair the artichokes with chicken sausage and quinoa.  Here’s what we started with:

• Quinoa, prepared according to package directions in my rice steamer, using chicken broth as the liquid.
  • One scrawny carrot
  • A couple cloves of garlic
  • 1/2 a small red onion
  • 1 package of spinach, fontina and roasted garlic chicken sausages (fully cooked)
  • grated Parmesan cheese

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Probably three years ago, The Boy and I went together to our local Dinner My Way restaurant and assembled some entrees for the freezer.  One of the dishes we came home with was called “Spinach Pie” and was basically a quiche using fresh baby spinach, onion, Greek olives, cherry tomatoes and feta cheese, among other ingredients.  It was also topped with puff-pastry, which I thought was overkill.  Anyway, The Boy actually loved this pie, and I’ve been banging around in the kitchen trying to duplicate it for the last three years to no avail.

Let’s just say that making a quiche with an entire brick of feta will yield something so salty you will need to drink a gallon of water after one bite, and then you’ll be throwing it all away.  Learn from me, friends!

The other night, I made another run at it.
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