Reader response: Cooking for a small family with a picky eater

A few weeks ago, I wrote a post on how I try to combat rising prices at the grocery store. In that post, I got a comment from one of my awesome readers, Marci, asking for the name of a particular cookbook that I referenced. In the comment, she also mentioned that she is looking for healthy recipes to feed her family of 2 (her and her son). I emailed her, we chatted and she stated that she really is looking for tricks and tips to feed a small family with a picky eater who doesn’t really eat meat. I think I can help.

I love to cook. Now. What started out as a necessity has grown into something I really enjoy doing. It gets a bit complicated in my house because I don’t eat meat but my husband and daughter do (I do occasionally eat fish). My daughter is a good eater but there are things that she refuses to eat–fish, anything green, black beans (unless they’re in chili). There are some other foods she won’t eat but that changes with the tide. What she loves one day she hates the next. That’s fine though; I’ve figured out how to trick her. But I suppose that’s not really what Marci is interested in hearing.

To deal with a picky eater and a small family, here are some tactics that I use:

• Cook once, eat twice. If a recipe is for 4-6 servings, make the whole recipe. Then freeze half and use that for another meal either later in the month or another month. This reduces cooking time overall and makes menu planning a lot easier. Some people advocate once a month cooking as well.
• Prepare foods that freeze well. Erin Chase, the $5 Dinner Mom, has recipes for muffins and snacks that specifically say “freeze well”. Making these recipe means that not only will you have quick, easy, go-to snacks and meals on hand, but they won’t go bad for quite a while (just make sure you label the storage container with the date)
• Invest in good storage containers and bags. If you buy a package from the grocery store of say, taco shells, you know you’re not going to use all 12 in one meal for 2 people. If you have good storage, you should be able to use them the following week without them going stale. Again, make sure you label the container or bags with the date the package was opened.
• Use a package of food for more than one meal. It’s true that most packages come with servings that are for more than 2 people. It’s easy for the food to go to waste. To combat that, use the food in more than one meal. For instance, about 2 weeks ago, I found a great deal on wraps (keep in mind, I don’t use coupons). They were on sale for approximately $3 for a package of 16. I knew that for those 16 wraps, I could make pizza wraps, breakfast wraps, tortilla strips for corn and salsa soup, and my husband still has some left over for lunches. You can do this with pretty much any food you can think of.
• Explore vegetarian cooking. Since Marci’s son does not like most meat but eats pasta and vegetables, it’s worth it to look into vegetarian cooking. There are tons of websites and cookbooks for recipes (allrecipes.com is my favorite), and vegetarian cooking does not have to include tofu. There are lots of kid friendly vegetarian recipes as well.
• Institute the “no thank you” bite. There are times where I will make something that my daughter will look at and, before trying it, will say “I don’t like that” or “Ewwww” or some variation. So we have a no thank you bite rule. That means that before she says she doesn’t like a food or before she refuses to eat it, she has to try at least one bite. If she doesn’t like it after the one bite, then she doesn’t have to finish it. This encourages the picky eater to try new foods since he knows he has an out if he doesn’t like it!
• Don’t buy in bulk. I know that a common strategy for saving money is to buy in bulk but for a small family, it might create more food and money waste than produce savings. If you do coupon, you can probably save more money by using the coupons and sales than buying in bulk.
• Trick ’em with shapes. For a child like Marci’s who doesn’t like foods that are combined (as in a casserole), you can use a cookie cutter to cut the foods into different shapes. Your child may not like to eat a piece of lasagna but if it’s in the shape of an airplane, he may change his mind. Cookie cutters are pretty inexpensive (I bought mine for $.50) and work wonders on a picky eater.
• Let the child help with menu planning and meal preparation. Since I’ve started including my daughter in my weekly menu planning and asking her to help make our meals, she’s been much more open to trying new foods. It gives her a sense of pride to know that she helped and she wants to try the (sometimes literal) fruits of her labor.