Eating, like cooking, should be fun. One element of fun with food is the pre-requisite that you like what you're eating! This can be challenging in a large family full of people who prefer different things. Harder than cooking at home is going out to eat; given that I'm wheat- and meat-free and dairy-limited, finding a restaurant where I can eat more than salad and maybe potatoes can be a challenge. Especially given that no one else in the family shares my dietary needs. There's a lovely little family-run Mexican restaurant up the street, El Norteno, where we like to go. Everyone can eat something. The food's very good, and it just means that I eat dairy. Fine. An evening at El Norteno means I don't do dairy again for awhile. No problem. There are also a couple of grilles nearby where my family can enjoy a full-on flesh feast and I can at least have the specialty sweet potato fries (Longfellow Grille) or the garlic-parsely fries (Town Talk Diner) and a creative salad.
Another family favorite--and my personal favorite!--is a local Indian restaurant called Ghandi Mahal. They serve lots of wheat-free vegetarian food, but the rest of the fam can eat all the tandoori chicken their hearts' desire (they have plentiful meat offerings besides tandoori...)! Actually, Indian and Middle Eastern food rank super high on my list of favorites, as well as Thai and other SE Asian cuisine.
For supper tonight, I made a 'build-your-own' curry dinner: In separate pots and pans I made...
Curried fried potatoes (made this way so they'll be easily re-heated tomorrow and served with an egg for breakfast),
Curried mixed veggies, literally a using up of what's waiting in my veggie crisper,
Curried chicken, thigh and breast pieces,
And a pot of brown basmati rice and some coconut-red curry sauce.
Once done cooking in their spice baths, the chicken, veggies and potatoes each got a ladle of the sauce. Then I turned everyone loose to build their plates to their liking. My plate included the rice, potatoes, veggies, a healthy dose of the curry sauce, and a generous sprinkling of crushed red chilies.
Little Ada went for a spoon of rice, a spoon of veggies, and a nice juicy chunk of the chicken.
When cooking for my brood, I try to make meals that are flexible and allow for tailoring to personal tastes. I really like to turn up the heat in my food, but no one else currently living here does (my oldest, on his own, also shares my love of spicy food). So I make my sauces more mild than I prefer, but keep a supply of heat close at hand. (Even my morning egg, over-easy on gluten-free toast, gets a healthy dash of chili flakes!).
Another recent meal I can share was the one I made for my daughter Olivia's 19th birthday. She asked for shrimp and sweet potatoes. The shrimp were marinated for the day in olive oil, lime juice, salt, a few chili flakes, and freshly chopped garlic. When it was almost time to eat, I tossed the shrimp into a giant hot iron skillet with a little more olive oil. When they were done, I tossed them with chopped flat-leaf parsley.
The sweet potatoes, one of Olivia's absolute favorit foods, were cut into disks, tossed with olive oil and generously seasoned with sea salt, fresh-ground pepper and sweet paprika, then oven roasted.
I didn't think that was enough food options for the whole group eating, so we also enjoyed garlic-mashed potatoes with parsely, a simple green salad tossed with my ex's mustard-shallot dressing, and a loaf of local bakery bread.
Simple foods, all, but tasty and so satisfying. Most importantly, for this family, such meals as these offer a little something for everybody! Until next time...
--Sheila
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