Compliments to the chef

Will has become annoyingly picky about food over the past year or so.  I find it particularly irksome because he was a really adventurous eater throughout toddlerhood, and I think his pickiness now is less of an issue of his truly disliking a food, and more about him just wanting to be a little difficult and skip to dessert as soon as possible.  Granted, I do like to do a lot of experimentation in the kitchen, so I'm often trying to get him to eat all kinds of new things.  Sometimes that pays off and he finds a new favorite food--brussels sprouts, for instance--but it often backfires and he spends the whole meal complaining about green stuff.

This week, however, we had two nights of dinner where Will spontaneously THANKED ME for the delicious food.  I was shocked speechless, but decided I better bookmark these recipes for use again, and share them, of course.

Monday night, in an effort to use up some leftover ground chicken, I made lettuce wraps according to this recipe:

PF Chang's Lettuce Wraps with Chicken

I had everything except the water chestnuts and chili pepper sauce, so I skipped them, and I added in some red bell pepper.  I served them with potstickers (from the freezer section), and we ate with chopsticks and fingers.  The kids were thrilled.

Last night, I tried these two:

Island Pork Tenderloin

Island Rice with pineapple and lime

We had broccoli on the side, and both the kids and John totally cleaned their plates.  I thought the Tabasco might be an issue with Will (Anna doesn't mind spice), but he loved it.  I sold the meal as "Hawaiian Pork and Rice" and that helped, too.  :-)