Ratatouille

Craig is gone a lot more evenings now than he was when he was a teacher.  This isn't the end of the world and sometimes I enjoy a little bit of TV time where I can watch whatever I want (not that Craig is so domineering he won't ever let me choose what we watch, but I do feel weirdly guilty when he sleeps through the show I pick).  But, not having Craig here does make dinner time even more challenging.

I used to just use his absence as an excuse to make something really easy for dinner-- Eggo waffles, frozen pizza, macaroni & cheese?  Coming right up!

But ever since spring break, we've been trying to eat healthy (ugh)(more on that some other day, if I ever decide to really bore you) and I can't seem to figure out any way to justify waffles as "healthy."  So this has made dinner infinitely more difficult.  Sometimes I just make a huge salad for me and mac'n'cheese for the kids.  Other days I make something healthy and try to bribe them to eat it.  It all varies depending on my mood and how much energy I have that day and how I think the kids might feel about whatever I'll be making.  (Spoiler alert: Ryder will ALWAYS hate it.  Bentley and Kendra will usually be good sports about.  Colton will only eat bread for dinner ever.  And Camille is my wild card who may or may not like anything.  The girl love LOVES broccoli and tomatoes; anything else is hit or miss.)

Last week I made ratatouille for the first time, and I have to say, I was pretty proud of myself.  I mean, I'm not ready to be a TV chef or anything (and it turns out that the eggplants I bought were twice the size in diameter as my squash, so I couldn't line everything up perfectly like they do in the pretty pictures on food blogs), but despite all that, it still looked very pretty!

Clearly I need one of those mandolin choppers or something...

Then, sneaky mommy that I am, I tried to drum up support for this meal by having them watch the Pixar cartoon by the same name!

I mean, good try, right? Unfortunately, it was met with this reaction:

He'd been absolutely howling, but shut his mouth when he realized I was taking his picture.  Then he went into hysterics over the picture and sobbed in the other room for five minutes before returning to the table and actually eating his food.  Go figure.

All this to say trying to get my kids to eat healthy food is a pain.  And I should probably stick to waffles.  But dang, if it wasn't actually fun to make!

However, even I am finally going to admit to myself: I hate eggplant.  I think I'm done with that vegetable.