There goes my winning streak.

[rikibeth]

I was doing SO WELL this week with dinners. The pasta and broccoli and fake chicken thing on Saturday night, a lentil curry thing (and packaged mattar paneer) that eternaleponine ate willingly on Monday, and last night's campanelli with asparagus, basil, and balsamic glaze, a Cook's Illustrated recipe that both eternaleponine and melovechocolate enjoyed.

Tonight, though, was a big LOSE.

I had picked up the free magazine at the Wild Oats checkout to see if there were useful vegetarian recipes in it. One of them -- tempeh bourguignon -- struck me as having potential. After all, I had half a bottle of red wine that needed using up, and it was basically protein chunks with onions, garlic, and mushrooms otherwise.

So I set about making it, and it was ready when eternaleponine came home.

She did her usual neophobe routine when she came in the house -- "it smells funny," picking up the lid and going "it has MEAT in it?"

"No, that's tempeh," I told her.

"I'm afraid of it. I'm gonna DIE."

Well, despite the complaining, we did both try it. Served out the rice, spooned the mixture on top, put the green beans next to it...

and...

YUCK.

Tempeh is really, really gross. Even marinating it didn't help. It just tasted yucky, AND it was gritty and weird besides, even after having been marinated AND sauteed.

I didn't even swallow the one bite I took, it was that gross.

"Scrambled eggs and toast?" I offered.

"Or pizza. I'll pay," eternaleponine offered.

"Scrambled eggs will be faster," I pointed out.

So we had scrambled eggs and toast for dinner. And then tea with honey maple stroopwaffels, which have toy value as well as sweet goodness. eternaleponine is not a big tea drinker, so there was the moment of her standing in front of my overstocked tea cupboard, going "Which one did I like again? It had a lion on the box."

"That's Madagascar Vanilla Rooibos. We're out of it. What about this one?" I said, picking out the pomegranate rooibos instead.

"I don't want MONKEY tea, I want LION tea," she said.

"It's a nice monkey. Look, it's like Abu," I said. After all, it was wearing a fez.

She declared it "all right."

This is why I usually don't try new recipes when melovechocolate is in the house. It doesn't matter if she WOULD have liked something, because if eternaleponine doesn't like it, she will be sufficiently influenced by eternaleponine's grossed-out scrunchyfaces that she won't even take a bite.

Conversely, if eternaleponine doesn't find anything to dislike about it, it'll almost certainly pass the eleven-year-old test. Except for not-chicken Marsala, because melovechocolate still refuses to deal with mushrooms if they're big enough to make a bite. But she can eat around those in that dish.

Still, I have to give her credit for TRYING.

That was really gross!

Comments

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

For the record, tempeh isn't gross. But it's good for certain things. And for the recipe you described, I'd have suggested seitan instead of tempeh. (Seitan is what I use for stew/gravy tasting meat dishes.) Tempeh is GREAT for stir fry.

Out of curiosity, do the picky eaters contribute to the cooking efforts? Maybe if they learned more about how to MAKE what they actually like, it would be easier to find things the whole family could eat. And they might like food more that they were invested in. :)

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

The "let them help make it" is a good trick for melovechocolate, and she actually can make a damn good cheese sauce for homemade mac & cheese.

But that's not the problem with eternaleponine. Her problem is that she basically DOESN'T LIKE FOOD. Most of it either tastes weird, smells funny, or has an unappealing texture, as far as she's concerned. My approach has been to encourage her to try new things in restaurants whenever possible, and then as we discover things she likes, add them to the list of try-to-reproduce-at-home, or find-packaged-version, so we can have a variety of meals. That's how not-chicken Marsala and not-chicken with broccoli and pine nuts happened -- recreating restaurant dishes she liked before she went vegetarian.

And since everyone accepts extra firm tofu in stir fry here... I am SO not trying tempeh in it. Because it was GROSS.

[la-directora.livejournal.com]

That's the beauty of everyone's tastes being different. I'd pick tempeh over tofu anyday. Tempeh is interesting and nutty, tofu is bland. Ick.

[cad-red-ducati.livejournal.com]

yeah I tried tempeh, and it was totally gross. I think it's hard to find good non-meat protin. I eat meat, but I don't want to eat it all the time.

question: do you still have that puppet theater thing you were telling me about a while back? W is into the puppet thing now and with moving stuff around the house I probably have room for it. if not, that's cool. let me know. also, I'd be more than happy to pick it up at your conviance.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It's still on the front porch, help yourself!

I eat meat too, but with daughter and housemate both vegetarians, I don't cook it any more.

I'm kinda dreaming of steak frites right now, though.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Reminds me of my attempt with Cream of Celery soup recently. Suffice to say, I don't usually throw a pot of almost 5 servings down the drain, but for that I did make an exception.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Man. that even sounds yucky to me.

[neotoma.livejournal.com]

Well, I had some spare celery and thought -- 'how bad could it be, with potatoes and leeks?' That particular cookbook hadn't failed me before, but this was just terrible -- bland upon bland.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

Potato leek soup is fine as it is (and a household favorite) -- it doesn't need the celery.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

I did that once with a pot of soup. It was a borscht pureed with sour cream. It actually tasted fine, but it was PRECISELY the color and texture of Pepto-Bismol, and neither Arne nor I could imagine sitting down to a bowlful of it.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

well, duh, sour cream is dolloped on borscht as a garnish, not pureed in, your recipe obviously had strayed from its roots.

And that's only if it's milchige borscht. You're not allowed to put sour cream on flaishige borscht.

Of course, I don't like borscht ANYWAY.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Well, this recipe thought it was being hip. I've seen ones like it several times since, and I just snigger in their general direction.

I like borcht enough to make it about once every two years, upon which I remember that I don't like it much at all. But Arne does, so at least one of us is always happy about it. ;)

Okay, you obviously know more about borcht than I do, even if you don't like it. What do milchige and flaishige mean?

[(Anonymous)]

Dairy and meat, respectively. I said it in Yiddish because that's how I think of it when I'm talking about traditional recipes -- the NAMES are Yiddish.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Oh! Now that I know, the words look perfectly obvious. :)

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

I don't like tempeh or seitan much. My cat Taikyo was fond of seiatn, though.

If you ever want a vegetarian beef bourgignon type thing, I highly recommend Crescent Dragonwagon's "Deep December Ragout of Seitan, Shiitakes, and Winter Vegetables" (from "The Passionate Vegetarian") -- but replace the seitan with portobello mushrooms. It's divine. It was a leap of faith the first time I made it, as it has a hodgepodge of ingredients including nutritional yeast and umeboshi plum vinegar, but it tastes *exactly* like beef bourgignon.

Anyway. Sorry the tempeh dish was a disaster. The asparagus one sounds awesome!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It sounds good (and I love mushroom ragout in any case) but it would not fly here with the picky eaters, and a huge list of ingredients does not make for an easy weeknight dinner.

The asparagus one IS awesome. And easy. Basically: boil pasta. Reduce some balsamic vinegar in another pan while pasta is cooking. Cut asparagus in 1" chunks, halve one red onion and slice thin, saute over high heat in olive oil with salt, pepper, and a few red pepper flakes. Drain pasta, add vegetables, 1 cup chopped basil leaves, and 1/2 cup shaved Pecorino Romano (although I had Parmesan on hand and used that and it was fine) and a little more olive oil and a tablespoon of lemon juice. Toss and serve, drizzling the balsamic glaze over each serving and adding more cheese as desired.

[nmsunbear.livejournal.com]

Oh, yeah. A weeknight dinner that one's not.

I'll have to try the asparagus dish. I adore asparagus, but I get in a rut with it.

[mhaille.livejournal.com]

Heh. Funny you should post this, as I was just discussing my dislike of all things tempeh in IM. I did find one version of it that was tolerable- they made tempeh parmesan up at NMH, and once it's been breaded, fried, baked in marinara sauce and covered in melty cheesy goodness, it passes for poorly graded chicken, sort of. With your eyes closed to ignore the fact that it's rectangles.
On the other hand, I just adore tvp tacos and chili.

[hammercock.livejournal.com]

Heh. I actually like tempeh, but it is kind of weird and takes some getting used to. :-}

[ceilidh71.livejournal.com]

tempeh weirds me out. i MUCH prefer tofu, but a) i don't cook tofu in those type of dishes and b) i like a good HEARTY MEAT dish (and no, not R) every once in a while.

so - when are you and the crew coming down South a ways to visit? SC ain't all that far...
:p

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

It is with gas at $2.87 a gallon! Maybe this summer, though. We'll see.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

i hate and despise tempeh.

tofu is good. TVP can be good. tempeh is evil, but thats just my opinion.

have you tried this one?
lightly roast or steam some red peppers (save the trimmed bits for stuffing)
cut them in half
and fill them with chopped veggies mixed with cooked rice

freeze solid in single layer on a tray, then you can bag them and put them away in the freezer.

when ready to serve add a small amopunt of liquid, and shred some cheese on top (or add fake cheese, or no cheese) and microwave until the liquid is absorbed by the rice and the cheese melts.

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

*I'd* like it, but eternaleponine doesn't eat cooked bell peppers. Or any raw ones but the green ones.

TVP makes a fine chili, but guess who doesn't like chili?

This is why I am constantly exercising my creativity. FRUSTRATION.

[fabricdragon.livejournal.com]

you can make the same dish with any veggie that can be scooped out.
potatos, turnips, big zuchini...

i made something like it for desert one time... in an orange scooped out.

would you like my veggie cookbooks? i have tons....

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

oh, I have lots of vegetarian cookbooks. eventually I'll even try to scout through them again for things that might please the fussy eaters.

right now I am still building up the mental database of safe ingredients and flavor combinations. it's not going to be worth scouting the recipes until I have a better sense of what is and isn't okay.

[auspeople.livejournal.com]

That's funny... my kids will only eat anything *but* the green ones.