A perennial fave for young folk: mac n' cheese. Thing is, my daughter is dairy- a
nd gluten-free, so this mac n' cheese is made with brown rice macaroni and Daiya cheese. It doesn't take long to cook this macaroni... no more than 8 mins, then drain and rinse well. Return to the empty pot, add Daiya cheese (I use a mixture of cheddar and mozz flavours), place pot over still warm burner and stir. Once the "cheese" is mostly melted, add a little butter. Now, this is just basically a plate of starch, so to give it some redeeming nutritional value, I saute some onion, garlic, mushrooms and whatever other veges are handy and mix them in. She doesn't seem to mind. Obviously this is a sometimes, "comfort food" meal and not for all the time. I can count on my daughter to work this off.
Stuffed potato: clean and nuke a nice large potato of choice. When it's tender and has cooled a bit, cut it in half, scoop out most of the potato and put it in a mixing bowl. You can use what you like to cream the potato. I used a little soy cream cheese (soy sour cream works too) to add some protein to it, and a little butter for yum. I also added some Daiya cheddar for flavour and some of those sauteed veges to it as well. I smooshed it all up together and packed it back into the potato skins. Put it back in the microwave and gave it a warming blast before serving.
Last, but certainly not least, the very nutritious fish dinner. Though vegetarian now, my daughter will still eat fish and eggs. These wild salmon fillets went on special at a local store and I stocked up. First I put the asparagus and mushrooms into a pan lightly coated with garlic olive oil, then, after turning them, I added the salmon fillet, sprinkled on top with tarragon and parsley, and a generous squirt of fresh lemon juice. The potato is nuked, just to complete that ol' fashioned "meat n' potato" model.These are just some of my daughter's faves. All can be made your way or adjusted to your tastes. Bon apetite!
