By Stephanie

I’m a thirty-something mom to two girls who loves to cook, bake, and (obviously) eat. Even back when my husband and I were poor starving newlyweds, the things we splurged on tended to be food-related: a great piece of salmon from the specialty fishmonger; the freshest peaches at the farmer’s market; dinner at our favorite restaurant. I subscribed to Bon Appetit, Cooking Light, and Gourmet. I collected more than my fair share of cookbooks. We traveled to France for our five-year anniversary and happily ate our way through Provence.

Then, we had kids. I figured: we like to eat, they’ll like to eat. I was wrong. I now live with a two-year-old vegetarian who subsists mostly on bread and fruit and a four-year-old who will walk into the kitchen during the late afternoon, smell the air, and announce, “I don’t like what you’re making for dinner, Mommy.”

I’m determined to change this. In Four Forks — an ongoing series of blog posts here in the Healthy Meal Ideas section of Bodies in Motivation — I’ll be trying out one new meal per week on the Midwest’s pickiest critics with a goal of getting them to broaden their nutritional landscape with simple-to-prepare, adult-friendly meals. My cooking tends to be seasonal, at least partially organic, and a moderate level of difficulty. (Think Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food more than Martha Stewart’s Hors d’oeuvres.) Since we’re a very active family that doesn’t struggle with weight issues, I’ll be aiming for general healthiness and well-rounded nutrition, not an extreme low-cal or fat-free meal.

Each week, I’ll make the meal for four, take pictures, and report on who ate it and how it tasted. I’ll link to recipes and nutritional information when it’s available, too. So check back for ideas on what to serve your family when you want to increase their nutrition and decrease your waistline at the same time. And if you want to see it get really interesting, wait until this summer, when we’ll start picking up our weekly share of veggies from the local, organic CSA we’ve joined. Vegetables? A mom can dream . . .

This entry was posted on Friday, March 20th, 2009 at 12:11 pm and is filed under Bite-sized, Healthy Meal Ideas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.