What's cooking Wednesday

Around here, supper is often a showdown lately.  Like so many families with toddlers, we battle over food.  I try not to make a big deal of it and offer alternatives but I'm getting pretty tired of the small handful of foods that Hope is willing to eat.  Not to say they aren't healthy choices.  Tonight she asked if we were having broccoli for supper: "Broccoli my FAVOURITE!" she declared.  She's not kidding.  She would easily eat broccoli three meals a day, seven days a week.  So, I can't complain about her vegetable intake.  My complaint is that she won't try anything outside of her comfort zone; she won't try anything new.  

Last night we had a major showdown which resulted in me feeling like a contender for most craptacular mother of the year and her crying in her room and refusing to try what was on her plate in the dining room.   And she is so stubborn that she ended up going to bed without eating anything.  Apparently she has at least one of my traits, according to John.

Tonight I decided to ensure that everything we ate was in her list of "favourites": sausage, oven baked potato wedges, and of course, broccoli.  However, I switched it up a little.  I made the broccoli a little differently, in the way my SIL Cibele makes it.  And it was AWESOME.  And so, if you have a broccoli monster in your house and are tired of steaming or boiling or whatever you normally do, I highly recommend you try this week's feature for my contribution to What's Cooking Wednesday.

Scrumptious Oven Broccoli

Take a head of broccoli or however much you think you'll eat and cut it all up in bite size-ish pieces.  Put it in a loose pile on a large piece of tin foil.  Squeeze about half a lemon on top.  Sprinkle on some good sea salt, some freshly ground pepper, one or two cloves of chopped garlic and half of a finely sliced onion.

Cover that tin foil with another large piece of tin foil and create a packet by crimping the sides together so steam won't escape.  Put it in the oven at about 350F.  Check it after about 20 minutes.  I like it firm but not crunchy.  Just keep it baking until it is how you like it.

Delicious!  and simple and full of vitamins.  Hope ate it all up with no complaints of course. Right before she lit the oven mitt on fire.  More on that tomorrow.

Time to do some serious catching up on the best show on tv: Battlestar Gallactica.  Woot!