Kid Vs. Produce

I have found them.  I found the lost photographic evidence of our foray into cooking like Pioneer Woman!  On a cold, dreary night in February, back when I was still on my soup bender, I realized I had all the ingredients on hand to attempt Pioneer Woman’s Cauliflower Soup.

None of the kids were excited, and thinking back on the soups I’ve put in front of them over the last couple of months, I get it.  I really do.  But Ree is An Expert.  So I figured this had a shot at pleasing them, even if I’ve failed over and over previously.

Right away, I knew I was going to be making a few modifications to the recipe, based on my hope that the addition of cheddar cheese would make this soup more Boy-friendly.  And we typically replace sour cream with plain Greek yogurt – and my kids haven’t been big fans of tangy recently, so I figured I’d just top my bowl with it and let everyone else get a pass.

Here’s the cast of characters:

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Well, I’ve been swinging for the fences over here, but I’ve been mostly hitting foul balls, if I connect at all.  The Boy has been getting frustrated, and I’ve been getting frustrated, and we’ve been eating a lot of mediocre soup.  What’s a mom to do?

After a bit of discussion, I decided to take it back to familiar foods, and incorporate a lot of things that seem to make everything go down easier.  Namely – butter, bacon and cheese.

After checking the pantry, and getting a gander of Elise Bauer’s gorgeous twice-baked potatoes recipe, I thought we might have a successful night in the kitchen.

Besides, there are few things more enjoyable that a baked potato on a chilly night, especially if you take the proper precautions so your potatoes don’t turn terrorist.  Confused?  Read it and weep, my friends.

With The Boy on board to help assemble, and a big ole bag of russets in the pantry, we assembled our ingredients and got ready to make some twice-baked potatoes stuffed with broccoli, bacon and cheese.

Here’s what we started with:

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I’ve been holding off on going to the store this week, because I had a bunch of produce in the drawer on the verge of giving me the finger and dissolving into goo before I could come up with a clever use for it.    Clever meaning something novel enough that The Boy would willingly eat it, but still sticking to our ground rules about no tricky, veggie-hiding muffins or whatever.  Besides, he doesn’t like muffins either.  Oh yes, you all envy me now, don’t you?

He also won’t eat most common dipping condiments, like catsup, ranch dressing, salsa, most cheese sauces.  He likes things plain.  And beige.  He does like scrambled eggs with melted cheese, so I figured we’d pull out some complementary vegetables and see what happened if I mixed them all together.

Here’s what we started with:

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