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KackyK
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 11:49am | IP Logged
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I am a very boring menu planner. I can't think past french fries, rice, pierogies and plain buttered noodles as sides.
I was brought up with a meat, a starch, a vegetable as your dinner. I'm having a hard time breaking that mold. I'd really like to revamp my menu planning...any ideas!!!!????
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KackyK
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JodieLyn
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 12:15pm | IP Logged
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are you looking for different ideas? like maybe a salad instead of a "starch"?
or are you looking for ideas like
french fries or boiled potatoes or mashed potatoes or fried potatoes or hash brown patties or baked potatoes or twice baked potatoes or potato salad?
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teachingmyown
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We eat lots of green salads here, especially this time of year. We also eat steamed veggies. As for the other sides, we do lots of mashed potatoes. We have been eating fried rice lately and all the kids love it.
Casseroles are always good for getting all of your food groups in one dish, eliminating that need to think of something else!
Funny story: when we were first married, dh would offer to cook as he had shorter work hours then. I appreciated that because I really didn't know how to cook. What would happen though is that he would fix some sort of meat and that would be it. I would ask what we were having with it and he would give me a blank look! Apparently, single guys can live on meat alone!  After a while he figured it out and now he spends as much time on the sides as he does on the main dish. 
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anitamarie
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For starch sides, we often use bread or muffins. The kids love to help with making them, so it's fun for all of us. You can even make vegetable muffins, i.e. carrot, zucchini, to sneak in a few more veggies.
Anita
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KackyK
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 3:50pm | IP Logged
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Jodie, any side! My kids are non-salad eaters...they'll pick at it enough to be excused from the table, and that is it. I don't do mashed potatoes much because of my allergy to peeling potatoes (check out this thread comment on that one ). I hadn't thought of hash brown patties. So anything without the need to peel a potato would be good!
Molly how do you make the fried rice? Is it white or brown rice?
Anita love the muffin idea! I have a really poor eating 4yold...that might be a great answer for that!
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KackyK
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Fuzzy
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 4:19pm | IP Logged
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Kacky, do you have an apple peeler core slicer? You can fix most of them to just peel, if that will help your kids get ivolved. Just a thought. I used that and did the whole nine yards with that machine, and covered them with butter, garlic, salt and parmesan cheese, and baked for about 30 minutes. Very yummy.
I grew up the same way with my meals! I do white rice, brown rice, risotto, boiled potatoes (no peeling!  ), mashed, slice them and bake them like chips. Have you tried any of those noodles/rice things by Lipton? That may give you some ideas too.
If you need some, I am happy to supply you with a plethora! Email me and I can send you some.
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stellamaris
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When I'm in a hurry, I often turn to fruit as a side dish. A nice bowl of orange wedges, apple wedges, pineapple chunks, or applesauce tastes great with just about everything. Also, it's easy to make up a raw vegetable platter early in the day (or even early in the week!). My kids like raw vegies better than cooked ones. Instead of starch, I often fix a salad. Other vegies favorites are broccoli, steamed and buttered, and green beans, buttered. If you looking for starch besides potatoes, a quick option is buttered whole wheat toast. You could dress up the rice with slivered almonds, and just about anything can go with pasta. We like stir-fried green peppers and onions and broccoli tossed into pasta kind of like a primavera.
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guitarnan
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 4:23pm | IP Logged
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Kacky, if you scrub the potatoes really well you can mash them with skins on. We do it all the time! (A little sour cream and garlic powder make the potatoes extra yummy!)
You can also make potato wedges (skin on) in the oven or in foil packets on the grill - cut about 1-inch wedges, drizzle with olive oil and a little salt - rosemary is good, too - and either bake them in the oven or seal in foil and put on the grill (first - they take a while and stay hot inside the foil if you need to take them off to make room).
For non-potato sides, I stick to simple things - one or two veggies and (usually but not always) a starch. Summer favorites include orzo pasta (rice shaped), couscous and other quick-cooking items because I hate heating up my kitchen.
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CrunchyMom
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| Posted: April 13 2009 at 4:41pm | IP Logged
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We use a potato ricer for mashed potatoes. If you boil them with the skins on, you can push them through and the skins come of in the ricer. We also will smash potatoes with skins like Nancy
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JodieLyn
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ah.. my hands react to the starch in potatoes.. and get red and itchy.. it helps to rinse as I go and to not start with dry hands.. when my hands are dry (dry skin not dry to the touch) they react more. You might also try boiling the potatoes with skins on and then peel after they're cooked? they wouldn't spray into the air and might solve the breathing problem.
But the absolute best solution.. give the job to the kids .. so it takes longer.. oh well.. just plan for the extra time.
rice.. you can vary rice by using white or brown rice.. or even mixing them.. you can do plain rice or fried rice or rice pilaf
noodles.. again vary the type.. twisties or macaroni or noodles or bow ties.. you can put a bit of seasoning on them.. garlic and basil for instance.. instead of just plain buttered noodles.. you can use macaroni and cheese as a side.
What about sweet potatoes? I don't like then sweetened like "candied yams".. but plain and mashed like mashed potatoes.. yummy.. especially with ham or any pork.
instead of macaroni salad or potato salad a broccoli sald is yummy.. broccoli with golden raisins and bacon bits and purple onion with a poppyseed dressing.. yummy.. oh wait you were wanting healthier  one super easy pasta salad that is healthier though and cheaper and especially great for last minute or winter.. is you stir fry some frozen veggies (whatever you like) with a generous amount of oil and seasonings.. then you toss into cook pasta.. very good.. my dh likes this because there's no mayo so it's safe to carry for his lunch.. it comes out good and you can serve it warm (just made) or cold.
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Mary Chris
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I TRY to do a lot of veggies. I aim to do salad and another veggie...green beans, broccoli, corn, peas........I have forgotten about the corn and peas lately. I will also do fruit during the warmer months. My children beg for applesauce.
Do your kiddos eat beans? Mine love baked beans, probably not super healthy since I serve them from a can.  Sometimes we do a black bean and corn salad.
My kids love roasted potatoes, I use red or new potatoes, scrub them good, quarter them, drizzle (okay pour) olive oil over them, sprikle salt, pepper, and rosemary and sliced garlic, stir and put them into a 425 oven.
I have gotten out of the rice habit, I'm trying to bring that back into my cooking also. I rarely do pasta as a side dish.
As for salad, my kiddos are just getting better about eating it. When Chari was visiting her husband made Cesar Salad for them, you would have thought my kids had died and gone to heaven. They love it.
I am bad about just fishing out what my kids will eat from the salad bowl. One doesn't eat a lot of lettuce so I just pull out the red, yellow and orange peppers along with some cucumbers for him, one eats most everything and one only eats spinach. But I don't really care because they are eating it.
I have been giving more thought to side dishes lately....especially when my carnivores are going back for their third serving of meat.
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KackyK
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I am so glad to hear Mary Chris you have carnivores too! I really thought it was my child that was just a blood-thirsty eater!
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KackyK
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guitarnan
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I have "carb-i-vores" here - their idea of bliss is my Friday Lenten mac and cheese from the crockpot. Who cares about those other food groups?
I finally had to break out of the "veggie variety" mindset and be thankful that, if my kids had to like only one green vegetable, that it was broccoli. We eat it constantly. Several times each week. It's healthy and easy to cook. When I get tired of it, I make another adult veggie (zuccini and tomato "stew", for ex.) and keep steaming those florets.
Eating the same two veggies ("corn" - I use that term loosely) all week long is dull to me, but comforting to my kids. That is all that counts, really - that they get enough nutrients and good fiber...
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Stephanie_Q
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JodieLyn wrote:
What about sweet potatoes? I don't like then sweetened like "candied yams".. but plain and mashed like mashed potatoes.. yummy.. especially with ham or any pork.
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We make (baked) sweet potato fries...Oven roasted potatoes (with rosemary and garlic) are a favorite (I use both 'white' and sweet potatoes).
Our "default' side dish is microwave-baked potatoes and some vegetable from our freezer.
We cook rice with chicken broth and add some "vegetable soup" mix (dried veggies) or make Spanish rice to go with Mexican food.
Since I've been learning how to bake, breadsticks or rolls, or even sliced bread w/ butter when I plan ahead (which I should really do more often - I need to make Saturday a baking day for things like this) Cornbread is good. I make it when we have chili and cinnamon rolls for dessert.
Perhaps it's just that time of year, when we're out of "fresh" ideas at the end of winter / beginning of spring; but we're starting to enjoy some "spring" variety with asparagus; strawberries and rhubarb...(at least in the store, if not in the garden quite yet). I'm really looking forward to summer platters of fresh sliced tomatoes and cucumbers...squash in the fall...now thinking about all this had made me hungry!
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Topic: I need help with side dishes
