I don't think our family is that unusual in that all of us have different preferences and levels of pickiness. My husband, for example, will eat anything I put in front of him. My older son, at 16, is pretty much the same way, because he's a teenager who eats everything in sight, really. My younger son, at almost 14, has always had a more sensitive palate (part of which, I think, stemmed from issues of lactose intolerance and reflux as a baby/toddler), and although he's getting better and is willing to try things (it's a rule at our dinner table), he is much more picky about what he eats. And it's hard to know, exactly, what he will eat, since sometimes he doesn't like something because of the flavor, other times it's because of the texture. Sigh.
For someone who is an adventurous cook and who rarely makes the same thing twice (really!), it can be a challenge to make things that are interesting yet will appeal to everyone. I never did get into the habit of being a short-order cook (making one meal for the kids and another for the adults), but I do like to make things that everyone will eat, so one of my tricks is to plate things in layers. Also, if someone doesn't like what I make, he is free to make something else of their own choosing, but I won't make it for them. My youngest son learned early on to make his own PB&J (not the healthiest thing, but I always had at least one vegetable he would eat, too).
One way I did this, especially when the kids were littler, is to make pasta, but before I put on a sauce, I would put some of the plain noodles in a bowl for my youngest, then a bowl of pasta with sauce for my oldest son, then pasta, sauce and extras (sun-dried tomatoes, artichokes, olives, etc) for my husband and me. This is relatively easy to do for pasta, but one can only eat so much pasta. Another trick is with sauces. Grill up some chicken, keep it plain for the kids, do veggies (raw carrot sticks for one, roasted or grilled for the rest of us -- no biggie, since they have to be prepped anyway), then add a sauce (pesto or romesco, for example) that people can put on their plate as they wish. Same with salads and noodle bowls (two of our favorite types of meals), along with a "snack plate" which I have blogged about before. Tacos, of course, are also popular in our house, because I just put every part out, and they make them how they want. But sometimes, you want something a little more sophisticated.
A recipe I found on Epicurious encapsulates this idea very well, and it's relatively easy to do. It's a spice-rubbed pork tenderloin with grains (you can choose farro, rice, quinoa -- whatever the majority of your family can tolerate) and a salad with a sauce, building flavor from one level to the next.
The recipe gives three options for seasoning the pork loin. I chose the middle option, which included salt, pepper, cumin and brown sugar, because I knew my pickiest would still eat it if it had cumin on it, plus, you can add a little (not as much as in the recipe) to get a hint of the spice, without being very forward with it.
I then chose to make the grain salad with farro, which I have made before. Everyone in my family is pretty adventurous when it comes to grains, so I don't have to worry about that, but this would work just as well with rice. You can see for the simplest plate I made, I separated out all the grain salad elements, which is easy to do, since you just need to set aside unseasoned tomatoes and cucumbers as you prep them (in this case, I left the cucumbers off all together, since he won't eat them). I usually just have plates out and make my son's plate as I go along. For the next level of flavor, I knew my older son didn't like olives, so I made the salad up to the point of adding the olives and feta, serving some up on his plate before I tossed everything together. To get him to try the feta, I served a small bit on his plate, separate from the grain salad.
Then, for my husband and me, I added the olives and feta to the salad, and served with the pan sauce. Because my youngest likes broccoli, I added some steamed broccoli to everyone's plates as well. It complemented the rest of the dish, and we can always use an extra helping of veggies, right?
Do you have simple ways to serve meals that appeal to different tastes? Please share your ideas!
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