Today I experimented with a recipe for fussy kids. A client of mine has two kids who aren't big veggie eaters and we are trying various recipes with somewhat disguised veggies in them. She mentioned trying a sausage casserole and this is what I tried today. I have added the veggies to a white sauce in a pureed form, so as to disguise them in a texture and taste they already like. I used chicken sausage as this is my favorite at the moment.
My housekeeper and I just had it for lunch and she agrees that her fussy four year old would love it. So fingers crossed. Any feedback from the Moms who read my blog would be much appreciated.
Chicken sausage casserole
Makes enough
for about 4 kids
1 cup of
cooked rice (try brown basmati and add a small amount of lentils to the rice
while cooking)
3 Tbsp of
white flour
3 Tbsp of
butter
350ml of
milk (more if needed)
½ a chicken
stock cube (or 2 tsp of stock powder)
½ a cup worth
off pureed very lightly steamed – try using yellow, orange and white veggies (a
little tomato is fine too) just to keep the colour easily disguisable.
4 chicken
sausages, microwaved and chopped into small pieces
¼ - ½ a cup
of grated cheese of choice (optional)
Pre heat
your oven to 230˚C and place
the rack in the middle.
Get your
rice (and lentils) cooking and your veggies steaming.
Heat the oil
and flour in a small pan or pot. Allow it to fry for a minute while stirring
the paste with a whisk. Remove it from the heat and add the milk. Stir this with
your whisk until the paste and milk have combined, then return this to the heat
and stir it with your whisk slowly while waiting for the sauce to thicken. If
it starts thickening very fast, remove it from the heat and continue stirring
it until the thickening has settled down. It will reach a point where the
thickness stabilises. Add more milk if it gets too thick. Add the chicken stock
and whisk it into the sauce.
Layer the
rice (and lentils if using) at the bottom of a small casserole dish. Then
combine half the white sauce with the pureed veggies and spoon that over the
rice. Add a little water to the veggies if they are too thick. Scatter the
chicken sausage pieces over this, then spoon the white sauce over everything
and lastly scatter with cheese. Bake in the oven until bubbling and golden
brown, about 10 minutes.
Try to serve
this with the some raw veggies of your child’s choosing too. If your child is
seriously fussy about veggies, start with less veg puree and add more and more
as they get used to the taste.
This was a huge hit with my vegie hating kids, thank you for making dinner so easy. I'm doing this one again.
ReplyDelete