the communal plate

How We Fed The Toddler This Summer, just in case anyone gets the impression from reading this blog that our children eat three-course meals, cutting meat with a knife with their right hand and spearing broccoli with the fork in their left hand while they down organic kale salads. No one in our home eats like this. Just kidding. My husband totally does (and you should see his knife and fork skills).

The last few months have seen us struggling mightily to feed our three-year-old toddler. He has never been difficult to feed, but with every month of extra age, there have been some new peculiarities. NO SAUCE. NO TOMATO SAUCE. NO TOMATOES. THE SAUCE TOUCHED MY CHICKEN. PIZZAONLYWITHTOMATOSAUCE. We haven’t eaten spaghetti bolognese in months. I almost miss it. I’m sure you’ve been there, and I’m sure there is more to come.

This is not a post about curing toddler aversions – although if you have tips, please leave it in the comments – only to share one little presentation tool that seems to have made a difference this summer: The Communal Plate.

We spent most of the month of July in Stockholm for a family staycation. We ate as many meals as we could as a family, something we are rarely able to do when Husband is at work, and did a lot of eating outside. One day on a whim, I put everything on a beautiful black tray from Vietnam that a friend gave us for our wedding, took it outside and put it in the middle of the table. All of us had forks or used our fingers and picked food off the plate.

Mommy, what is this???? Little Boy wanted to know. The Communal Plate, I told him. He was hooked. He loved that we ate the food off the plate together, there was less of a focus on quantity of food to eat and more of the experience of eating as a family. He also probably loved that there was no sauce on anything.

We pulled The Communal Plate out as much as we could this summer, for lunch, for dinner, whenever it was possible. They both like vegetables, but we don’t eat salads all that often, so it’s not something they are used to. I don’t typically care too much about this, but it becomes a problem when we are guests in someone’s home where salads are usually part of the meal. So the communal plate became a great way to get a bit more of the “salad”-type food into our boys.

There are no rules here. I take a look at the contents of my fridge, chop up whatever veggies need to be chopped, thaw frozen chicken meatballs or warm up leftover chicken satay skewers. A can of beans would work well, we love olives, cheese, cucumbers, grapefruit, orange, avocado, red peppers, anything.

Husband grilled these chicken skewers on Saturday, so the boys and I had the leftovers on our Communal Plate for lunch this week. Tasty, easy, delicious. Happy tummies, happy toddler, happy parents.

Chicken Satay Skewers

from Jamie Oliver’s 30 Minute Meals

700g  chicken breasts cut into small chunks
½ a small bunch of fresh coriander
1 clove of garlic
3 heaped tablespoons good-quality crunchy peanut butter
a 2cm piece of fresh ginger
2 limes
soy sauce

1. Put the garlic, ginger, lime juice, garlic, coriander (stems and all) and peanut butter into a blender or food processor and blend at a high speed. If you’re making this for older kids or adults, chili is recommended, but I left it out because our kids are a bit young for very spicy food.

2. Add a few splashes of soy sauce  and some water and blend some more. It should be a a sauce-like consistency, not thick like a paste, but not too runny either. 

3. Coat the chicken pieces in it and put in the refrigerator to marinate for a few hours. I usually do this in a bag because it’s easy to make sure all the chicken gets properly coated.

4. When you’re ready to cook, thread the chicken onto skewers, drizzle on some oil and barbecue on a hot grill until it’s cooked. You can also cook it in the oven under a hot grill for 10 minutes on either side. I’ve also cooked these on the stove (not on a skewer) like a stir fry, and it’s been great. Drizzle on some honey toward the end of cooking, whatever method you use, for a sweet finish.