When I was growing up there always seemed to be this stigma about “healthy” food on the sitcoms. What was the stigma? Easy: kids didn’t eat “healthy” food. This was repeated in the literature I read as a child, as well as in the offhand remarks other adults (even teachers) would make regarding so-called “healthy” food. Often-times a synonym of healthy food would be vegetables (especially green vegetables). These synonyms were like a shorthand for sitcom writers and adults alike to describe the behavior of children. You grew, as a child or adult, to understand the motivations of the kid who would dispose of his peas to the family dog or the evil (but sometimes loving) parent-figure who would require that the plate be cleaned — even of the offensive “healthy” food — before the child go outside to play with friends or do some other “normal” activity that children do. Why, we were supposed to ask, would they not let Billy ride his bike just because of a few pieces of uneaten broccoli? Well, having a child now who is eating food I now somewhat understand the pickiness of children.
So after watching our son decide whether or not to eat his dinner on a whim (one day he’d like meat, the next he’d only eat peas or potatoes), we decided that we needed to do something where everything was sort of blended into the meal itself. The key was that we wanted it to be good, high-quality ingredients. We didn’t really want a good portion of it coming from a box. So we bought some great meat from a local organic farm and got the freshest ingredients (some from my in-laws’ garden) that we could find and we set out to make shepherd’s pie. Relatively humble ingredients (we first made it with beef rather than lamb), but when lovingly prepared they taste better than anything I’ve ever had at a restaurant (though I’ve probably never been to the “good ones”). At any rate, our son loved this meal — while getting his vegetables in — so we’ll be making this one again and again.