Recipes are not always family friendly, and I’ve grown comfortable adjusting them to the likes and dislikes of my crew.  Especially when cooking for children, certain spices or vegetables might require substitutions in order to ensure your kids will eat the meal you’ve just worked so hard to produce.  A new cook may be afraid to alter a recipe for fear of ruining it, but I’ve found that substitutions almost always work beautifully.  More importantly, by making some minor changes to a recipe, you can try something you ordinarily would have avoided.  In broadening your repertoire of dishes, meals become more diverse and interesting, and you expose your family to a wider variety of healthy foods.

Coconut chicken

Although this is a chicken dish, it started as a coconut beef recipe from one of my favorite crockpot cookbooks.  (If you don’t have a crockpot, try this one of the stove, I’m confident it would come out well).  Since I don’t eat or cook beef, I used boneless chicken breasts.  Next, I noticed that the sauce called for a good amount of curry, coriander, and cumin.  Not wanting to completely change the intended flavor, I still used these ingredients, but scaled back on amounts so that it would be milder-tasting.  Served over a brown rice pilaf with pureed cauliflower with fresh broccoli and watermelon, this was a great meal that my whole family enjoyed.

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