I enjoy telling a story from when our kids were probably 2, 4 and 6 in
age. We were at a Nebraska-Kansas
State football party. A woman was
walking around with a vegetable tray – cauliflower, celery, carrots, tomatoes
and broccoli. All three of our
kids took some broccoli and started chewing away.
This woman, with a look of amazement on her
face, asked me if I knew whose kids they were. “They’re ours,” I replied.
“HOW do you get them to eat broccoli?,”she asked.
“Bribery,” I said, not totally in
jest.
Broccoli is something we all eat. Our motto has been to try new things
and when our kids were young, we gave them dessert to ensure they’d at least
take a few bites of something they hadn’t had
before.
Recently, I ate a broccoli dish that turned
my head. It’s worth sharing. The dish is nothing complicated – just
broccoli, garlic and butter. But
when straight steamed broccoli starts to bore you, this is a way to add some
extra flavor.
Steam the broccoli heads for 10
minutes. In a small dish, mix in a
couple of tablespoons of butter with two tablespoons of minced garlic (you can
get it in a jar already diced) and microwave until melted together.
Pour the mixture over the broccoli and stir it up until
saturated.
You can experiment with how much butter and
garlic to use. The first time I
tried this, I did not use enough of either, and there wasn’t much added
taste. I had the dish in a
restaurant and it was out of this world. You may need a bit more of the
garlic and butter than you would intuitively
think.
Once you get it right, you won’t have to
tell anyone about your kids not eating broccoli because they’ll ask for it as
your signature dish.