Ideas for Feeding Teenagers
There are two major considerations in stocking a kitchen for teenagers – quality and quantity. Since I have taught my kids to be self-sufficient and continue to encourage their cooking efforts, I want them to feel comfortable fixing their own meals when they can. So it is important that I keep the kitchen stocked with the sort of foods they will eat and they will cook with. But, I also know that they would live on pizza and cereal for an entire month if they could get away with it (and maybe someday they will!) so making sure they’re getting some nutrition is also important. I’ve found that having some major staples on hand (and, in bulk) will keep the kids cooking and eating reasonably healthy between meals.
What are those staples? Eggs, cheese, soft tortillas, bread, fresh salsa, macaroni and cheese, sliced deli meats, canned refried beans, tomatoes, lettuce and celery. All right, so not every food group is represented – we also go through gallons of juice and milk every week and I hear myself asking, “When was the last time anyone ate a piece of fruit?” fairly regularly – but they do manage to find something other than cereal or tortilla chips to eat most days. You can probably deduce the recipes that come from such staples: scrambled eggs with cheese & salsa, fresh deli sandwiches, the ever-popular quesedilla in all its various forms, celery dipped in peanut butter, omelets, grilled cheese sandwiches. While any of these would probably be a meal for meal, they serve the role of snack and I know longer worry that no one will be hungry for dinner.
Dinner time has morphed as well. It becomes harder and harder to host a full sit-down meal due to everyone’s schedules, and even more difficult to keep up with the constant changes in appetite and food choices the teens seem to experience. What was a childhood favorite, has become completely out of fashion. My son now wants steak and salad at every meal, while my eldest daughter shuns meat. Now, I often find myself serving what I call “deconstructed” meals, buffet style at the kitchen bar. By “deconstructed,” I find that meals that allow for individual touches seem to fair better than more traditional-style meals. For example, tacos, tostadas, and fajitas are good choices – I put all the “fixins” out separately and each person can put together his or her own. In the same vein, a “salad bar” is a crowd pleasure these days, as well as a big pot of basic chili with toppings for individualization. The more variety of choices, the more likely the kids are to get a well-rounded meal.
I’ve also had to acknowledge the lure of pizza – but we’ve compromised. With my bread machine, it is simple to make a good pizza dough while other things are going on. We can then put together several different versions of pizza to suit every taste – with fresh ingredients and extra cheese. They get gourmet pizza, and I feel better about the food value and the cost. Meals that mimic fast food work well – grilled hamburgers, baked potatoes with a variety of toppings, and deli sandwiches.
The great thing about any of these meals is that they can easily be adjusted if more or less people show up at meal time, which at our house, is often the case. It’s just become a fact of life that where there is one teen, there are usually more to follow!
Although, feeding teenagers may be a different sort of challenge than feeding younger children, it can still be fun and with the right preparations and allowances, you can still feel confident your kids are eating healthy food and developing good habits and skills.
