Kid-friendly foods can be parent-pleasers

NEW YORK -- To get their children to eat a nutritious meal, some parents hide vegetables in desserts, mask meats in sauces or even dye foods their children's favorite colors.

Why not just ask them what they'd like to eat? And while you're at it, why don't you ask the kids to help prepare the food, too?

That's what Emeril Lagasse did for his newest cookbook, "There's a Chef in My Soup: Recipes for the Kid in Everyone" (HarperCollins).

Lagasse says he organized several "cookie parties" for children -- toddlers to teens -- to find out what tempts them to the table. Then he surveyed their skills.

Those ingredients were combined to develop the recipes for My-Oh-My Spaghetti Pie, Junior's Jambalaya and Make-You-Strong Spinach, among others.

The food, however, isn't kid stuff. They're recipes for the whole family to enjoy, Lagasse says, but he's included some child-friendly incentives such as adding maple syrup to carrots and covering chicken nuggets with cornflakes.

Kitchen decisions

"Until now, kids haven't been involved in the cooking decisions or the cooking process so food hasn't been fun for kids," says the New Orleans-based chef and host of two Food Network shows.

But hand a kid some ingredients, a wooden spoon and a mixing bowl and -- bam! -- you have a chef in the making. Or at least someone who will probably eat whatever it is that he helped cook.

"In cooking, the end result is always a prize," says Lagasse.

In his "research," Lagasse, the father of two 20-something daughters, also noticed a few quirky eating habits, including an apparent aversion to sausage casings. (Acknowledging that he never gave casings much thought before, Lagasse did include instructions in the new book on how to remove them.)

Adapting "adult" recipes for this book was a gratifying challenge for Lagasse. "I had to be simple and descriptive because of the kids, but it has inspired me to do more simple recipes. We tend to take something simple and delicious, and complicate them unnecessarily," he says.

There also are some cooking tasks that kids seem to enjoy more than others, including cracking eggs and zesting fruit. And included on each recipe page is a "caution list," alerting parents and pint-size chefs to potential hazards such as knives or a hot oven.

Lagasse says he's tried to anticipate some kid-type questions -- and offer some answers:

"Why are soft peaks called soft peaks?" Because when beaters are pulled out of well-mixed egg whites, soft mounds form.

"Why do dry ingredients need to be sifted?" To make sure there are no lumps.

The recipes consider that a child's taste buds often evolve over time, he explains. He suggests adding ham to scrambled eggs "when the kids are ready."

Bringing kids into the kitchen is a win-win-win situation: The kids are learning a life skill, parents are gaining helping hands, and the whole family will make memories.