Chicken fingers and French fries, via Applebee's.
After a kids’ dinner of baked chicken and veggies the other night, Jasper asked in a somewhat dejected voice, “Where did the chicken fingers and French fries go, Mommy? We never have them anymore….”
Like most children, Jasper loves them. In fact, if you ask him what his very *most* favorite meal is, he will tell you chicken nuggets and fries. And, while we are by no means completely anti-chicken fingers in this house — and I don’t want to axe entirely my son’s fave foods — it is true that we haven’t cooked them in weeks. Like ad hoc MOM, we’ve made a conscious effort to cut back on the frozen chicken sitch.
Again, I’m not hard core. An acquaintance of ours confided a while back that she NEVER feeds her kids anything frozen. Never. I’m way too attached to my Amy’s Organic Frozen Pizzas for that kind of business, but breaded, frozen poultry has been on the menu way less. For not much more time, and considerably less money, we can toss a sliced chicken breast with olive oil, kosher salt, and ground pepper and bake our own fresh version instead.
Jasper‘s comment was the only bit of slight protest so far, and I think it was because we encountered some serious nugget-age at the Bronx Zoo last weekend. We dutifully packed our own picnic lunch so we wouldn’t have to pay for overpriced fare there, but the family we shared a table with sat down with four overflowing baskets piled high with chicken fingers and French fries. I noticed Jasper eyeing them with interest.
Anyway, as you know from our Weekly Family Menus, we’re doing our best to ply the kids with a variety of different foods, some weeks with more success than others. But for the moment, we’re flying nugget-free.
What about you? Do you give the kids frozen chicken fingers:
- as often as I can fish them out of the freezer. So sue me.
- occasionally — maybe once or twice a month.
- regularly — probably once a week.
- never, ever. We don’t do frozen foods, period. Yay, me!
And what about other frozen foods — veggies, pizza, fish sticks, something else? Let us know where you stand! (And how we measure up.)
Melisa
Shiny Brite 
Hurray! It’s so hard isn’t it? It’s like one step forward and five steps back for us. June’s current diet seems to consist of goat cheese and crackers (step forward) and cereal (step way back). She suddenly hates all fruit and even yogurt. UGH. It’s maddening.
Paula
Since I grew up on Fluffer-nutter sandwiches and Koolaid, I feel like a culinary genius serving them chicken nuggets for lunch. And sometimes for dinner, when its 6:15, we’re racing into the house on two wheels, and the choice is (a) we sit down together – relatively relaxed – and they eat chicken nuggets or (b) I try to make something clever and color cordinated while they circle my legs like sharks wailing that they are hungry. Not perfect by any means, but I figure this whole food thing is a marathon – last night they happily ate pork jalfrezi and quinoa, tonight they will probably get something more ad hoc because I have a board meeting – and I want to emphasize the social aspect of our eating together (on balance, healthy foods) rather than having a perfect meal every time. Maybe I will get the second part down next year.
Paula and Chris, You are both so right — it is a marathon with one step forward and another one back, but still moving on. But goat cheese, quinoa — we’re all trying! And the occasional chicken nuggets (they’ll eat them! they love them!) just don’t seem like that big a deal.
Oh pshew! I was afraid to tell you what’s in our freezer — bagel bites, Earth’s Best (aka “Elmo”) pizza, dinosaur-shaped chicken nuggets, frozen veggies, etc. But hey, it’s all about balance. They have organic milk, whole grains, fresh fruit and veggies at every meal, so I figure mac-n-cheese or a hot dog isn’t going to hurt them…or me!