Yesterday I made a treat for my boys. I prepared a bunch of root veggies (potatoes, carrots, striped beetroots, rutabaga, parsnip, onion and garlic cloves) in the oven, topped them with bunch of drumsticks and wings. They love this stuff.
Well, long story short, their friend from our neighbour was visiting and took notice of the drumsticks and begged me for some. So I set him up a plate with a little bit of everything. (He actually kept nagging for more drumsticks before the table was even served.) While we were eating, I noticed he started pushing all the veggies aside and concentrated on the chicken. I told him to try the veggies, and my boys were praising them to him, particularly the beetroot, but he told us he didn't want to, and started begging for more chicken. I told him I need to spare the leftovers for the next day so he let out a yelp, left the table and his food, and ran to my sons' room to play with their robot.
Now I am not sure how it is these days, but I was taught it is not respectful if you don't even taste what's being served. This kind of left me feeling a bit sad. I'm glad both my sons saw this. It really got them thinking about table manners, as they later opened to me about their friend. They seemed both a bit disappointed in their friend.
How would you feel if it happened to you? Have you had similar encounters, and how did you deal with them?
Recipe:
6 striped beetroots
6 potatoes
5 carrots
parsnip
a 250 g piece of rutabaga (or is it called swede or turnip?)
a large onion
6 cloves of garlic
oil (I used ½ canola oil and ½ sesame seed oil mixture)
salt and pepper
(drumsticks, wings, if you like)
Set the oven to 200 °C.
Peel the veggies, then chop them into "bite sized pieces", cut the onion in wedges and put all of them in a tray along with the cloves of garlic, sprinkle some oil, salt and pepper. (Top the tray with drumsticks and wings if you want.)
Throw everything into the oven for an hour or so, and there you have it, a delicious treat for the whole family. (But not for those picky neighbours' kids.)I'm not really confident enough to marinade or season the chickens yet so I bought them pre-marinated. I should probably try learning that, because it's a bit embarrassing not to. ;) But really, I do a whole lot of other meals out of chicken, but just never got to making a marinade sauce for drumsticks.
Enjoy!
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Oh, and I'm sorry for not having a picture to show the tray when the meal was ready, it looked amazing. :)
See ya.