A Couple Rough Days

     Monday presented an especially tough challenge for me... It was vegetarian day, but my mom really wanted chicken casserole for dinner. On any other day my parent's dietary habits are of little concern to my own, but on Monday my Mom had outpatient surgery and I wanted to make her something comforting. So I set out to get what I needed to make Betty Crocker's Chicken Rice Casserole and to make myself something as well.

Tasty!

     Having made plenty of casseroles in my 26 years, I figured a simple salad for myself and a casserole for everyone else was going to be about the extent of the work I felt like doing for dinner. And maybe I was feeling a bit bummed that I wasn't having casserole too.... because I really like casserole. So pitty party salad for me. Though, I make an awesome salad in my opinion. It's made with baby greens, carrots, peppers, cucumbers (not pictured), dried cranberries, mozzarella cheese, and sweet and spicy nuts. I eat it without any dressing, I just don't think it needs it.

     The casserole was fairly easy to make, basic direction following. The biggest challenge was to not taste it as I went. I work as a chef, we're trained to taste everything. But I promise I didn't taste anything.... until Tuesday, yay for leftovers! But damn is it hard to watch everyone else eat something you wish you could. But I did it!

    Then Tuesday rolled around. I was free to eat my yummy casserole! Yay! And it was my turn to make snack for my daughter's Girl Scout troop. I like making snacks for my daughter, so this should be no big deal deal, right? I even enlisted my daughter to help. She put the berries and granola in and I piped the yogurt in.

Even good the next day for breakfast

     The big deal is, I didn't take into account how other parents feed their children. I made yogurt parfaits, a nice healthy but kid friendly sort of thing. Low fat vanilla yogurt, strawberries, blueberries, and granola are apparently not on these girls radars. To say they didn't like their snack is an understatement. I think my daughter is the only one who ate her snack. The rest didn't even try theirs. One girl even made a snide comment about the middle looking like puke, which was quickly the new funny thing for all the other girls to repeat.

     I think this whole thing bothered me for several reasons. The first is that my daughter's (and my own) feelings were hurt. She put thought and love into making these for her friends and they turned up their noses at her efforts. Secondly, as far as snacks go, while not expensive, these cost more than an off the shelf junk food item and to see them uneaten in the trash was hard. Thirdly, I'm mad that the troop leader or her assistant didn't say anything to stop the rude comments. One girl may be able to slip a rude remark in, but it certainly shouldn't be repeated by all the other girls as well. Fourthly, it turns out another troop (older) troop made a cake and brought it in for everyone. So even after misbehaving, the girls were rewarded with huge pieces of cake. My daughter on the other hand, asked for only a small piece just to feel included. And finally, I didn't get a thank you.

     But, to focus on the positives... My daughter is awesome. She insists that we bring a healthy snack again, because she likes how she feels after eating healthy food. She didn't give in to her peers and ate her snack because she liked it and wasn't going to let them tell her what to like. She also, on her own, decided that she'd probably had enough to eat that night and didn't pig out on cake. And finally, when I joked about bringing carrot sticks next time, she fires back, "Mom, I don't think those girls eat carrots. Like ever."