My four year old daughter isn’t the best eater in the world. She’s certainly not the worst either, and will gladly eat things like broccoli, sushi and pad thai. But if we’re not serving macaroni and cheese, or some other favorite, dinner can get stretched out well over 45 minutes. Especially if there’s meat involved.
Yes. It’s been painful for the rest of us at times. I’ve lost track of how many meals that we’ve started cleaning up around her when she’s not even half way through her dinner. She’ll eat it, but if she doesn’t love it, she takes her time and stalls – likely hoping we’ll move along and forget about the dinner thing.
Amazingly delicious!
So, when we have dinners like the other night, we celebrate. We served baked chicken wings, roasted vegetables and wild rice. The chicken was pretty hot when we sat down, so she saved that until the end. Since she’s not a big eater, usually whatever is left for last, doesn’t get fully eaten because she’s full…or bored.
Not this night. I gave her three chicken legs which were quickly eaten. Then she asked for two more. While I was helping her get some of the tricky meat off the bones, she was literally shoveling it into her mouth with both hands. And then she had another leg.
Not the most lady-like behavior, but it was an amazing site!
The recipe we use is from AllRecipes.com and couldn’t be any easier, although next time we’ll let the chicken sit in the marinade all day – or even overnight. And it couldn’t be any easier, wiht the chicken taking about 10 minutes to put together. We put the chicken in the oven first, then prepared the vegetables for roasting since they take less time, and put the wild rice on shortly thereafter so that everything came together at once.
Here’s a great recipe for roasting vegetables from Parent Hacks. You can use these instructions for almost any vegetable for the best tasting veggies around!
CARMELIZED BAKED CHICKEN
Ingredients
3 pounds chicken wings
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 tablespoons ketchup
1 cup honey
1 clove garlic, minced
salt and pepper to taste
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C).
2. Place chicken in a 9×13 inch baking dish. Mix together the oil, soy sauce, ketchup, honey, garlic, salt and pepper. Pour over the chicken.
3. Bake in preheated oven for one hour, or until sauce is caramelized.
What dishes are your children sure to eat every bite?
Our kids need to eat, whether we're prepared to feed them or not. Some days it would be great if meals just created themselves, but let's get real. At Feed Our Families we'll share new ideas, recipes and inspiration to help make meals happen in your home. 
Can this be done ith boneless skinless checken breast? Do you need to cover them when baking?
Anything on a bone usually goes in our house too!
Oh. My. God. I went home tonight after stopping at the grocery store and made these for dinner for my husband and myself (the kids already ate at grandma’s). These things are friggin’ AMAZING. I am literally the world’s worst cook (my dinners are usually described as “today’s hot mess”), so I can’t believe these were as easy and delicious as they were. I also pulled some baby carrots that needed to be used out of the fridge and roasted those just like the recipe at Parent Hacks said, and they turned out so good, my kids have been stealing them from my plate. Thank you so much!!!!!
Kristina – I don’t see why you couldn’t use other cuts of chicken but you might want to cover them with foil if they’re skinless. You’ll trap in the moisture too!
Janel – I’m so happy to hear of your success! And the best part is that your kids were picking carrots off your plate! Sometimes manners go out the window, right? Thanks for sharing.
These look awesome! Keep the recipes coming, although I suddenly feel very, very hungry!