So Much For Good Intentions

I had the best of intentions when making dinner tonight. I really did. I was going to make the kids a great treat--cheese tortellini with alfredo sauce. I even chopped up yesterday's leftover chicken to add to the protein content and attempt to make it a little more "healthy" (yes, I realize it's alfredo sauce--next to impossible to "health-ify", but try I would!).

I got this lovely, easy peasy recipe from allrecipes.com:

Quick and Easy Alfredo Sauce

INGREDIENTS
1/2 cup butter
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
2 teaspoons garlic powder
2 cups milk
6 ounces grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper

DIRECTIONS

Melt butter in a medium, non-stick saucepan over medium heat.
Add cream cheese and garlic powder, stirring with wire whisk until smooth.
Add milk, a little at a time, whisking to smooth out lumps.
Stir in Parmesan and pepper.
Remove from heat when sauce reaches desired consistency.
Sauce will thicken rapidly, thin with milk if cooked too long.
Toss with hot pasta to serve.

I had some lovely tri-colored tortellini I picked up for $1/package. Whoohoo...or so I thought.

I put my lovely dinner on the table with the full expectation of getting rave reviews, even a nomination for "Mother of the Year" for this meal and I did...kind of.

William and John were majorly gung-ho about pasta in a lovely white cream sauce. They sang my accolades for the three minutes Maddy picked at hers and looked her dish with distrust.

And then it happened. I stupidly opened my mouth and asked, what I thought, was a rhetorical question: "What's wrong? Don't you like it?" Her answer was "I really don't like it, Mommy! I like the pasta, but I don't like the outside." Um....at this point she hadn't actually put any in her mouth. So I talked her into tasting a bite or two. She consented, but only under duress I suspect, and took a pitifully small bite. She screwed her face up and said "YUCK!"

Ya, well, at this point my boys stopped singing my accolades and started agreeing with their sister. Mutiny! No one liked dinner.

But, I had bribery on my side! There's almost nothing I won't do to get a semi-nutritious, if not high in fat ladened meal, down into my kids' stomach! So, I did it. I nonchalantly told them that it was too bad they didn't like the food. It was too bad, indeed. Because only children who finished their tortellini would get a freeze pop for dessert. (see, I'm evil!)

Let's just say dinner was over faster than I'd anticipated. Everyone got their freeze pops and I cleaned the kitchen.

Moral of the story: Never think you're Julia Child in the kitchen-it'll just bite ya in the rear!