Winner Winner Chicken Dinner!

I've got to admit; as much as I enjoy cooking, cooking for young children can be quite a challenge!  

As cooks, we often measure ourselves by how much the people we're cooking for enjoy our food - but with young children, it is often like hitting a moving target.

One week they will love broccoli - the next, broccoli is Satan.

"What are these little black things?! I don't like them!!"

Umm...that's fresh ground black pepper - trust me - you want me to season the food!

I'm not a "Chicken Nugget Enabler", but I still want people to enjoy my food.  For this reason, I have a scale with which I rate the meals I make, that helps to determine the frequency with which I will cook it.  I'll call it, "How Long Does Dinner Take and How Painful is it?"

I rate them with stars - it helps me keep track, and sometimes gives me pause as I'm reaching into the cupboards to start making dinner!

* 1 hour, with lots of fidgeting and moaning:  Occasional meal, probably prepared out of necessity

** 30 minutes with some griping:  I'm onto something here.  I probably need to tweak the recipe a bit.

*** 30 minutes, no griping but slow eating:  Major potential.  I'm probably missing one component.

**** Less than 30 minutes:  Winner Winner Chicken Dinner.  This meal makes the rotation!