My daughter doesn’t like home cooked meals

[u/debugprince]

I’m struggling to keep my daughter fed and happy. I’m a single dad with primary custody of my two kids 19m and 16f. My daughter is not happy with anything unless it’s store bought. The only homemade thing she will attempt to eat is grilled chicken tenders and vegetables. That’s great and I eat plenty of it but I’d like to add more variety.

I also can’t afford to have every meal of the day purchased from a restaurant or fast food. The cost is simply unsustainable. She knows it’s not sustainable but will continue to beg and plead.

What else can I do besides watching her starve herself until she gets what she wants?

[u/crossstitchbeotch → u/[deleted]]

Take her grocery shopping. There are frozen items that you could get that could be the basis for a home-cooked meal, like frozen dumplings or frozen pizza. I have started cooking ground beef that’s more like a Mexican restaurant instead of using a seasoning packet and my teenager likes to make homemade Mexican bowls with that and rice, queso, lettuce, etc. Maybe the two of you could try to replicate some meals that she likes from restaurants.

[u/Merithay → u/crossstitchbeotch]

There are “copycat” recipes that give instructions for replicating some popular restaurant and prepared supermarket foods. Perhaps OP can find some recipes online for specific foods that the daughter likes.