Making dinner for the family means catering to various tastes and preferences—not an easy task. After getting the kids dressed and off to school, going to work, running errands, making sure everyone gets to their soccer game/playdate/piano practice on time, the last thing you need is to make five different meals at dinnertime because one child only eats mac and cheese, the other only likes chicken nuggets, and the little one only butter noodles. As the father of five, Dean McDermott is an expert at knowing what kids do and do not like to eat. And as a professionally trained chef, there is not a grown-up dish out there that he can't make kid-friendly. Now Dean's sharing all his secrets. THE GOURMET DAD contains 100 easy-to-make and delicious recipes: a gourmet meal for the grown-ups and—with a few omissions, adjustments, tips, and tricks—one for the kids, too. You will finally be able to spend less time in the kitchen and more time with your family. Along the way you'll learn not to be afraid of your kitchen, how to be creative with food, and you'll expose your kids to new flavors and develop their palates beyond the norm. Dean's recipes welcome flavorful and nutritious ingredients that kids will actually like so that you can getout of the chicken nuggets and butter noodles rut forever! Dean McDermott is a father of five, reality TV star, gourmet cook, husband and a master of getting kids to eat veggies. Raised in Toronto with three sisters and not a lot of money, Dean helped his mom in the kitchen, even as a child. Today, whether cooking a special meal for his wife or getting creative in the kitchen with the kids, Dean loves to share his tricks for making the most memorable and delicious moments with family and friends. Dean and his wife, Tori Spelling, live in Los Ang MOST PEOPLE KNOW ME AS AN ACTOR/TV PERSONALITY FROM MY ROLES on Due South, Without a Trace, Open Range or NCIS, or they recognize me from my hit reality TV show, Tori and Dean: Home Sweet Hollywood. But my favorite—and most important—role is Dad to five of the best munchkins in the world: Jack, Liam, Stella, Hattie and Finn. Along with my wife, Tori, they make up my world and my cooking audience. I've made it my mission to use my cooking expertise to come up with meals the kids (and Tori and I) love. I want them to grow up understanding how important nutrition is, but also appreciating what a blast cooking and eating really great food can be. When it comes to kids and getting them on board, it's as much about the presentation and the use of little tricks to make food interactive as it is about the food itself. My experiences cooking for the McDermott clan led to my starting The Gourmet Dad website and, ultimately, to writing this book. But the experiences that led me to love food actually happened decades ago. I grew up in Toronto, Canada, with three sisters, a wonderful mom who wasn't quite Julia Child, and a dad who wasn't quite Ward Cleaver. We were at the lower end of the economic scale—we weren't The Trailer Park Boys, but we scraped by on a fixed income and lived in government-subsidized housing. That meant some very creative cooking on any given night to stretch what was in the cupboards to make dinner for six. But it also meant that my mom was dead set on training me to be a gentleman who was ready for a higher station in life. She insisted that a true man knows how to take care of himself, how to clean and how to cook. I was always my mom's sous-chef. I peeled potatoes, kneaded dough, and got to lick the chocolate off the wooden spoon we used to make boxed chocolate cake. (Unfortunately, that spoon was the same one used to paddle my behind when I was bad—which was more often than I care to admit. I had a real love/hate relationship with that spoon… …) I got so comfortable in the kitchen that one day I decided to fly solo. I can still see it clearly, my nine-year-old self strutting into the middle of the living room and announcing, "I'm going to make dinner!" Nobody was more surprised than me. What was I thinking? Did my brain just hear what my mouth was saying? And what was I going to make? All I knew was that I wanted it to be good, and I wanted it to be all my creation. My menu included a hollowed-out Italian roll illed with ground beef, mozzarella, Parmesan and a tomato-basil sauce and a side of garlic pasta. There was a whole idea behind the dish. I igured people could mix the beef mixture with their pasta or use the chunks of bread left over from the rolls for dipping. It was presentation meets function with a side of deliciousness. I served up six plates and waited, holding my breath. And guess what? Instant hit. Everybody loved it, and every last morsel was polished off by the end of dinner. I was incredibly satisied. It meant so much to me that I had created something good and it had made my family happy. I wanted to re-create that feeling again and again. I think that's how a lot of chefs get started. I