Remember when Jessica Seinfeld went on Oprah with her super cute cookbook about how to sneak vegetables into your kid’s diet by using purees? For some reason I actually bought it even though I didn’t have kids yet. The artwork was super cute & the food sounded really good I guess. Well, in my laundry room this book has sat on a shelf for 3+ years collecting dust.
Up until this week, when Sam couldn’t poop.
TMI, I know, but I need to get across the severity of the situation. My former “good eater” has given up her title & given in to the typical picky toddler diet of chicken nuggets, french fries, macaroni & cheese, grilled cheese & pizza. Which is why not only is she constipated but her poop is yellow as well. TMI! I know! I know! But I want you to understand why it was worth it to me to take the time to make these crazy recipes…I had to get some vegetables into my daughter asap.
The premise of the book is that once a week you take an hour in your kitchen to puree a variety of vegetables so you can sneak them into your kid’s favorite food’s throughout the week. For me, getting my girls their weekly servings of veggies without a battle sounded totally worth giving this a try.
Jessica has really nice, detailed instructions for how to puree each fruit or veggie. (There’s also a handy little nutrition guide for what’s in each fruit/vegetable) I chose to do frozen cauliflower & butternut squash along with fresh baby spinach & sweet potatoes…
Most of her recipes call for a 1/2 cu puree so that’s how I divided up the purees. I also used her tip of keeping all the baggies in a tupperware for organized easy access. (extras can go right in the freezer)
I gotta say, making the purees was a lot easier than I thought. Of course using pre-chopped frozen vegetable makes it even faster. I was able to make enough purees for a week’s worth of dinners (with extras that I froze) & clean-up during Sophie’s afternoon 1 & 1/2 hr nap. Not bad if you only have to do it once a week…
Now onto the recipes. I made purees for Jessica’s pita pizzas (spinach puree), creamy mac n cheese (cauliflower puree) & chicken nuggets (sweet potato or butternut squash). Last night we had the mac n cheese with chicken nuggets.
Macaroni & cheese: P & I thought this was really good. Very creamy & you absolutely CANNOT taste the cauliflower whatsoever. My only complaint is it was a little plain, next time I’ll add my own seasonings & I’m sure it’ll be great. Sophie devoured it. Sam on the other hand wanted nothing to do with it. It wasn’t yellow like her usual easy mac so she thought it was gross. That kid. Maybe if I try it with butternut squash instead of cauliflower she’ll buy it…
Chicken nuggets: A little more labor inducing to make but I have to say, these are the best nuggets I’ve ever made. Absolutely delicious. You coat them in sweet potato puree & egg mixture & then dip them into a whole wheat bread crumb, parmesan & flaxseed meal mixture. Cook them in a skillet for 3 minutes on each side. I can’t believe I got flaxseed into my families bellies. It’s completely undetectable! The sweet potato you could see however so it took some convincing but after Sam tried one bite she was hooked. Those little nugs were a homerun my friend. My only tip would be to keep that skillet well greased (cooking spray or olive oil) because the potato/breadcrumb mixture sticks & burns easily if it isn’t.
All in all I’d say an A+for Deceptively Delicious
hmmm… this sounds like a good way to get vegetables into my HUSBAND! hahaha
I have long loved this book. The french toast with pumpkin puree is incredible, as is the potato soup with squash. The burgers without the mushrooms are my kids’ favorite. The cupcakes with squash are repulsive, as is the coffee cake, but brownies with spinach, however, are just great. I also loved the sweet potato hot cocoa. Who knew? 🙂
I’ve made the mac and cheese. I agree — it’s a little plain. I changed it up by adding different cheeses — and I do the casserole method — so when I bake it, I can add other “toppings” to make it more interesting.
My mom got me this book a for Christmas a few years back & I loved the recipes I tried. I actually got it to sneak vegetables into my HUSBAND’S diet because my son was still young & would eat almost anything. That was a few years ago & now the book is in storage 3000 miles away. And instead of one person who won’t eat vegetables I have TWO now. Phoenix eats the exact same way Sam does. The only additions are cereal & ravioli/manicotti. I wrote on my own blog a few weeks ago about this very same issue & it never dawned on me to use this book. Just ordered it from Amazon so hopefully this will get some good stuff into these boys. Thanks for the reminder.
i must admit that i too bought this book but have yet to use it… maybe its time i break it out and dust it off……..
Great idea. I need it for both my husband and 2 1/2 year old son. My husband is super picky. Ha ha, this will be great.
I also have this book..and the majority of the recipes are really good. I love being able to add extra vegetables and my kids never know!
Also love this book! On weeks when I don’t have time to make my own purees (or, honestly, would just rather spend naptime browsing pinterest…) I use store bought purees – those baby food pouches of fruits, veggies, even “meals.” I also add the purees into prepared food… so even if it’s an easy mac day, I still mix in pureed sweet potato and lentil or something. Getting toddlers to eat decently is a neverending adventure for sure!
What a fantastic idea!! I never thought about using the baby food pouches, that’s genius!
I love the idea of mixing the purees in with prepared foods. Maybe if your kids only eat kraft mac and cheese if you reduce the milk or butter to account for the puree it comes out the same or close to it. My niece is very big on how her food looks and if it doesn’t look like what she’s used to, she will not eat it. My sister also started letter her pick out which “pouch” of veggie puree she got to put into her food so she feels like she’s “cooking” too but she has no idea she’s picking veggies 🙂 very tricky but you do what you gotta do.
When making mac ‘n cheese, try this method to make it healthier:
A friend of mine recently posted this on our Moms Facebook page:
When making mac ‘n cheese, try this method to make it healthier:
Instead of adding the whole bag of cheese, add instead a cup of pureed carrots or sweet potatoes (to puree, just steam the veggies until tender, then blend until smooth). And you don’t really need to add butter! The colors blend perfectly and your little ones won’t know the difference! (In case you have picky eaters).
I did not feel like cooking tonight for just Ruben and I, but I had some of Edwin’s leftover baby food (carrot and sweet potatoes) and thought I’d put it to good use. Anyway, just a quick way to add some nutrients to a quick meal. Enjoy 🙂
I wanted to get this book years ago, and after she was on oprah did you see how jessica bought oprah 25 pairs of louboutins?! anyway i need to start doing this cause my 2 yr old just started getting picky too, after 2 yrs of eating so good too 🙁
Thanks for sharing. I have 2 little ones who are very picky and I look forward to trying these options.
To make the mac & cheese the proper yellow color, use turmeric.
Thanks for this review! I own a similar book called the “Sneaky Chef”…..basically the same principles. This book has a chicken nugget recipe that sounds very similar. I’ve loved it in the past, but have gotten away from it. Thanks for the reminder. When I was making baby food for my LO’s I purchased some 1/2 c. containers from here: http://www.foodcuber.com/index.php. They are like 1/2c ice cube trays and worked perfectly for the purees. The ziploc bag method looks good too 🙂 Before I had kids, I’d wouldn’t have done this, but now…..it is a necessity 🙂
Ok, I so need this book. My next online stop from here is Amazon. My son has a dairy allergy, do you think the mac & cheese could be made someway with all cauliflower and no cheese? It is a comfort food I’d love to introduce to him. Perhaps an idea for you concerning the color would be to use a bit of turmeric… just enough for color without changing the taste too much (a great use for spice gone stale!). Also turmeric has a ton of health benefits that are interesting to learn about if you care to google.
great idea Karen, thanks!
http://annies-eats.net/2011/05/02/green-monster-smoothies/ This good as well and a good way to sneak in veggies 😉
Im struggling to get veggies into my kids too, they eat lots of fruit so thats not too bad. In fact fruit is always the dessert in our house (ok so i don’t eat it and stuff a chocolate brownie in my mouth when none is looking!) but the kids love it, on its own or as smoothies. My youngest can’t eat dairy or soya so its pretty much fruit or nothing! Anyway I had been searching for ideas and came across this site (via Pinterest of course) http://blog.superhealthykids.com/ its full of ideas of how to get veggies into kids. I tried the banana, strawberry, and spinach smoothie. it tasted just like banana and strawberries but looked gross as it was green. However when I told my boys that it was buzz lightyear juice they drank a ton of it, maybe you could tell Sam it is mermaid juice!
ALso to add more fibre into our diet I always just add bran to any muffins I make. even chocolate ones, the kids think I’m great letting them have cake! Love the idea of using baby food pouches, so much easier 🙂
I just got this book out of the library the other week!! I saw it on Oprah too years ago, but promptly forgot about it! I like the sweet things, makes you feel less guilty giving the kids cake!! =)
I found this book at a garage sale for $1 and pulled it out a few weeks ago because I was having the same battle with Evie (3 and 1/2) and decided the battle is NOT worth it! I found that the frozen purees were more accessible if I froze them in tablespoon portions (either in an ice cube tray for runnier or on a sheet of foil/wax paper for thicker ones), then pull out 4 for each 1/4 cup needed for a recipe. Also, I have been trying them in my own recipes too. Sticking a tablespoon of butternut squash or sweet potato per serving in homemade spanish rice (its amazing how tomato covers it up). I put 2 tbsp of cauliflower in a 1 banana smoothie with a little cinnimon and nutmeg and you couldn’t taste it at all! I added some spinach and carrot to my meatloaf recipe – the color was a bit odd but taste was great. I tried her meatball soup recipe sans pasta and it is YUMMY! The banana bread is good too but I have only done it with all banana (that was before I had made all my purees and actually got the book out to make banana bread).