Tuesday, February 17, 2009

Trying To Sneak In The Veggies

I made a trip to Barnes and Noble this past week where I purchased the book Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld. Basically you steam vegetables and then puree them. Her recipes call for different vegetables and most are needed in 1/2 cup increments so she suggests you store them like that. She also has recipes where you can add pureed fruit.
I want my children to learn to love vegetables. I am trying to eat more of them but a lot of the time the veggies just sit on my kid's plates. I try not to make a big deal out of it but I do tell them that if they want dessert than they need to eat "three bites" or more just depending on how nice I feel. I am trying to make sure that they are exposed to them and that they see Mom and Dad eat them too. However since they are not always eating them the idea of sneaking them into things that I know they will eat was very appealing. At the end of her book she suggets you trying to sneak in veggies into your own recipes. So that is exactly what I am going to do.
Yesterday I spent all morning making different purees. I made spinach, butternut squash, carrot and cauliflower purees. I was really glad that her book explained the best ways to cook and puree each vegetable. This was my first experience with making purees and it was fairly easy. So for supper last night I made our meal from two recipes in her book. I made a turkey meatloaf which had small pieces of celery chopped up in it and carrot puree. I made mashed potatoes to go with that and it called for cauliflower puree. For dessert I made her brownies and they call for spinach and carrot purees. Everything was delicious except the brownies. They were just okay. I will tweak them next time. Joshua, my 4 year old ate everything! Caleb who is 3 years old "tasted" it all but declined to finish it. He did not get to try a brownie.
I found The Sneak Chef website and looked at the method on there also. It is basically the same concept but she blends some different veggies and has some veggie/fruit combinations also. I may try some of that too. If anyone has any suggestions on how to get my kids to eat their veggies please share!

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