Mom's night out with my exercise group, Stroller Strides, was at my house last night. I love having people over to my house... it gives me incentive to really clean... and to pretend that my house is always that way. Oh, I love a good snow job...
I'm sure that many of you have heard of Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, Deceptively Delicious. The idea being that you won't have to beg your child to eat their veggies because you, the parent, has deceptively slipped them into the everyday foods they already know and love. Good idea, huh..? At the risk of some negative comments, I think I just may have to slightly disagree.
I am a "Foodie", a lover of all things food. I love to cook food, bake food, shop for food, search for good food recipes, write about food, and last, but most importantly, encourage a healthy love of food. That includes vegetables. While I understand the need to covertly slip in a veggie or two, in my heart of hearts, it is more important to me that my child knows what they are eating, that it is good for them, and that in and of itself, is simply delicious. I think all too often we send out these negative food vibes, based upon our own experiences, forgetting that whoever prepared those vegetables for us as a child just simply looked in the wrong cookbook that day. Vegetables are nutritious, yes. But prepared the right way, are fabulous, and sometimes a meal in their own right.
With that said, our mom's night out was still a great time for all! We made 3 recipes from the book: Pancakes (with Sweet Potato), Pita pizza, and Brownies (with Carrot & Spinach) .
The pancakes had pretty good flavor- not so much sweet potato as it was the spices. I do think the sweet potato greatly contributed to it's texture though. A concern I have though is that the recipe calls for pancake mix- which to me is not necessarily all that healthy. I'm not sure if the veggies will nutritionally make up for any random box of pancake mix. I did notice that the batter was a tad bit runny, so we did add an extra 1/4 cup of mix.
The Pita Pizza's, I have to say, were somewhat tasty. Personally I would add a bit of nutmeg and garlic to the spinach before adding it as a topping, and maybe change up the cheese a bit. But overall, not too bad. However again, nutritionally, jarred sauce concerns me with it's sodium content.
The Brownies... well, I did not taste the spinach nor the carrot puree. But I beg of you, use the best brownie recipe you have and add the puree's to the mix. My husband will eat just about anything, but he took one bite of these and threw it back in the pan. If you are craving chocolate, her recipe will not do the trick. We used semi-sweet chocolate, and AP flour, following the directions to a "T", however John Belushi's "Rubber Biscuit" came to mind upon first bite.
By nights end though, a good time was had by all. If anything, being able to "speak adult" was worth any bite of a Rubber Biscuit, any day.
4 comments:
I've heard mixed reviews on this cookbook. I tend to agree with you that veggies are good to begin with and prepared correctly, your children will learn to love them.
Pancakes and sweet potatoes... I'd eat it. Those are my two favorite foods combined into one meal! :)
The food sure looks pretty on the plate, sounds like the recipes need some tweaking.
Okay I couldn't wait to buy this book last year when(I think) it came out. But not for the reason you think. My kids eat just about every veggie there is and I think I raised them to not be picky eaters. That said, sadly I was not involved in the raising of my husband (ie: the reason I bought the book) Yup, I bought it to trick my picky hubby into eating various foods. It works too, especially the mashed cauliflower/potaoes....sad I know.
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