I was taking a leisurly shopping trip to Sam's Club a few weeks ago (the kids were home with Dan) and happened upon a cookbook for sale that was all about incorporating veggies into your "kid friendly" meals. I was instantly hooked. We really struggle to get Elijah to eat his vegetables, so I decided that anyway we could get some in his body would be worth it. So I bought the cookbook and proceeded over the next 24 hours to absolutely devour it. I read it every chance I could get and started making a list of veggies to buy to try the recipes.
Well, by now the whole world knows about the cookbook, because the next day, the author - Jessica Seinfeld (Jerry's wife) was on Oprah. And within a few weeks the book was surrounded in controversy because apparently there is a similar cookbook already on the market.
My attitude toward the controversy? Who cares! I just love the ideas presented! She starts with vegetable purees and adds them to almost everything. And since I have been trying to eat more healthy (my brother's heart attack affected my diet, too) I love all the ideas.
We have already made hot chocolate with sweet potato puree, sweet potato pancakes, pumpkin oatmeal, scrambled eggs with cauliflower and beet pancakes. As you can see, I especially like the breakfast dishes because it is a way to sneak veggies in a meal where I usually wouldn't even think about it! Besides, because I make most of my dinners ahead of time, I am not able to add veggie purees into them now. But next month I will!
We have enjoyed trying the new dishes and I love knowing that Elijah is getting some vegetables that even I don't like (beets and sweet potato are not on my "must eat" list). I still prepare veggies for dinner, but I know he is getting more than what is required for him to eat on his plate.
My biggest surprise recipe? Adding chickpeas to chocolate chip cookies. If you mix them with a hand or stand mixer, it chops them up enough that they basically disappear when you bake them. You seriously cannot taste them! I made a batch and took them to a chili supper at my church and handed them out to a ton of people and got their reactions. No one could taste it at all. And because she uses trans-fat free tub margarine in most of her baking, all the recipes are low fat, too.
I cannot emphasize how much this has made my cooking more fun. I try to hide some kind of vegetable into almost all my meals, including squash in macaroni and cheese and carrot in cornbread. It has been a blast! What are your secrets for eating healthy?
4 comments:
I just reserved this book from the library, as we could use more veggies in our diet. My kids love fruit, but veggies are harder to get in them.
Some healthy habits we practice are drinking lots of filtered water and eating only 3 meals a day (no snacks).
I try to make sure my kids get healthy snacks like bananas and apples. Those are favorites for them. And I am always adding some kind of veggie to any casserole I make, like any taco-type thing I make usually gets an extra can of corn in it.
I have no secrets -- but I think this sounds fun! I read the interview Rachael Ray did in her magazine a couple months ago with Jessica Seinfeld on this, but I didn't know it was a cookbook! So cool!
My sister-in-law came for the weekend and announced that she brought chocolate chip cookies and then whispered to me that they were healthy for you. I immediately asked her, " Do you have Deceptively Delicious?!" Guess what...she sure does! Tomorrow we are trying the pumpkin french toast for breakfast! I'll let you know how it goes!
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