Sneaky Sneaky

A little over a year ago I was watching Oprah. She had Jessica Seinfeld on and she was discussing her new cookbook. Maybe you've heard of it. Basically it's about sneaking veggies into your kids diets by cooking and then pureeing them.
Colton is a great eater. He'll try anything once, and usually likes it. The only food that I know for sure he doesn't like is chicken noodle soup. Weird, I know. However, even if I make homemade chicken noodle for dinner, if he's hungry he'll eat it! My girls are a whole different story. They're getting better, but it's not uncommon to have them sit down to eat and the first thing to come out of one of their mouths is "What is that" or "I'm not eatin' that". Many a night have my girls gone without dinner. The rule is you eat what for dinner, or you don't eat. I'm not a short order cook. I fix one dinner, and that's it.

Back to Jessica Seinfeld. So I'm thinking this is a great idea! My kids will be eating tons of healthy veggies, and I won't have to hear the complaining, or have the dry heaving at my dinner table! Unfortunately, Whitley happened to hear just enough of the show to know what that cookbook was about. When she saw it at our house, she went NUTS. She started screaming to the other kids that I was going to put spinach in the brownies, and not to trust the food here anymore! (She's not dramatic at all). I tried several recipes, and they were okay, at best. The kids didn't notice the pureed veggies, but were just so so on the food overall.

I decided to just take the theory, and add it to the food that I make. I started with sweet potatoes in the their pancakes. They loved it. A little spinach in the spaghetti sauce, no one knew the difference.
A couple of weeks ago I bought this cookbook, which is the same idea. In fact, I think they came out at the same time. Anyway, I like the recipes in this book much better. She mixes fruits and veggies in her purees. So it's zucchini and cauliflower (white puree), or blueberries and spinach(purple puree). We had turkey burgers with the purple puree and whole wheat breadcrumbs for dinner last night. When I was mixing up the meat I wasn't sure if my kids were gonna eat it, but they all wolfed them down. Said they were great. And then they all enjoyed a brownie laced with even more purple puree! I love it when I outsmart my kids!