I don't watch Oprah much anymore, if at all. Not too long ago Jessica Seinfeld was on the show promoting her new book, Deceptively Delicious. I didn't see the show, but heard or read about in the the days following the show. The book, if you haven't heard about it is about secretly adding veggies or fruits into your kids meals. It is about adding nutrition without a fight. There is another book out there called The Sneaky Chef that uses the same technique.
Now, my kids are basically great eaters. They love food and our diet is pretty balanced. That said, I know that there are days that they could be getting more bang for the buck. Owen in particular has developed a more sensitive palette. The boy who once ate most any veggie with gusto, will only now eat a select few as long as there is a large pile of katsup on his plate to dip them in. We go through gallons of katsup every month.
So after hearing about how great the book was supposed to be, and being that I am always open to adding more nutrition to our already mostly healthy meals I ordered the book off Amazon last week. It arrived yesterday and I gleefully looked through it. I think I've mentioned before that I do enjoy cooking quite a bit. I am not afraid to make it up as I go and I pull together some tasty meals more often than not.
However adding pureed green and orange stuff to everyday foods is more or less way out of my comfort zone. After a quick scan I decided to give the chicken nuggets a try. I had actually pureed a bag of fresh broccoli, cauliflower and carrots last week- I had made a beef veggie soup and had used half of it for the soup, the other half went into the freezer.
What was tricky was keeping my "helpers" out of the kitchen while I bathed each chunk of meat in the green goo before tossing it in the breading mix. Especially Owen who LOVES to help in the kitchen. I did have all my helpers mix up the bread crumbs, flax meal and seasonings. Then I did my best to kick them out of the kitchen. I managed to pull it off, a paper towel over the green goo helped.
So how did it go down? Awesome. Not a nugget left and I even fried up all the breading and leftover green goo- and not even any of that was left behind. Owen was none the wiser and happily declared that dinner was "the best ever". We had rice and baked zucchini and squash as sides. Everyone but Owen had the veggies. (Or so Owen thought).
Next time I am going to skip the nugget part and just bread up the whole breasts- it takes too long to do as much as our crowd eats. Evan with our monstrous 21 inch frying pan I had to cook them in several batches. I could have done them as breasts in two batches.
I am looking forward to trying out some of the other recipes in the book. Even some of the deserts looked like they would be pretty good. I'll probably leave those recipes to my MIL since she loves to bake more than I do. She is going to get the Sneaky Chef book so we can swap and compare.
I read a post over here about this and I have to say it kinda made me laugh. The blog author at the time was childless so it always makes me laugh to hear all the things people will never do with their kids or what things parents do that they find horrible or appalling. She ends her post with this:
...creating a generation of kids who don't know what good and healthy
eating is, and who will be loathe to try and prepare things on their
own. It also has a smarmy, self involved whiff of spoiled brattiness to
it.
She may be like me and have a great eater or two even. Like I said, my kids are great eaters. My tasting new food rule is a two bite rule- once to taste twice to decide if they like it. I also remind my kids (OWEN) that what you don't like one day, one way, you may like another day another way- so be sure to try "hated" foods again every so often. I don't make a big deal of it, I don't force them to finish their plates. I don't let them make rude noises or comments. We eat veggies with most every dinner, so there is always plenty of opportunities to try them again. So I don't feel like I am
...creating a generation of kids who don't know what good and healthy
eating is, and who will be loathe to try and prepare things on their
own. It also has a smarmy, self involved whiff of spoiled brattiness to
it.
I am ensuring that good foods are included in their meals while still teaching them what a healthy balanced meal looks like. Were it not for Owen I could easily share the "secret". Knowing him, knowing he is my little clone, I know for a fact he would have barfed up those nuggets had he know that they were smeared in broccoli. His gag reflex is pathetic and just the very thought of his most feared (formerly loved) veggies sends him into convulsions. Someday, he'll learn to get over that. I did. It took years, and more years, but I have gotten over my fears of my most hated foods. I try new things when offered (almost always) and if I don't like something I have learned to politely decline or swallow fast and discreetly. I even almost like some foods I never thought I would have. I still gag on others (just this morning I tried oatmeal again- I really really want to like it- but no- blech it made me gag).
Do any of you sneak in the good stuff? Am I as bad as Jalepeno Girl says (along with most of her commenter's) by being so deceitful? (I am secretly hoping her new baby grows up to be my Owen- starts out eating everything-then changes gears and she has no choice but to eat her words..or at least puree them hahahahaha...)
