Deceptively Delicious

For Christmas, I got the greatest gift from my dear friend, Kristen! She gave me a cookbook called "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld (yep, Jerry's wife). I had heard about this cookbook from my co-workers, but sort of forgot about it. Well, I was soooooo excited when Kristen brought this book into my life!

The idea behind the cookbook is using vegetable purees in the dishes that you cook to bump up the nutrition factor (or shall I say, hiding veggies in kid-friendly food) - an idea that I'm more than happy to get behind! Basically, you just buy, cook, and puree several veggies then freeze the purees so that you have them on hand when you are cooking (rather than having to do all that work every time that you make dinner).

As many of you know, when I first started feeding Luke solid food, I would make my own baby food. It was something that I really enjoyed doing! It was really easy to do, plus, it is awesome to feed your child wholesome, fresh, organic food!

I'm not really sure why, but I'm a little bit obsessed with the nutrition of my child. When I would send my homemade baby food to school with Luke, the teachers asked Andie if we were big health nuts. The answer is no - absolutely not! I'm pretty sure that I've shoved oreos into my mouth while steaming and pureeing a bowl full of carrots for the little guy. But for some strange reason, I really stress out when Luke doesn't eat his peas. Actually, let me rephrase that... I USED to stress out about it, but I've gotten waaaaaaay better!

Lately, Luke has been really picky about his food (especially since he's been sick) and only wants applesauce and crackers. Ugh - so annoying! It is really frustrating when you work hard to create a nice, balanced dinner and your child just looks at his plate and shakes his head "no". Without even trying anything! AND it is food that you KNOW he likes! At least, he liked it last week...

I digress...

So, I've tried several deceptively delicious meals now! We've had chicken tenders that were breaded with hidden broccoli puree, cauliflower in mashed potatoes, butternut squash in mac-n-cheese, spaghetti pie (with carrot in the tomato sauce and broccoli in the meatballs), applesauce muffins with carrot, and peanut butter banana muffins with cauliflower! Everything has tasted really, really good! I know that some of the combinations probably don't sound very appetizing, but it is a small enough portion of the puree that you can't really taste it.

Oh, I almost forgot, I also made the turkey meatloaf (with carrot puree) but we were not too impressed with that one. It was ground turkey with turkey bacon on top... I don't know... it just wasn't right. Andie and I both really like regular meatloaf - so next time I'll just make sure I use really lean ground beef and add the carrot to my old recipe.

I'm trying to be really good about planning out meals for the week in advance, going to the grocery store and using my coupons, and cooking a lot! We'll see how it goes for 2010! :)

Sounds like I'm becoming a real MOM!