Saturday, October 27, 2007

An exceptional book

I am breaking two of my self-imposed blog rules here:
1. I am writing about a book from the Children's Annex collection (I don't make the purchase decisions on those books) and
2. I am writing about a book that is already on hold, so you will not be able to check this out immediately (I usually put my blog books on display at the front desk)
BUT: this book is so great I am going to get an extra copy for the Adult library. Deceptively Delicious: simple secrets to get your kids eating good food is by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, the wife of the Seinfeld). And she has come up with a cookbook full of recipes for frustrated parents. It includes breakfast, lunch and dinner entrees as well as desserts and snacks. What's the catch? Well, in every single recipe - from the deviled eggs to the pancakes to the grilled cheese sandwiches - you sneak pureed vegetables into the recipe! So you get deviled eggs with cauliflower puree, pancakes with beet puree, and grilled cheese sandwiches with squash puree. The kids eat healthy vegetables, and you don't have to turn the dinner table into World War III every night. As a parent whose child won't even eat dill because it is green, I think this is the best idea since sliced bread. And because I am not a huge fan of vegetables myself, this is a great way for me to eat more nutritionally without having to gag down entire mouthfuls of cauliflower (a particular dislike). Her advice is to make the puree ahead of time - steaming the vegetables in an automatic rice cooker and grinding them up in a food processor - and storing them in the freezer. Even if you are making boxed macaroni and cheese, it will take you all of five minutes (the noodles need to cook anyway) to thaw out some yellow squash puree and throw it in with the finished product. You don't need a lot of extra time, you can buy the vegetables when they are on sale, and your family will never know the carrots are in their food. How sneaky - and cool - is that! This book is absolutely my pick of the month. And don't worry that it is checked out. You can place it on hold by going to our catalog (the link is on the sidebar at the right of this post). Mangia!!

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Hello, my name is Chef Chopped liver, I wrote a book called 'SNEAKY VEGGIES, How to get vegetables under the radar and into your family (Sterling 2006) -please note the 2006. I am not married to a famous person, I do want kids to eat more vegetables, and my book isn't entirely sneaky. Many of the recipes are what I call 'bite club' recipes and are simply tasty and need to be tried to be liked. If your library has a copy, you won't have to wait for it, and if you want to buy it, it only costs 10 bucks. AND, it's funny - maybe not as funny as the other authors' husband, but...

Chris Fisk