For anyone who knows me, you know that I enjoy reading cookbooks from cover to cover. And the ones with pictures on every page are my favorites!
Believe it or not, I don’t watch Oprah (gasp!), but I heard from my fellow LAB-ers that O did a show interviewing Jessica and promoting this book. I actually found out about DD through the library’s website while I was looking for something “new” (as in published in 2007 and on the best-seller’s list) to read.
I thought the book was excellently entertaining. Great color scheme, totally fun and funky graphics. Easy to read cover to cover. The concept of “sneaking” healthy foods into regular meals isn’t a new one, but Jessica makes it easy and doable in a fun way with her ideas and instruction in this book. I thoroughly enjoyed reading either Jerry or the kids’ comments about each recipe at the bottom of the page. One funny family!
The book is based on the premise that you make purees once a week to portion, freeze, and use in your recipes.
Interspersed in the recipes are interesting nuggets from Jessica, other moms, and experts from how to model good eating habits and table manners to ideas on how to get kids to eat healthy from other mothers.
Recipe/deceptions include:
- French toast with pumpkin
- Meatball soup with carrot
- Tacos with sweet potato
- Mozzarella Sticks with cauliflower
- Turkey Chili with red bell pepper and carrot
- Gingerbread Spice cake with broccoli
- Chocolate chip cookies with chick peas
- Lasagna with sweet potato and cauliflower
- Chicken nuggets dipped in broccoli or spinach or sweet potato or beets
- Macaroni and cheese with butternut squash
- Ketchup with carrot pure or ranch dressing with navy or great northern beans
- Angel food cupcakes made with yellow squash and carrots
- Chocolate cupcakes made with avocado and vanilla frosting with cauliflower
For more recipes, tips, and ideas, you can visit the Deceptively Delicious Web site.
So far, I have added mashed pumpkin to chili twice. The effect is actually amazing–it takes chili from a two-dimensional stew to an in living color 3-D experience in your mouth. Try it.
I tried adding sweet potato to our pancakes this morning. It turned them a funky, bright yellow color, but everyone gobbled them up. Huh! I also squeezed fresh mandarin orange juice into the pancake batter and added a little cinnamon–I thought if anyone asked why they were like a highlighter I could honestly answer that they were orange cinnamon pancakes and that’s why they were not the usual pale-and-pasty-as-mommy’s-legs color.
For my final admission, I must say that every single time I think of this book, I think of Jessica Simpson instead of Jessica Seinfeld as the author. Anyone else do that? Weird. But then I remember the episode of “Newlyweds” where Jessica Simpson attempts to make tuna fish salad and can’t find the tuna because the can says “chicken of the sea”.
This is a fun and entertaining read with some good insights and ideas on how to boost the health of your cooking or if you kids will not eat their vegetables. I would love to try one or two of her actual recipes, but until then I’ll keep slipping zany vegetables into our regular meals and hope no one figures out what I’m doing!
life.after.baby 