Anybody Try Deceptively Delicious?

she is a genius! ive been doing this since day 1, though im sure not as creatively as her. i dont have the book, but all you do is steam veggies and put them into "matching" foods. i dont know how she stores things, but i use little tupperwares, or those baby food cubes, they sell them at one step ahead, or just ice cube trays. i steam and puree big batches, put a few servings in the fridge and freeze the rest, and then plop a cube into whatever im making. great in oatmeal, pancakes, eggs, sauces, chile, meatballs, meatloaf, etc. and if you can convince your kid that green food is good (try reading green eggs & ham) then youve got it made. i make "super veggies" with things like spinach, kale, collard greens all blended together, super nutritious! and if you cant convince them, greens hide very nicely in red sauce, just dont use too much. red sauce hides almost anything, especially orange like butternut or carrots, etc. butternut is mild, it hides easily, and carrots are sweet, i put them in everything, its yummy, they hide nicely in mac & cheese too. i even mix processed raw veggies with breadcrumbs, carrots work well, so does broccoli,,,just throw raw carrots and whole wheat bread into the processor, can put in wheat germ too, (i put that in lots of stuff too), then use your healthy breadcrumbs for chicken, meatballs(also great to hide things in), eggplant (i make baked breaded eggplant slices, we nosh on them, i keep them in the fridge, sometimes i use them to make little pizzas in the toaster oven for lunch) or whatever you do with breadcrumbs.....when you are cooking, just think about the colors of things and the colors of different veggies, you will come up with favorites. and its very easy. i just keep a little food processor on the counter. remember that frozen veggies are usually just as nutritious as fresh, if not more so in some cases, so it makes it very easy. i would probably not use much canned, they are processed to death and usually have salt, not really worth the effort, imo. unless of course its all that will work for you, then its better than nothing......oh, and by the way, i have discovered that my kids looooove the edamame in the shells, the soybeans. just boil them, run them under cold water, you can sprinkle some salt on them, and let the kids pop the beans out. they think its fun, they eat tons of them. the dog gets a lot too :) if you buy the book, let me know what you think. take care, D.

I feel your pain, my son won't eat a vegetable either. I got the cookbook for Christmas...the banana bread is delicious and you really can't taste the cauliflower. My son and husband love it. The purees aren't that much work, but you can always use baby food instead to save time. You can also take her suggestions and adapt them to your specific tastes...ie, I have started putting pureed sweet potatoes in my son's oatmeal in the morning and he actually likes it better now. Good luck!

I have this book and like it a lot too. My daughter loves the "pink pancakes" made with beats. I put them into the shape of a heart and she is thrilled. It does take some time though a friend of mine just told me instead of pureeing herself, she uses baby food. I'm going to try that next. And in regards to the mom who thinks we shouldn't be sneaky with our children, I don't totally disagree. I'm lucky that my daughter does eat some veggies and fruits, but if I can get in some more, I'm doing my part as a mom in keeping her healthy. I stress to her (and when my son is older I will do the same), how important it is to be healthy so she will be able to run and play all day. We also have a reward chart for her and give her stars when she does a good job eating her fruits and veggies. it definitely helps.
good luck

I have the book and LOVE it! My husband also doesn't know that I'm hiding veggies in his food. It takes some prep time to make the purees but once they're in the freezer it's easy. There's another similar book called "The Sneaky Chef" that I like also. Good luck!

I own it and I love it! It isnt too much prep. You spend one day steaming and baking the veggies, then puree, divide and freeze. The you cook them as needed. I have tried about 6 of the recipes so far and they were all delicious! Everyone loved them, and like the poster below me, I have found a few tricks to adding things of my own into my own dishes. I recommend it!

Being deceptive or sneaky with your kids and food is not a good strategy to develop a trusting relationship! What goes around, comes around....would you like them being sneaky or deceptive with you? Probably not.
The other issue is that you are not creating a healthy behavior change by sneaking veggies into foods like this.
I've read both the Sneaky Chef an Deceptively Delicious.
I beleive there is a better way.
I teach picky eater classes and have an electronic book on my website. If you're interested, contact me directly for more details.
Susan :)

I'm addicted to this! I try to sneak in veggies in whatever I'm cooking. The prep time is minimal (esp if you use canned or frozen) and the taste doesn't really change (except w/ cauliflower- it's pretty strong) any of my recipes. I've only tried a couple of hers, but will add in the recommended purees w/ my own recipe. I also love that she cooks with tub spread (and not butter or marjorine). I highly recommend it.

My 10 year old daughter won't touch a vegetable either and very little fruit (though she claims she eats the raw carrots she gets with school lunch, she doesn't eat them at home). I received the cookbook from 2 relatives who know my kids' eating habits! I think it is genius. I have tried a few of the recipes and am excited to try more. I have made the banana bread probably 5 times already! Everyone in my house loves it! Banana bread is something I've always made pretty regularly (what else to do with those brown bananas?), but the recipe I've used before wasn't very healthy. This one uses brown sugar instaed of white (is that any less bad? I don't know, but it does use less of it), and vegetable oil or spread instead of butter. More than half the flour used is whole wheat flour (that was my biggest fear with my kids), and yes, it sneaks in cauliflower. The first time I made it, you could smell the cauliflower as it was baking. My daughter said, "why does it smell like broccoli in here?" I could honestly tell her, "I don't know, there's no broccoli cooking!" Once the bread had cooled and we ate it, you really couldn't taste the cauliflower, but with my very bright 10 year old, I don't think I could pull that off again. Each time that I've made the banana bread since then, I've used butternut squash in the batter instead. It's much more subtle, still nutritious, and the kids love the bread and so do their friends. It disappears! I also made a chocolate cake from the cookbook that uses pureed beets. It was okay, but seemed a little dry to me. Maybe I baked it too long. I also made the pancakes that added sweet potato puree to the batter. They were delicious. My husband, 7 year old daughter, and I loved them, but my 10 year old didn't like them. You could definitely taste the sweet potato, and it did change the texture dramatically from the usual light fluffy pancakes. But like I said, my other kid loved them and ate more than usual. I've also tried the applesauce muffins. I brought them to a brunch on New Years Day and everyone liked them.

I found the purees to be time consuming, but only because I did a huge batch of them in one afternoon - I made cauliflower, broccoli, sweet potato, butternut squash, and carrot purees all in a few hours (while my kids were out of the house). What took the longest was measuring them out into half cup amounts and putting them in snack-size zip lock bags. But, now I've got enough for months! The next time I might not use the bags, however, because when you thaw them and need to get the purees out, it can be a little messy, and can't always get quite all of it. Might be better to get a few packages of those 1/2 cup Glad containers and then they'll be resuable, too. Or figure out how many filled ice cube sections make up a half cup and freeze them in ice cube trays. Once frozen, transfer to zip-lock bags. Only downside to those two methods is that I think it will take up more room in the freezer than when I put the purees directly in the small bags. They froze perfectly flat and I put all of them in one plastic container.

If you have older kids like mine, it's a little harder to do the "deception", because they can read and it is also harder to allow them to help with the cooking if you want to sneak stuff in there that they wouldn't normally eat. But with younger kids, I'm sure it's not hard at all.

Anyway, I love the cookbook, and am telling everyone about it!