Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld offers simple secrets to get kids eating good food.
Jessica starts her book with, “I had tried everything, and yet all my efforts to feed my family were being undermined by a powerful force: vegetables. Mealtimes were reduced to a constant pushing and pulling, with me forever begging my kids to eat their vegetables, and them protesting unhappily. Instead of laughing and having fun with my family, I was irritated and stressed as I labored to coerce them to eat food they found ‘disgusting.’ I couldn’t take it any more. I just wanted a little peace around the dinner table.”
If this sounds familiar to you, this method and some of the recipes in this book may restore peace to your dinner table too.
She goes on to say, “Then, one evening while I was cooking dinner, pureeing butternut squash for the baby and making mac and cheese for the rest of us, I had the crazy idea of stirring a little of the puree into the macaroni. And so I did. The colors matched–you couldn’t really see the squash in there–and the texture was perfect. So I stirred a little more, tasting to make sure the flavor of the squash didn’t overpower the cheese. Feeling only a little guilty that I was tricking my children, I stirred in enough of the squash to feel satisfied that I was giving them a respectable portion of vegetables.
“And then I held my breath.
“It worked! The kids, entirely innocent of my deceit, plowed happily through their dinners. I was beside myself with joy. I couldn’t stop smiling at the knowledge that my kids had eaten vegetables without a word from me. My husband, Jerry, was dying to know what all my smiling was about. It was the first meal in a very long time during which I hadn’t said, ‘Eat your vegetables,’ even once. And that was pure pleasure.”
From time to time I will be adding recipes that I think you will enjoy trying with your kids. The first step is making the purees that are the secret to adding nutrition to your kids favorite foods.
Directions for making these delicious Purees.