Mother-Talk blog tour: Deceptively Delicious

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you know that cooking for Geo has always been somewhat of a struggle. The man doesn’t like vegetables. Corn on the cob, yes. Salad is ok. But veggies in food? He’ll pick out every last onion and pepper.

Bug and Bubba can be just as bad and trying to make sure that everyone is eating healthy and getting enough vegetables can seem like a never ending battle.

Enter Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (Yes, Jerry’s wife.) Oh, how I love this book.

Deceptively Delicious is all about sneaking veggies into foods that you eat all the time. You whip up these purees which are then added to foods like chicken salad sandwiches and burgers. Mmmmm..that chicken salad! I made it one Sunday afternoon. Geo ate four or five sandwiches. He raved about how good they were. Never once did he guess that there was a cauliflower puree mixed in.

And then, I made burgers. And I didn’t even have cauliflower like the author says to use, so I used green pepper puree. And again, nobody knew and everyone loved it. It is almost too easy.

This book has about month’s worth of food, which includes desserts like chocolate pudding (with avocado) and chocolate chip cupcakes (with pumpkin and yellow squash). Yummy!

One thing I’ve always disliked about cookbooks is that the recipes and cooking techniques always seem too difficult. But Seinfeld does an excellent job of making it easy for you. First, she gives you all the equipment you might want to have. Most of it you already have in your kitchen, even if you aren’t a cooking goddess. (And the rest of the the “would be nice to have” items are going on my Christmas list.) Then she gives you a list of staples that you should have in your pantry. Next, you get step by step directions on how to cook the purees. And you might be thinking that making purees is too difficult and would add too much time to your already busy life. But really, it doesn’t. When I whipped up the cauliflower puree, I just threw it in the rice cooker steaming basket while I was getting the rest of the stuff ready. Then you just dump it in the blender with a tiny bit of water, and you are done. And the best part? You can make all the purees in advance and freeze them. Seinfeld says she takes about an hour each week to make them and I can see how that is completely realistic.

Man, I love this book. I love the design of it (it’s pink and I dig that), the spiral bound pages which lay flat, the nutritional information, the beautiful photographs, and the fact that I served up an entire head of cauliflower and no one knew. Now that is awesome.

You can catch Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah today! (October 8th)

Buy the book here.

Official book website.

See what other bloggers are saying at Mother-Talk!