My little chefs

Have you heard of the cookbook "Deceptively Delicious" by Jessica Seinfeld, the wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld? You probably have. It's been out awhile and I've always wanted to check it out and try it out on our family. It's only taken me two years or so to get around to it!

On our date night a few weeks back, John and I stumbled across the book at Barnes and Noble and flipped through the pages. We were interested but not committed enough to buy. Well, last week while at the library I had the genius idea of checking it out! So while the boys played at the library I read enough of the cookbook to get motivated enough to give it a try.

Enter my two chefs. Both boys quizically looked at me yesterday when they saw me steaming carrots and cauliflower at breakfast. I think they were relieved when these two veggies did not end up on their breakfast plates!

The whole idea behind the cookbook is to puree fruits and veggies and then use the purees in your recipes to sort of "sneak" in the fruits and veggies your kids might not otherwise eat. My boys LOVE fruit and would prefer it to candy even but veggies, not so much. And admittedly, John and I are not the best veggie eaters either. Salads yes, veggies no.

So I thought we could all benefit from this adventure. So after pureeing the steamed carrots and cauliflower, the boys joined me in baking up some banana bread. This "deceptively" also contains cauliflower. Though I wasn't all that deceptive about it as the boys were the ones stirring in all the ingredients. They didn't mind the cauliflower because all they could smell were the bananas, triggering Burrito's mind to remember the fruit smoothies we like to make. They were official chefs too, with their aprons and chef hat!

So we combined all the ingredients, mixed them up, poured into a loaf pan and patiently waited while it cooked for about an hour. The sandbox outside was a good distraction. And the final result was good. Not the best banana bread I've ever had but the best with cauliflower, and more importantly, banana bread that both Burrito and Noodle were excited to eat! Hooray!

Truthfully, it takes some work and dedication to keep this deception up that I am not too sure is worth it. We will see though. I have several batches of puree to use up and some more recipes to try out. It was fun though, to spend time with the boys in the kitchen....a lot of patience on my part too!