Recipe – Adding Extra Nutrients to Family Favorites

Instead of a recipe today, I wanted to share an idea. It wasn’t long ago that the popular cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, Deceptively Delicious, was released at the same time as a similar cookbook, The Sneaky Chef.

The idea behind both cookbooks was to puree vegetables and fruit, then mix them into popular meals to get your family some extra nutrients without their knowledge. Critics said that after cooking the vegetables to puree them and then again into the meal, most of the nutrients was lost. Plus, the tiny amount of purees added to the foods wasn’t enough to actually add enough nutrients.

Honestly, I’m not a dietitian and don’t really know, but I did love the idea. However, without a baby, the thought of pureeing foods for hours to add a tiny bit of nutrients just did not sound like any fun to me. So, why bother?

Instead, I took the lazy man’s route and didn’t puree them. I shredded a few carrots and tossed them into Macaroni and Cheese. I didn’t cook the carrots. I actually mixed them in at the very end right before I served it. And there they were for the world (okay, maybe just my family) to see. Totally mixed into one of their favorite foods. Yes, they balked for a while, but it was Macaroni and Cheese! So, in the end, they ate it. And, in the end, my extremely picky husband complimented me on getting a few vegetables into his diet and actually making them taste good.

Once I figured it out, nothing has stopped me from tossing vegetables into almost all of their favorite dishes, so that even though they turn their nose up at the pile of zucchini on their plate, they do eat the asparagus mixed into the Fettuccine Alfredo into their without a word.

Yes, it took a while. They continued to balk for a while. But, eventually, they learned that it didn’t really mess with the flavor of their favorite meals enough to stop them from eating it and they couldn’t remove it easily!