MotherTalk Blog Tour: Deceptively Delicious

This review is part of a MotherTalk Blog Tour. For more opinions from moms about Deceptively Delicious, visit MotherTalk.

Recently, the astute editors at MotherTalk sent me a copy of Deceptively Delicious, Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, by Jessica Seinfeld. (Yes, she's Jerry's wife.) When I took the book out of it's package, I had to stop and admire the retro design, the useful hardcover-and-spiral-bound construction, and the gorgeous color photography that accompanies almost every recipe.

As the title implies, this book offers ideas for slipping nutritious foods into the recipes of foods kids love. Yes, it involves making purees. However, the purees are all simple, requiring just one ingredient. And many of the recipes are flexible, allowing you to use whichever puree you happen to have on hand.

Despite my experience with this kind of cooking, the boldness of some of these "deceptions" took me by surprise. For example, my five year old likes buttered noodles. So I tried Seinfeld's "'Buttered' Noodles," which have yellow squash puree mixed in with the trans-fat-free margarine spread.

And John loved them.

Ha! Hahahahahaha!

Another blatant misconception is the chocolate pudding, which contains an entire cup of avocado puree.

And my kids liked it.

Ha! Hahahahahhaha!

Avocado's one of those foods I had tried to get my kids to eat without success, and this book puts it to use in many recipes. A few of my other favorites so far are:

• The Frozen Yogurt Pops, which use pureed berries, yogurt and confectioner's sugar. Now, why didn't I ever think of adding confectioner's sugar?

• The chocolate chip cookies, which contain whole chickpeas but my boys consumed them so fast they didn't even notice. Whole chickpeas. In cookies. And my kids ate them. It's almost afraid of Seinfeld's deceptive healthy-cooking prowess.

• The fruit punch, which contains whole-fruit and carrot purees and just 1/2 cup of sugar. Yummy, and cheaper than some of those smoothies sold at the grocery store.

One thing that would have made this book better for me is a more robust index. This is kind of a pet peeve of mine, but it would be great if the index listed where the ingredients are used in the recipes. So, if I have some ricotta cheese left over from making one thing, I could quickly look in the index and find another recipe to use it in. But maybe that's just my anal retentive index-using habits.

I heartily recommend this book to parents who have to cook for ungrateful, picky, obnoxious ... Um, you know what I mean. It can be hard cooking for kids, young ones and teen ones, and this book will make it easier and more enjoyable. Some of you may remember I reviewed a book that uses similar techniques a month or so ago. I think the two books complement each other nicely and that owning both gives the cook the most ideas and flexibility.

After all, this isn't just a cookbook. It's a new way of eating that I think extends beyond kids. I love these foods too, and I feel good knowing when I'm scarfing down a couple chocolate chip cookies that I'm not going to feel like crap afterwards, because there was actually some protein and fiber in the things. So even if you're not cooking for self-centered, sweet-toothed short people, if you're just looking to increase the fun and healthfulness of your own food, I recommend this book for you, too.

Cooking this way is so fun, much more so than sweating over the stove only to have your kids spit the fruits of your labor back in your face. I'm grateful to this book for opening my eyes to more ways to feed my kids vegetables and other healthy foods, in a way that doesn't require me to make PB&Js for everyone, then swear as I scrape pounds of rejected food into the trash can. Because, there definitely is something wrong with that.

For more information on the book and its methods, check out Seinfeld's Web site.

Tags: [Deceptively Delicious], [MotherTalk], [book review], [cookbook review]