Trick or treat? Jessica Seinfeld's new cookbook for parents
Jessica Seinfeld — wife of Jerry – is no stranger to tricking her family. But her trickery comes in the form of healthy, white lies. She released a must-have book for every parent yesterday, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food, which provides stealthy and easy ways for parents to hide healthy food into their kids’ favorite and not-so-healthy ones. Being a mother of three — Sascha, 6 1/2, Julian Kal, 4, Shepherd Kellen, 2 — with Jerry, this was a project that beganin her own home and she now hopes to share with families everywhere. Her goal was to help parents learn how to sneak healthy food into everyday things that kids actually love to eat.
She told People what inspired her to be a sneaky chef,
I was making butternut squash puree for my baby and mac ‘n’ cheese from a box for my other kids. I realized the colors matched exactly. So I added the squash to the mac ‘n’ cheese and they didn’t notice. I was so excited! I thought, ‘What else can I hide?’ It became an obsession.
So what else does she hide?
Sweet potato in pancakes, pureed tomato in taco meat, spinach in brownies…I’ve met kids who say they hate spinach — ‘Eww, it’s so gross!’ I’ll give them a brownie and tell them, ‘That was FULL of spinach.’ They don’t know what to say.
Jessica doesn’t have to trick Jerry, 53, who she says is a good eater, but should she stuff some of his loathed asparagus into a meal, he wouldn’t mind.
He would love it. He thinks this whole thing is so much fun. He would say, ‘I stand corrected.’
She told Posh Cravings that getting her children to eat vegetables before was a chore. But, now they happily eat their meals and usually even their veggies on the side, just because it’s no longer demanded of them. The trick to getting a balanced meal on the table every night, according to Jessica, is to make your purees in advance. For example, she preps hers on Sunday for the week. And then pops them out as she needs them. Every recipe in the book was tested and approved by her family and she admits that not every recipe worked the first time.
All the other recipes required LOTS of trial and error. There have been plenty of recipes I’ve tried on my family where they say, ‘This is disgusting!’ And that’s the point — if it doesn’t work for them, I move on to something that does. The recipes that made it into this book are fully tested and approved.
Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
Source: People, October 15 issue, and Posh Cravings
Do you have any tricks for getting your kids to eat veggies, fruits and other good-for-you foods?
