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Usually I focus on food and related angst on Tuesdays and something relating to organization/productivity on Thursdays. However this week (and potentially next week as well) I’m just sort of focusing on food. Mainly because I spent (literally) 4 hours yesterday steaming, baking and pureeing vegetables.
On Tuesday I mentioned how I’d pureed a few vegetables following the directions in and it wasn’t all that big a deal. On Wednesday I tackled a major batch of vegetables following the directions laid out in Deceptively Delicious. Somewhere in hour two I remembered why I never made my own baby food. It’s kind of annoying if you don’t like cooking and/or messes.
Here is my sink.
Squash and sweet potatoes take about an hour to roast.
On the bright side, the squash and sweet potatoes yield the most puree. Also, it’s easier to spend four hours cooking and pureeing vegetables when your kids can sit in the same room doing homework. I always knew having a nicer kitchen wouldn’t make me more into cooking, but I admit a nicer kitchen does make the process a lot more pleasant.
Also on the bright side look how pretty all these bags of pureed vegetables are.
On Tuesday I mentioned we’d be trying a few recipes from Deceptively Delicious in the coming week. I couldn’t wait so I thought I’d share the results from my first two attempts.
I decided to make the Chocolate Chip Cookies from the cookbook which incorporate chickpeas into the mix. I had high hopes for these cookies because chickpeas (or garbanzo beans) have tons of fiber and also protein without much fat.
Making these cookies seemed a lot like making regular chocolate chip cookies, which is good because if things are a lot harder for me to make I’m not going to do it. I don’t think I’m alone in this limitation.
Then I added the chickpeas. Just drained and rinsed. Uh…..okay……?
Here are the cookies out of the oven, cooling on racks.
They look a lot like regular chocolate chip cookies really. I tasted a few and they did not taste like regular chocolate chip cookies but they still tasted good enough I ate a few remembering how little fat they had and how much fiber and protein they had.
I have to admit, if you’re looking for a delicious chocolate chip cookie like your mom used to make this isn’t it. However it was a decent cookie with only an occasional hint of garbanzo bean.
The true test was the kids. Both of my kids had a cookie when they walked in after school and I didn’t let on they were different. For example, when they asked what flavor they were I didn’t say “Garbanzo Chocolate Chip”, rather I said “Chocolate Chip”. With enthusiasm.
Maddie ate her cookie with no note of the secret ingredient. Max ate his as well without noting anything different. However, when I offered him a second one he said, “That was a disgusting cookie with raisins. I don’t want another.”
Uh……no raisins but perhaps oatmeal you’ve tasted?
Max had a friend over after school who ate a cookie and said, “Mrs Summers, you make really delicious cookies.” However, it took a long time for him to eat that cookie so I am not convinced he wasn’t just being polite.
I usually send one cookie as an after lunch treat, but since the cookies are so good for them I sent two in their lunch today. The true test of these cookies will be whether or not any cookies come home after school.
I also made a banana bread because I had some ripe bananas ready to be made into bread. The Deceptively Delicious recipe incorporated pureed banana and pureed cauliflower which is very different from my usual banana bread recipe which incorporates light sour cream, butter and orange zest.
What came out of my oven was this. I wish you could smell it because it smelled like a banana dying a painful and merciless death.
I didn’t eat it right away, thinking I’d let it cool just in case the flavors needed time to ‘meld’. When I finally did try it, Maddie was home and tried a piece too. We both ran to the bathroom to spit our pieces out and she asked for another cookie to ‘get rid of the taste’. This bodes well for the fate of the cookies.
It does not bode well for the fate of the banana bread, which is currently considering its crime in the bottom of my garbage can.
I have a lot of pureed vegetables in my freezer so I have more taste tests to run.
I also went ahead and bought The Sneaky Chef so I can give you a comparison. So far I like how The Sneaky Chef website has sample recipes, Deceptively Delicious does not. I am also curious to see if The Sneaky Chef cookbook shares nutritional data on each of the recipes. If I’m putting forth this much effort into adding nutrition to my kid’s diet, I’d like to know if it’s truly making a difference.
For example, if I add 1/2 cup of pureed cauliflower to a recipe which makes 8-10 servings, is one tablespoon of cauliflower in my kid’s banana bread really more nutritionally beneficial than a daily multi vitamin?
This will be interesting.
This entry was posted on Thursday, October 11th, 2007 at 10:20 am and is filed under Lunches, Cooking, Food. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
Tags: Deceptively Delicious, lunch, recipe
October 11th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
I haven’t bought Deceptively Delicious but I do have The Sneaky Chef. I’ve made tacos with pureed sweet potato/carrots (good), Annie’s Mac & Cheese with the same puree (good), chocolate chip cookies with white bean puree (good if eaten right then and there, very crumbly after that but my kids ate them), Quick Fix for brownie mix with Purple Puree (blueberries and spinach) and wheat germ (these are a hit. I made them into bite sized brownies by using mini muffin tins and the kids love them. Plus, these keep better than the chocolate chip cookies - the kids have had them for snack and/or dessert in their lunches for the past few days.
Next up - the breakfast cookie.
Unfortunately, no nutrition information per se. There’s no NI label per tablespoon or per 1/4 cup which I think would have been perfect but other than that I’ve been happy.
October 11th, 2007 at 4:19 pm
I’ve been hiding ‘good stuff’ in my family’s food for years and it’s really not as hard as Seinfeld’s book seems to make it.
I make a FAB brownie with kidney beans and whole wheat flour and you can’t tell the difference. Maybe with the chickpea cookies it’s a texture thing? I whip up my beans in the food processor with a little bit of water before adding them and they make quite a silky paste for nice chewy brownies.
Maybe I should have thought of writing a cookbook because these two seem to be getting a LOT of attention lately…
October 11th, 2007 at 4:30 pm
Aside from ’sneaking’ ingredients in, the easiest baking substitution on earth: You can swap applesauce for vegetable oil in nearly any cookie/cake recipe on a 1:1 ratio. This lowers the fat significantly and add extra fruit/fiber. Yeah, its not as sneaky as spinach in a brownie, but it makes that banana bread guilt-free when made with some low fat milk, bananas, and applesauce.
Also: Easy and rich chocolate cake- and by eaasy, I mean REALLY easy:
1 box chocolate cake mix
1 large can pumpkin puree (NOT pie mix with seasonings, just straight up pumpkin).
Mix the two, put in a pan (bundt or baking dish) and bake according to the cake mix’s directions. It comes out moist and tasty.
October 11th, 2007 at 5:17 pm
hmmm. Maybe it all just tatse better when you’re married to Jerry Seinfeld!?
October 11th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
Deceptively Delicious does have sample recipies, they are just really well hidden. Go to the “Image Gallery” tab, and when you mouse over the photos, text pops up that reads “click image to go to the recipie”…I found them by accident.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:45 pm
Hmmm, how’d you do the spinach? I’ve got a sad looking bunch of spinach in my fridge that I’d like to cook up and freeze for use later, but I’m at a loss as to how best to do so.
October 11th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
“For example, if I add 1/2 cup of pureed cauliflower to a recipe which makes 8-10 servings, is one tablespoon of cauliflower in my kid’s banana bread really more nutritionally beneficial than a daily multi vitamin?”
Getting the nutrients from the source, rather than a vitamin, is always better. Ask any nutritionist.
October 11th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I was about to buy this cookbook off Amazon after seeing Oprah’s piece. I think I’ll wait until you’ve ran a few more tests
October 11th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Is nutrition info. included in Deceptively Delicious?
October 11th, 2007 at 9:53 pm
I made the chocolate cupcakes with avocado. Neither picky eater - husband or child - would put one near their mouths.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:03 pm
Pamela, they give you general information about what each vegetable contains and is good for. However, there is no nutritional data for each of the recipes.
I’d really like to know how much ‘cauliflower’ goodness my kid is getting if I go to all the trouble.
October 11th, 2007 at 10:43 pm
When you said the banana bread had cauliflower in it, I kind of gagged a little. I liked the story about you and Maddie running to the bathroom together, though!
I’ve been getting that new V-8 fusion juice for my little picky eater, and so far, she’s completely fooled by it. The key: there are no clear pictures of vegetables on the bottle. She won’t drink the Juicy Juice Harvest Surprise because of the pictures.
October 11th, 2007 at 11:25 pm
Another book to check out…Sneaky Veggies by Chris Fisk. It’s the same idea as these 2 books and you can find it on Amazon. I haven’t actually tried any of the recipes yet but I’ve made many of her non-sneaky recipes and they are all delicious. and I’m not just saying that because she’s a friend of mine:) Chris is actually a trained chef, not a semi-celebrity who felt like writing a book.
October 12th, 2007 at 4:49 am
I just wrote about this book tonight at familyfreitas.blogspot.com. I made the taco’s but didn’t follow the recipe completely. It was good. I am dying to try the brownies and wanted to try the banana bread but may skip it after your fiasco.
October 12th, 2007 at 3:49 pm
[…] “The First Experiment: Chickpea Cookies” by Ordering Disorder. Melissa is trying out that new Jessica Seinfeld book “Deceptively Delicious” out on her notoriously picky children and this was her first go. I was interested to see the outcome, as I saw the segment on Oprah with Mrs. Seinfeld earlier this week and wanted to see how these recipes went over in “real life”. I’m not a big fan of chickpeas though, so I was a little horrified at the notion of putting them into chocolate chip cookies. I probably would have mashed them up before hand instead of putting them in whole. But it sounds like they went over pretty well. I’ll be keeping an eye for her future “experiements”. […]
October 12th, 2007 at 5:03 pm
to Katrina:
REALLY, just one regular box of cake mix and one large can pumpkin puree? none of the other ingredients?
Sounds neat. Might have to try that!
Thanks
October 12th, 2007 at 5:28 pm
I read this article at NYT and thought of you:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/10/dining/10pick.html
You’re right in saying you have three picky children to feed, your actual kids probably get it from your husband! “Researchers examined the eating habits of 5,390 pairs of twins between 8 and 11 years old and found children’s aversions to trying new foods are mostly inherited.”
October 12th, 2007 at 6:06 pm
I’m not so sure about garbanzo’s in cookies (I’m going to try it), but you can make an amazing low-fat white gravy with them. I learned how to do this from Paul Prudhomme’s Fork in the Road cookbook. I also make a gravy from kidney beans. Cauliflower in banana bread sounds extremely disgusting. I was thinking about getting Jessica Seinfeld’s cookbook after reading about it in Vogue. I think I’ll get The Sneaky Chef instead.
October 12th, 2007 at 6:15 pm
I thought I’d share - my husband comes in yesterday and asks when we’re having vegetables disguised as cookies. I hadn’t seen your post yet, so I gave him a strange look. He says - I saw the post on Ordering Disorder, and since we’ve been eating the tuna salad and granola bar from there, I figured chickpea cookies are on the horizon:)
Keep em coming, Melissa - this blog is transforming our kitchen!
October 12th, 2007 at 6:20 pm
I second the using pumpkin with box cake mixes! makes super yummy cupcakes too! and you can even eat the batter (makes it all light and fluffy like mousse) but warning - thats a LOT of fiber… so just be prepared
also - my husband did NOT like that trick with a yellow cake mix but had no idea when i did it with chocolate. Also works well with spice cake and top with cool whip (at least SOME nutrition in the cake LOL)
October 14th, 2007 at 12:40 pm
Thank you for doing this… it saves me the trouble! After watching this on Oprah I was all gung ho… now… not so much. I can’t believe you all didn’t love the banana bread… Jerry loves it!
On the Oprah website you can get about 6 of her recipes.
October 14th, 2007 at 9:18 pm
I was so very curious about the pumpkin devil food’s recipe that I just had to do it immediately. MY GOODNESS! The boys went crazy over them. THAT is the only way they will EVER be made in my house.
October 15th, 2007 at 3:13 pm
A question about the pumpkin … I hit the grocery store yesterday to get the chocolate cake mix and pumpkin, and couldn’t decide if you meant the BIG can of puree (1 lb. 13 oz) or the regular 15 oz can. The big one seemed awful big… so I got both. Which do I use?
October 15th, 2007 at 5:22 pm
If you can, buy the organic cake mix with no partially hydrogenated oils. The standard name brand cake mixes are loaded with trans fat which definitely cancels out any nutritional value of the added pumpkin. The organic mixes have none and are tasty.
October 16th, 2007 at 1:24 pm
I have been cooking out of this cookbook for a few weeks now.
Our verdict….
Main Dishes- delicious! (the spaghetti pie is awesome)
Dessert- blech. The exception are the angel food cupcakes. They were pretty good…without the frosting. The frosting was nasty.
October 16th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
[…] Last time we met, I had (against my better judgment) created chocolate chip cookies mixed with whole chickpeas. The results seemed all right, but I remained skeptical. I mentioned the real test would be lunch the following day, would the kids eat both cookies? Shockingly, this is Max’s lunch container after school. […]
October 17th, 2007 at 2:07 pm
Laura-
By “big” can I mean the fat can of pumpkin that if you read the label on the back, they give directions for making 2 pies with it. Its the same height as any regular del monte, etc veggie can, just fatter. I’d give ounces, but am at work and my canned pumpkin is in the pantry at home.
Kate-
Yeah, I stick to darker and chocolate cake mixes because the color is easily masked.
I like the spice cake idea!
October 18th, 2007 at 9:13 pm
Hi! Just found this in a search, trying to find an EASY way to puree veggies. I’ve been using the blender and I’m forever having to push the veggies down every couple of seconds. Is it easier with a food processor? I used a hand mixer for the sweet potatoes, they were EASY.
Anywho, my reason for replying, is I was intrigued by the pumpkin/cake mix recipe. I made this homemade chocolate cake from Country Living magazine, which calls for a cup of pumpkin. I just wanted to clarify, you are using the 29 oz can of pumpkin, plus a box of cake mix? Not the regular size like a can of vegetables, but the fatter one, right? Seems like a lot of pumpkin but I’m willing to try it. I got a chocolate fudge cake mix. Looked at the organic cake mixes but they were almost $5 apiece and I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I got the 97 cent Pillsbury.
Also just wanted say that I made Mrs Seinfeld’s mac n cheese (with cauliflower), chicken nuggets (with broccoli), meatloaf (I used ground beef instead of turkey), and the brownies with carrot and spinach. We liked them all, my husband and I LOVED the mac n cheese. I also made the scrambled eggs but I didn’t like those. My kids ate them though. I’m not a huge fan of eggs anyway.
October 24th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
My mom was in town and was all about ordering me and her a copy of this while she was here since she has no computer at home. After I explained the whole blog / how I am addicted to SuburbanBliss / why my children are neglected because of aforementioned addiction I showed her this and she was so thrilled that you all saved her lotsa money and so much effort pureeing veggies.
PS, she made the cake into cupcakes and it was delish - even MY husband ate them!!!!
November 6th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
[…] also added a secret ingredient to the recipe totally inspired by Deceptively Delicious, making the failed experiment not a complete waste of […]
November 28th, 2007 at 3:04 am
Katrina,
I tried your chocolate cake mix w/pumpkin and I liked it. was definitely a different texture-more brownie-like. I also swirled some peanut butter in cause i’m a chocolate/p.b. freak. for the purpose of giving a mid-day boost to a very tired mama it worked very well!
thanks everyone for sharing your Deceptively Delicious experiment results. i’ve been thinking of getting the cookbook and find all this info very helpful.
December 8th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I have the Sneaky Chef cookbook and I made the Breakfast Cookies. My 9 year old eats 2 cookies and a glass of V8 Splash for breakfast and loves it.
The only change I made to the recipe was I made 12 cookies from the batch instead of 16.
I ran the recipe through a nutritional calculator and came up with this info on the Breakfast Cookies:
Serving Size 1 cookie (out of 12 for the batch)
calories: 53
Total Fat: 1.33 gm
Cholesterol: 1.25 mg
Sodium: 97.29 mg
Potassium: 27.94 mg
Total Carb: 8.53 gm
Sugar: 1.49 gm
Protein: 11.94 gm = 24%
as well as a host of other vitamins found in the cereal (I used Total).
He helped me make them, and they look rather bland. He said, “I thought these would be yucky, but they are good - can I have another?”
December 10th, 2007 at 3:39 pm
I’ve been wondering what other Mom’s thought of this book (DD)… I’m glad to have found this page. I have been following these recipes PRECISELY for a month now. I’ve made oatmeal, scrambled eggs, green eggs, tofu nuggets, doughnuts, PB&J muffins, french toast, oatmeal raisin cookies and more. My problem is that they don’t turn out looking like Jessicas. The oatmeal cookies fall apart, my PB&J muffins actually look way better however don’t turn them out onto a rack to cool as the recipe says (all the preserves spill out), the green eggs DO require a puree (why does she say they do not?) The scrambled eggs take alot longer to cook, you can see the green puree on the chicken and/or tofu nuggets. I will say that the french toast is good but what good is 2 tablespoons of a puree in a recipe nutrition wise? And, the oatmeal is delicious with any of the purees recommended. Unfortunately the scrambled eggs did not appeal to my daughter and have only caused her to stop eating scrambled eggs all together which is not good. Eggs are the most complete protein that exists and one of the few proteins my daughter would eat… besides beans and weanies which I add any orange puree to. Luckily my daughter likes green foods better than any other. I bought the book just to increase our nutritional intake and allow me to cook fewer foods for each meal. For that, it works.
May 14th, 2008 at 1:13 am
I have made the banna bread twice and served it at playgroups. Everyone raved about it. I did not use the cauliflower, I just used an extra 1/2 cup of banna. It was really moist. I also made the peanut butter banana muffins, those were also good. Tonight I tried the chocolate chip cookies, they were okay. They had a weird texture. I mix the garbanzo’s in my stand mixer so it broke them all up. Are they supposed to be left whole?