Customer Reviews

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food

5 star:		(404)
4 star:		(175)
3 star:		(92)
2 star:		(75)
1 star:		(157)

 

 

Deceptively Delicious VS.The Sneaky Chef

First of all let me start by saying:
!) I don't have young kids any more BUT
2) I HATE veggies but I know I need to eat more of them, so any system that gets them into me and the grownups in my life: BRAVO!

Yes, I'd recommend BOTH books and here's why. They each have their strong and weak suits.

Pluses:
DECEPTIVELY DELICIOUS has
A) pictures, which is helpful and fun
B) tips and comments by her taste-testers
C) used one type of puree for each recipe
D) is spiral bound so it will lay flat. The whole layout is really nice, just as a cookbook to read!
E) doesn't beat you over the head with the whole nutrition thing

THE SNEAKY CHEF has
A) combination purees, which add a lot of variety and ease into the cooking part
B0 really cute names for the dishes. Makes it easy to remember!
C) isn't afraid to use butter and milk!
D) goes seriously into the nutrition thing. Almost the first half of the book is a prelim and explanation of the whole concept.
E) the recipes seem to taste a bit better!

Minuses:
DD. The recipes are a bit bland. If you're cooking for an adult palate, you need to add more spices. For example her "Chocolate Chip Cupcakes." I suggest substituting milk (even skim) for the water, add an extra T. vanilla and 1-2 teaspoons of cinnamon. One of the veggie purees her recipes call for aren't covered in the "how to prepare puree" part.

SC: Very few pictures. It's not spiral bound but a trip to Office Max can take care of that for you. (Best tip I ever got regarding cookbooks by the way and found it here!) It's a bit "textbook" like. I get the whole nutrition thing already.

I wish both books went into greater detail about the pureeing part. They're pretty good but if you're not a veggie person to begin with, you might not know what is the proper consistency.

I understand that Missy (The Sneaky Chef author) is writing a cookbook for adult with hidden veggies and I hope Jessica will do the same!

I also was so excited for this cookbook to arrive. I immediately rushed to the grocery store to get $50.00 worth of vegetables and other baking ingredients.

My first attempt was the brownies, and my victims were all adults. The look on their faces was priceless. Not so good because of the very weird texture to them.

Next, eggs with cauliflower for my 3 year old. Hmmm, he was wondering whey the eggs that have always been yellow, have now turned white. Add a little cheddar, and bam, they are yellow again.

The blueberry cupakces with cream cheese filling, total disaster. They looked horrible, and tasted even worse. I didn't even attempt to try to get anyone in the house to eat them

Hamburgers....you would have thought I was feeding my husband horse meat. They were NASTY! Very slimy with a funky aftertase.

What I learned is that you don't need this cookbook for recipes. Puree some veggies and slip them in the everyday food you make. Don't go overboard, and chances are your kids won't know the difference!

After seeing this on Oprah, my child and I decided to buy it. My child is one who actually eats and enjoys vegetables but we were both intrigued by the idea of incorporating extra vegetables into our diets.

The book is well-organized, offers detailed information about both the recipes and the benefits of the major ingredients, and I really like that the tone is not a "lecture" on the benefits of vegetables. She doesn't talk down to the reader but offers lots of helpful suggestions.

I do have one suggestion for busy parents - use organic baby food. I don't have a food processor and I don't have a dedicated block of time to clean, cook and prepare all the purees for the week. For about $.65 (or less) per jar, I can have 1/2 cup of organic winter squash etc. that has already been cleaned, cooked and pureed for me. Plus, it will keep on the shelf until I need it so I can buy extra when they go on sale.

Furthermore, I have started adding the purees to the recipes or boxed mixes I already use. I added 1/2 cup of mixed vegetables to a batch of Pamela's gluten-free brownie mix tonight and it was delicious. There was no noticeable change in texture and we could not taste anything but rich chocolate.

Don't be afraid to experiment :)

Well let me begin by saying that I am not a professional chef, nor I am an uber-fan of the "Seinfeld" show - so I could care less who the author is. I also had a feeling that anything that deals with food and children and not being 100% honest with kids in this "kid-centered" world we live in would push a few buttons. And it did! I am a married mom of two boys and I am also interested in better health for my family. I do believe in eating fruits and vegetables in their natural state but let's be honest: Who among us eats five servings a day? I saw Ms. Seinfeld on Oprah and thought to myself, Well I have beeing doing the puree thing myself so let's see what she has to say. How are thre recipes? Pretty good, as a matter of fact. Here is what I did to try some of the recipes out:
First, I plugged my Bob Seger CD and got the ball rolling. The Beatles work just as well, the decision is yours. Then I washed my hands, put on my "Lutheran Jello Power" apron and said to myself: "It's Go Time!" I own a Vita-Mix blender which double as a food processor. I own a rice cooker which can be used to stream veggies. If you do not own a food processor or a steamer, do not despair. You can bake a lot of the veggies or put a colander in a shallow pan of boiling water to steam them. You can always invest in a steamer and/or food processor if you want, later. The first recipe I tries was:
CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES: 5 star.They are delicious! The only tweaking I did to the recipe was I pureed the chickpeas before adding them to the batter. I also used brown sugar Splenda rather than regular brown sugar; when done you have a batch of cookies that have 1/2 cup of brown sugar plus protein in them!! There is no white sugar in this recipe and I also used whole wheat flour. Excellent!! I have actually made these twice in a week.
SPAGETTI AND MEATBALLS: 5 stars. My kids are not that into meatballs and they ate them. This was my first attempt at meatballs, ever, and they turned out great. I put the broccoli puree and the sweet potato puree in the spagetti sauce and no one tasted anything different.
CHOCOLATE PUDDING: 5 stars. I put the avocado puree in this and believe it or not my two sons complained that is was "too much chocolate tasting!" The pudding was that good.
MACARONI AND CHEESE: 5 stars. I tried putting the sweet potato puree in with a box mix and there was no taste difference. I mixed the puree withe the milk and you could taste the puree. The kids actually said it tasted better than before!!
FROZEN YOGURT POPS: 5 stars. Very good, very sweet. I do not own popsicle molds so I used those multi-color cups from toddler days (my kids are 8 & 10 yrs old) and although they worked great - I bought popsicle sticks from a craft store - next time I am going to use smaller dixie cups so the portions are smaller.
The recipes are mistake proof as well; I put avocado puree rather than the brocolli puree in pizza sauce to make pizza burgers (Jessica says to label your bags, guess now I know why) but it still tasted good. It actually made them taste a bit sweeter, like I had put banana peppers in the recipe as well.
One error I made was when I was done with the puree was I put all the puree in one large Zip-lock bag. Follow Jessica's advice and use smaller bags so you can pull out just how much you need. I pureed the following veggies the first day: Summer squash, broccoli, cauliflower, beets, carrots, avocados, spinach, zucchini and sweet potatoes. I bought a bag of frozen blueberries. I am little type A but I wanted all the puree to be available so I could try as many recipes as possible. If you want to try a recipe or two but don't own all the equipment (especially a food processor, which if you are going to do this long term you will need) try the sweet potato recipes. You can bake a sweet potato and mash it up with a fork and some water. And one sweet potato goes a very long way. I used three and I have enought puree to feed a day care. For a week. The avocado would be another one to try without all the equipment, as it is easily mashed with a fork and some water. The borcolli and caulifower recipes will require a food processor as they are tougher vegetables to mash, even in a steamed state.
There has been much discussion about another book that was published last spring and "competition" with this book. Well I am no expert but there is no way that this book could have been put together and published in six months. Why can't both books be on the market? I am sure both authors want the same thing: Better diets for us all. I have ordered the other cookbook as well, there is room for both on my shelf.
As for the argument that we are lying to our kids: Big whoop-de-doo. I have eaten more sweet potatoes, brocolli, califlower, carrots, etc. in the past week that I have in the past six months. Do I present veggies in their natural state? Yes. Do my kids always eat them? No. But at least they are presented and I know they are still eating them in the puree. Mealtimes should be about talking and sharing, not arguing over food. My younger son likes to help with cooking and baking and he knows the purees are in there and he could care less, as long as can still eat. I highly recommend this cookbook and as soon as I receive the other cookbook I will write a review of that book as well. This book, to me, is a great teaching tool about nutrition. My kids and I have gone through the recipes together and discussed which ones we want to try. Do my kids eat cake and ice cream? Of course, just not every day. We talk about nutrition in a matter of fact way: These are the things to make your body grow. Period. No arguing, no crying, no bribing. I am sort of like Dragnet that way: "Just the facts, ma'am!"
I also want to edit my review to add that I could not help notice that all the one star and rwo star reviews are very critical of the author's personal life. I sincerely hope that folks can see through such attempts at being critical of the author because she is once divorced and is now married to a celebrity. It is sad that such personal attacks are listed in what should be a simple book review.

My wife picked up this book in the hope of fooling our kids into eating more vegetables. She tried the inexplicable chocolate-spinach brownie, but the recipe failed for the following reasons:

1. The brownie texture was wrong. The surface of the brownie forms a shiny, mucousy layer that looks a bit like Freddie Kruger's skin in the "Nightmare on Elm Street" series.
2. While I had long been of the opinion that nearly anything can be made to taste good as long as it is smothered with enough chocolate, I am sad to find that I have been wrong in this belief. While the brownie looks like it should taste good, it has a strange metallic flavor. My mom thought it tasted like we had put some kind of fruit in it, while I thought it tasted like a tray of brownies that had been stored alongside some rotting vegetables.

The sad thing is that the overall idea is pretty good. Try replacing the spinach with zucchini, which already has a solid track record as a dessert ingredient.

Meanwhile, I'm off to cleanse my palette.

As a dietitian I am always looking for good resources for my clients. I bought this book hoping to find some tasty recipes for both clients and my own family. While I can see how some of these recipes may work for very young, undeveloped palates, they certainly did not work with my children who are 6 yrs and older, nor did my husband and I find them tasty. I have made several recipes over the past few days and the only ones that we found edible were the macaroni and cheese (edible but not well-liked) and the bolognese sauce. The tofu nugget recipe simply did not work and the coffee cake (marshmallows and butternut squash??) was terrible. While the premise of adding pureed vegetables to recipes is logical (and has been done before many times) in some of the recipes it seems that they are added for no reason. The bolognese sauce already has tomatoes, carrots and onions- is pureed sweet potato really neccessary? Additionally, is it in our child's best interest to "hide" healthy food in foods that are traditionally not "healthy" (cookies, cakes, etc) rather than educate them and introduce them to the whole food as part of a normal diet? Once a child is able to distinguish tastes, it is important for them to understand where they are coming from in their natural state so they have some idea of where their food comes from (spinach is not naturally found in chocolate brownies!) The recipes did not make enough to feed a family with big boys (and I do not mean teenagers- 10 yr old boys can eat quite a bit too.) Clearly this is more of a baby through toddler type book of recipes for those just starting off in the food-introduction process! Not food I would serve to adults!

A couple of thoughts on this book, its reviews, the recipes, the nutrition factor, & Oprah.

- First, re the reviews that are here - it seems that no one can post a negative review without immediately being shot down - this really makes me believe that the reviews are being monitored by interested parties in the book's success - perhaps, publisher, family & friends? If you note the first few reviews of the book, they were all made by members of Jessica's family, so they're here and active.

Second, re the recipes - I've made a few of them, and some work and some don't. The burgers have *way* too much garlic - maybe to overpower the cauliflower? The mashed potatoes are good and, on my own I put some cauliflower puree into some frozen spinach, and I ended up not needing to add any cream to jazz it up - it just worked. So, as a jumping off point, the purees are inspirational to incorporate into your own existing recipes - these recipes on their own, are a little touch and go, but overall the concept is brilliant - even though Jessica cannot be credited with having the idea first, as seen by the description of The Sneaky Chef, published previously.

Re the nutrition factor - this is becoming a sticky point as people bring up the question of why nutritional content was not included, especially considering that the foreward is written by a nutritionist. I think I can guess why - a 1/2 cup of spinach puree in a batch of brownies or 1/2 cup of cauliflower in a pot of mashed potatoes does not go a long way once you divide that up into individual servings. There is no way anyone is getting a full serving of vegetables from this technique, but I tend to be in the camp that thinks more veggies is better than less, even if the more is negligible. And, it may be even less than negligible considering the additional cooking beyond the steaming that is robbing the veggies of their enzymes.

Finally, re Oprah. I watched yesterday as Jerry came on to promote his new Bee Movie, that Oprah happens to be in. I realized this is why she had Jessica on in the first place and say, not the Sneaky Chef. There's definitely a bit of cronyism going on. And, was telling when Oprah groused about the book being number one on the bestseller list that Jerry thanked everone for contributing to "Seinfeld World Media".

All in all, I have no regrets about buying the book, and I'm sure I'll be doing purees from here on out.

I am starting to seriously regret forking over 15 bucks to someone who doesn't even need it! The only recipe I have made so far that has turned out well is the banana bread, made with bananas only and no cauliflower, but I probably have ten cookbooks with banana bread recipes in them already and didn't need to buy this book to get one.

Peanut butter & banana muffins with cauliflower -- Ick. The smell and taste of cauliflower about knocked me over. My daughter did take a few bites, but she wasn't interested enough to justify going to the trouble of making them again. I pitched them.

Peanut butter & banana muffins with carrot -- Only slightly better. I thought they tasted strange. Again, my daughter ate a couple sparingly and then lost interest. I pitched them.

Banana bread -- See above.

Chicken nuggets with sweet potato -- Now, I'm no professional chef, but I know my way around a kitchen and can usually manage not to burn things. By the time I had placed the last nuggets in the skillet, the ones I had put in first had already burned, yet weren't done on the inside at all. They SO weren't worth the effort. My daughter didn't eat even one.

Quesadillas with butternut squash -- All I could taste was squash, overwhelmingly. My daughter wouldn't eat them. I pitched them.

Grilled cheese with sweet potato -- My daughter ate a couple bites. I don't know if she didn't like it or just wasn't hungry. I ate one and it was just okay. I didn't care for the sweet potato/cheese combination. I probably won't make these again.

Brownies with spinach and carrot -- Okay, my daughter did eat these, but it's just not a practical thing. I only give her sweets if she's eaten a good meal, which is hardly ever, so I'm limited on how often I can give her brownies. I don't want her thinking she can just eat brownies whenever she wants them, spinach-filled or not. As far as taste, they were okay. They certainly didn't taste like Mom's homemade brownies!

Mozzarella sticks with cauliflower -- The recipe says to mix the cheese and the cauliflower and corn starch together, roll them into logs and coat them with bread crumbs and flaxseed meal. First there was no "rolling" to be had because the mixture was too thin. So I ended up adding another whole cup of cheese, which was all I had left, and they still fell apart in my hands. I managed to form them into something resembling the picture, froze them as instructed for 20 minutes and then cooked them. Once they got warm they completely disintegrated into mushy cheese lumps that didn't even start to resemble a "stick." I tasted them -- too heavy on the cauliflower and not good at all. My daughter took one bite and gagged. I pitched them. Seeing a pattern here?

I have read other reviews and seen people recommend tweaking or experimenting with the recipes to make them come out better. You know, I have an extremely demanding and spirited two-year-old and a full-time job and I barely have time to cook, let alone "experiment." I want a recipe that comes out right the first time.

I probably will try a few more recipes just because I still have lots of purees left in my freezer, but I'm not hopeful that any of them will turn out any better than what I've made so far. Save your money is my advice!

Quesadillas- The flavor wasn't too bad if you dipped in Salsa otherwise you can taste the squash and it doesn't come out crip it comes out pretty mushy.
Chicken nuggets- The breading doesn't get very crisp, the breading falls off when cooking and if you use brocolli the nuggest have a green look to them.
Chocolate cake with beats was good. Chick pea chocolate chip cookies were good the first 2 days. After that the chickpeas got so hard you couldn't chew them.
Brownies are spongy.
Grilled cheese you can taste the veggies and it is pretty mushy tasting
Egg Puffs were just gross
French toast isn't too bad, but my kids won't eat it
Chicken soup I didn't care for, but my son's did eat it.

Overall the recipes don't taste that bad, but the texture wasn't that good. I have one son who isn't a fussy eater at all and he wouldn't eat these recipes. Normally he eats anything you give him. Actually I think I made a mistake feeding him food from this cookbook because now he is a fussy eater when he never was before. Now my other son who is always fussy and we can't get him to eat much of anything wouldn't eat these either. He was the reason I bought the book, but he won't have anything to do with the food. He even likes cookies, cakes etc, they are his favorite. He didn't like the cookies. He did eat the cake and that was about it. I would say don't buy it. In fact I think I am going to have to sell my book. It was a waste of money for me.

I was so excited when I heard about this book, I ran out and got it, as did a couple of other fellow moms I know. We are all so incredibly disappointed with the recipes. I made the chocolate cake with beets, and it was so disgusting, it didn't taste like anything, I can't imagine anyone liking it, I had to throw almost the whole thing away because no one would eat it. The textures are all wrong, the scrambled eggs with cauliflower are so watery, the chicken nuggets are not crispy, but mushy, and you can see the green specs in them.
It's a great idea, but it's definitely overhyped, I wish these recipes had worked for us but they were a total disappointment. I'm off to EBay my copy.