Customer Reviews

The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals

5 star:		(209)
4 star:		(73)
3 star:		(32)
2 star:		(17)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This book is truly amazing. I have two children who won't eat a mini-carrot between them, and they are now downing veggie after veggie without suspecting a thing!! Here is the funny thing- it works on my husband too! He claims he doesn't like sweet potatoes, but he has eaten them in so many things now- I just wait and tell him afterwards (haha, guess what you just ate?!). Do I feel guilty about sneaking veggies? Not at all! Whatever I can do to help my family be healthier, I would do in a heartbeat. I have a couple of hints- first of all, buy all of your veggies at once and spend about 3 hours one afternoon once per month making the five most common veggie purees. Pour them into individual serving size freezer bags and then put all of the little bags into a gallon bag (one per type of puree), label them, and you are good to go! This is much easier than trying to puree veggies for each meal, it would become so time-consuming that you would be tempted to change your mind at the last minute and make something easier (and less healthy). I grab a bag out of the freezer, quickly defrost and then stir it in with the kids mac n' cheese, chocolate pudding, and all sorts of other "treat food" that all of a sudden become vitamin-rich dishes. I also pre-make some of the breading and flour mix too, and keep them vacuum-packed...it really simplifies things at dinnertime. Likewise, I make the breakfast cookies in a triple recipe, and save them and freeze them for a quick, easy and healthy breakfast. The meat recipes in this book are also excellent- the sloppy joes, meatballs, and the meatloaf- as well as the baked ziti and the pizza- are especially fabulous. This is the first book that I have felt compelled to write a review about, but I felt I absolutely had to do it! We have been eating almost exclusively on recipes from this book for a month now and we all feel so much healthier. Kudos to Missy Chase Lapine! Thank you!

We dont care who did it first, the Sneaky Chef is the one that works.,
Sleep Doctor "Dr. Mom, MD" (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food (Spiral-bound)
This weekend 7 friends and I got together to compare recipes from The Sneaky Chef(TSC) and Deceptively Delicious(DD). Our primary loyalty is to our kids and getting good food into them. We don't really care who did it first, just what works. We've been successfully sneaking for months and need more recipes now, so we were eagerly awaiting the release of Deceptively Delicious.

We chose six duplicate recipes from each book (12 total) and did double-blind (where neither the server nor the child knows which is which-only the cook keeps track) side by side taste tests. The whole process took all day Sunday. We chose to make mashed potatoes, mac n cheese, peanut butter & jelly muffins, brownies, chicken nuggets and meat loaf.

Summary: For one reason or another, kids clearly preferred the recipes from TSC. The main reasons seemed to be that DD's were too sophisticated in flavors and the textures were off. The cooks felt that TSC was more geared towards kids' tastes, especially where picky eaters are concerned, and addressed the needs of the cook better. Roughly half of the recipes in Deceptively Delicious are the same as in The Sneaky Chef, which was disappointing since we're starved ; ) for new recipes at this point.

The following are the detailed results:

Mashed Potatoes: Kids' preference: TSC. Main reason: "Creamier." DD was called "watery" by most kids. Cooks found both recipes easy to make and would do so regularly.

Mac n cheese: Kids' unanimous preference: TSC. Main reason: "the same as they're used to." Kids rejected DD version as "adult food" and would not eat it. Cooks' also preferred TSC. Reasons: DD has too many ingredients, is too expensive and time consuming to make regularly.

Peanut Butter & Jelly Muffins: Kids' preference: none. A clear tie. This was probably due to the dominating peanut butter flavor in both recipes. Kids did prefer the appearance of DD, though, as the jelly was visible on top of the muffin and TSC is hidden inside.

Brownies: Kids' unanimous preference: TSC. Main reason: DD had a slightly bitter to some kids but all found the texture "too pasty." Cooks found both recipes easy to make and would do so regularly.

Chicken Nuggets: Kids preferred TSC overall. Main objection to DD: "too spicy and mushy." Cooks' also preferred TSC. Reasons: DD has too many ingredients and the flax meal contributed to the too-soft texture.

Meat Loaf: Kids unanimously preferred TSC. Unanimous objection to DD: "too spicy and mushy." Cooks' unanimously preferred TSC for texture and flavor.

Note: The layout in DD is more clear and concise, and having the photos next to the recipes is also very helpful. TSC would take a lesson here.

Finally, we hope that many more authors get on this sneaky bandwagon-we need more recipes

Let me first say I like this book and I am glad I purchased it. I echo other reviewers who question the idea of hiding foods instead of teaching your children to enjoy them. However, this is certainly a way to sneak some in while you are attempting the teaching.

My kids are not THAT picky, but they are children after all so of course they would prefer nothing but cookies for the rest of their lives.

I have made all the purees so far and have tried many of the recipes. I have also used the concept in my own recipes with great success.

Like other reviewers, I am also wondering how much nutrition is left in the food once you boil it down to nothing. In some cases, I have added the water I boiled the veggies in to recipes in other ways. Don't know if that helps anything, but it made me feel better about it.

Now for my disappointment about the book...the recipes don't have nutritional values listed. yes, there is a list of nutrients provided by the sneaked in foods, but no real nutrional value - ie calories, fat, fiber, etc. My next project will be to calculate nutritional value based on my old recipes versus adding the new recipes. I am not certain how much I am actually changing the value - in other words, am I doing a fair amount of work for little improvement? The sneaked in foods seem to be in such small amount sometimes I am just not sure that there is a real value in it. I guess something is better than nothing, but since my kids already eat fairly well, I am not convinced that it is worth all my extra effort.

I should say for the record that I have 4 children -infant, 2,4 and 13. The overall concept is not THAT much work, but I decided to go gung ho and made every puree over a couple of days - many tiny containers in my freezer now with 1/4 cup dollops of purees. Also, I have a managerial job where I work 50-60 hours weekly away from home. I cook meals ahead of time and leave them for stay-at-home husband to put in the oven. He is NOT in on the sneaking (just for fun). I have included my 13 year old in the plan b/c she is a very healthy and adventurous eater -so this is our little joke on the rest of the family. As I mentioned before, I have been able to incorporate the concepts into my own recipes and have had no problems so far. I usually cook large quantities in advance - ie 4 gallons of chili or meat sauce - then separate and freeze for quicker meals later. The purees figure quite well into that plan because I can whip up a batch and add the entire amount to my stock pot instead of measuring out these tiny amounts for later. AND I have not had any problems with my frozen dinners. I can tell no difference from before I began adding the purees.

My last concern about the book is that (much like me in this post) she spends almost the first half of the book going on and on about how great it is before ever starting to tell me what to do. Also, the recipes are certainly not difficult or gourmet quality, but they do require a little bit of cooking knowledge. Sometimes they act like I haven't a clue about the kitchen "makes about 1 cup of puree...double the recipe if you want more" (gee, never would have thought of that). Other times they can be a bit ambigous "makes 8 large muffins...scale quantities for smaller muffins" - well "large" turned out to mean the normal size muffins, not the larger muffins I had hoped (not a big deal, you just have to figure out what they mean).

Overall, useful book...gave me several ideas I had not thought of before. I have been able to use the recipes in the book as well as incorporate the concepts into my recipes. After several weeks and many recipes, we have had great success...no flops, and no one has suspected a thing.

I wanted to serve one meal to everyone in our family and quit playing short order chef. I never have wanted food to become a battleground for my kids. And, I wanted to incorporate more veggies and fiber in to all of our diets. This book has some fantastic ideas on how to alter my cooking to accomplish my goals.

I made macaroni and cheese last night and watched both my boys (2 and 3) devour sweet potatoes and carrots without a complaint. This stuff works. I cooked more carrots and sweet potatoes that I needed for the puree, and served some of the chunks on our plates. I enjoyed the cooked carrots, and my kids didn't throw the chunks of veggies off their plate onto the floor. One of them actually licked the carrot in curiousity. I'll continue to serve sneaky nutrition AND undisguised versions on the plate. Eventually, my kids will eat the undisguised versions.

What works for me is to plan on preparing ONE puree a day, preferably when it is quiet. I freeze the puree in ice cubes by the tablespoon, and then can add them as needed to recipes. I can rotate thru the purees and not feel overwhelmed. And if I skip a day or two, I have frozen reserves to fall back on. That also lets me make the purees using on-sale produce.

I bought the Sneaky Chef after purchasing Jessica Seinfeld's book. I wrote a rather long review of Jessica's book, so now it is Missy Lapine's turn. It is hard to compare the two of them, believe it or not, as the two books are laid out and set up differently. One big difference is Missy's book is set up where you see all recipes in order of the purees, so you can look up Orange Puree or Purple Puree and see what you can make. It is also laid out in terms of meals: Breakfast, Lucnh, Dinner, and Snacks. There are more photos in Jessica's book than Missy's if photos are important to you.
WHY ONLY FOURS STARS? For two reasons: The binding of the book is not in a spiral fashion. I have a thing about cookbooks being able to lay flat on the counter. An odd thing, I know, but to me it matters a lot. The other reason is her recipes have cute names like "Maxed out Meatloaf" or "Gotta Lotta Lasagna" - in other words they are not in alphabetical order. Again, some may quibble but I like my lasagana to be listed under the letter "L." Want to make a burrito? Look under the letter "I": Incognito Burrito.
Jessica Seinfeld's book has purees that are one ingredient: Sweet potato, borcolli, etc......in Missy's book the purees are two ingredients. The juices you can add to recipes are one ingredient. My advice: Look at both books, compare and see which one you prefer. I prefer Jessica's book because the recipes are a bit simpler and again, I like the binding on Jessica's book. Both books offer up a lot of nutritional advice for making everyday foods a bit more healthy, namely boxed macaroni and cheese, pizza bagels and Spaghettio's. As I said in my review of Jessica's book, wouldn't it be wonderful if all of us ate five servings of fruits and vegetables a day? Let alone kids? I like adding purees to my own foods to get more fiber in my diet, along with flaxseed for better health.
MAKING THE PUREE: Don't be intimidated, it is not that hard. I used a Vita-Mix as my food processor and a rice cooker to steam the veggies (don't boil them to a pulp, just steam them.) Even if you don't have these items, you can always start with the sweet potato. You can bake it, clean it out and whip up a puree with some water and a fork and there you go. Another thing: some folks have complained about using so many small plastic bags. I used very small serving Gladware containers so you have a single serving to pull out of the freezer. What else happened to me was I used the small plastic baggies, but they were a little wet when I put them in the freezer. Then they froze together. Ooops! I really believe both books have a lot of merit but people are unfairly picking on Jessica because of her personal life. That is not fair to eother cookbook author as it takes away from the real issue: getting all folks (little and big) to eat better, get more minerals and more fiber. As I also said in my other review per lying to our kids....big deal. My kids see the puree, they see me add it and they do not care. I only wish I had done more of this when they were younger so they could have reaped the benefits at even younger age.

This cookbook gives you excellent suggestions on how to get more nutrition into your children by adding it to their favorite foods. But let's face it...there are sometimes when I really can't stand looking at another vegetable on my own plate and don't even get me started on my husband's eating habits. Enter this book with it's easy to make kid friendly recipes for the kid in all of us. I was able to find all the ingredients at my regular grocery store..a major plus. So far I've only tried a few of the recipes-breakfast cookies (made with wheat germ,whole wheat flour and total cereal), sneaky strawberry smoothies (this has avocado in it but you can't taste it!) mac and cheese (this hides cauliflower, zucchini, yams and carrots) and they are excellent! My teenager has even requested the breakfast cookies for her midmorning snack. My toddler who is an EXTREMELY picky eater has eaten everything that's been given to him and wanted more. Mrs. Lapine has even included suggestions for improving the nutrition of exsiting food like oatmeal and applesauce in addition to suggesting what baby foods to use if you just don't have time to make the purees. This book got me thinking of ways I could boost the nutrition in our family favorites as well. An excellent resource.

Here are details about what's in each of this book's 3 parts:
1.It starts with a discussion about how sneaking healthy food into other food does away with the need to fight over eating, adds nutrients to the diet, and makes parents feel better about what their kids are eating. Plus, the author believes kids just don't need to know everything you do to keep them safe and healthy. Next, this section offers a "bag of tricks" for getting picky eaters to eat healthier food. A few examples of the 13 "tricks" are: pureeing foods to mix into other foods, mixing healthy and less healthy foods together, adding sprinkles and chocolate chips as distractions, and avoiding frying with lots of oil.

She recommends not telling the kids when you are using these tricks, and side-stepping any questions they might ask. She seems to understand that many parents, myself included, will object to being less than honest with their kids. And though she makes a good case for avoiding the truth in the name of nutrition, I was not convinced. However, parents can still use the techniques in the book, while being forthright with their children about what's in their food--especially if they are older or it they ask.

2. In the second section, she gives the recipes for 13 "Make-Ahead Recipes." These are mixtures that will be snuck into other foods. They include:
* 4 vegetable purees consisting of steamed vegetables (one also includes blueberries), water and lemon juice processed in a food processor.
* 3 fruit juice recipes made by boiling, mashing, then straining fruit, specifically cherries, strawberries or blueberries. I'd like to point out that these recipes aren't as healthy as the purees since the fruit's fiber is strained out and some sugar is added. Anyway, most kids will eat fruit plain.
* A recipe for spinach juice, also made by boiling, mashing and straining. Again, this removes fiber. However, the spinach juice is probably more useful than the fruit juices because fewer children eat spinach plain.
* 2 types of beans purees made in a food processor with a bit of water.
* Frozen bananas.
* A mixture of grains and nuts to use as breading.
* And, finally, a flour mixture that's a combination of whole-wheat flour, wheat germ and white flour to use when baking from scratch.

In sum, you can use these mixtures in recipes to add one of the following to a child's diet: veggies, fruit juice, whole grains, bananas or beans.

3. The last and longest section includes lots of recipes that incorporate one or more of the 13 mixtures listed above. (A few recipes do not use a make-ahead mixture, but are simply kid-friendly recipes.) Most of the recipes are classic kid favorites, made from scratch, like fish sticks, stuffed potatoes, pasta dishes and cookies. Other recipes are fun novelties, such as green scrambled eggs, roasted chickpeas, frozen applesauce and flavored milk. Several are quick fixes for popular, prepackaged kid's fair, including fixes for: boxed mac-n-cheese, jell-o, lemonade, instant pudding and SpaghettiOs.

Most of the recipes use just a few teaspoons of the added healthy mixtures per serving of food. Since many of the recipes are already healthy, they just get an extra nutritional boost from these additions. However, with the small amounts of puree or juice, those recipes high in sugar and/or saturated fats (cupcakes, brownies, boxed mac-n-cheese, Jello-O, etc.) are obviously not transformed into health foods. They are just healthier treats. Still, the added nutrition is certainly better than nothing for kids that refuse all vegetables (or fruit juice, beans, whole-grains or bananas).

In addition to the above, this book is sprinkled with useful "Sneaky Tips" on cooking, fascinating statistics about kids and nutrition, and a wonderful sense of humor. It's well organized and very attractively laid-out. The full color pictures in the middle of the book are beautiful. Best of all, this book makes an excellent case for not turning the dinner table into a family battleground. She points out, correctly, that kids will never like foods they are forced to eat. And she adds the important point that family meal times should be a time for enjoying each other.

There are, of course, lots of ways to side-step eating battles-- and tons of ways to help kids enjoy getting the nutrition their growing bodies need. "The Sneaky Chef" is a very useful, fun-to-read, how-to manual for one technique: sneaking healthy foods into kids' favorite, already-familiar foods.

by Pamela Gould, author of Feeding the Kids: The Flexible, No-Battles, Healthy Eating System for the Whole Family

I have a daughter 11 and a son 7 who have just had your "Camouflage Joes'" for dinner and have gone to bed with the knowledge of having COOKIES for breakfast - and I am a kitchen rock star! The kids ASKED FOR SECONDS on dinner( I had a better chance of having Brad Pitt call me for a date before this happened!) The "Breakfast Cookies" (I've sampled three so far) are amazing and I have been cackling wickedly with the knowledge that my children have finally met their match. As a result of what you have accomplished (no mother alive has been happier since getting her first full night of sleep) we are discussing erecting a monument in your honor!

No book is perfect but I certainly am very pleased with the authors offerings. The Brainy Brownies are worth the price of the book alone. Food does take a bit more effort, but everything can't be Rachael Ray's 30 minute meals. Healthy options do take more effort, but once you get accostom to the method and prefreeze the purees it's easy and you can design your own meals.
I would like to have seen nutritional information (calories) for the recipes. I would like to have also seen alternatives for the very few recipes with white sugar but i just substituted raw cane sugar on my own with great results. I may experiment with honey or agave since white sugar should be avoided when possible, although in an occassional dessert like these Brownies she did put minimal sugar in them, so she certainly made an effort to cut back which is a great start.

I can also see experimenting with the purees to make my own recipes. Whether you have kids or not, this book has some good ideas you can incorperate the concept in to a variety of things, starting with your own home made smoothies. Make a Spinache Blueberry Blast!

This is not a Raw Foods Bible or A Vegan Bible or A Tofu Everything Book or an Orthodox Health Cookbook filld with Flax, Quinoa, Barley, Sprouts, Xanthan Gum, Tapioca Flour and Spelt recipes. But it does try to incorporate whole grains, vegetables, beans, nuts, some tofu and fruits into recipes that otherwise wouldn't have them, but still be recognizable that dont' look like you brought it home from Health O Rama Cafe. Her aproach keeps the recipe ingredients easy to find and a concept that those who are not Orthtodox Health Practicers can find some middle ground with.

This book should be incorporated into Home Economics Courses around the country. The nation needs to have a variety of health options learned so we can take our health back and rely less upon the Food industries lack of healthy options in pre-packaged products and fast food places.

Lastly, those that are more mindful of healthful choices are less likely to become obese. This is not a weight loss recipe guide, but because the author cut back some of the fat and sugars in traditional recipes while still keeping the food delicious without using fake sweetners like SplendaSweet Deception: Why Splenda, NutraSweet, and the FDA May Be Hazardous to Your Health you are making a healthier choice over the traditioanl options, espeically those that want to slowly transition into some of the healthier foods without being a full on health nut.
Every little bit of change you can make in your diet toward overall healthier options even if they are not 100% perfect is a great start.

Lastly, don't forget to check the author's website SneakyChef. She does make a change to the Spinach Puree Recipe:
Make-Ahead Recipe #1: Purple Puree
3 cups raw baby spinach leaves (loosely packed or 3.3 oz)
1 1/2 cups fresh or frozen blueberries (no syrup or sugar added)
1/2 teaspoon lemon juice
1 - 2 tablespoons water

I was reluctant to purchase a book that "hid" veggies from kids verses utilizing recipes that allow kids to learn to enjoy healthy foods as they are. As one reviewer wrote, are we not doing a disservice to children by pureeing the heck out of wonderfully fresh fruits and veggies for the sole purpose of put them "under cover?" How will kids ever learn to enjoy healthy foods if we don't expose them to whole grains, fruits, and veggies? I stand by this theory.

This book does, however, hold a potentially valuable place in your family cookbook library. If you have a child who is at a "failure to thrive" stage and must get him to eat something, this could be your answer. If you need to prepare snacks or desserts for your kids and her classmates and friends, "The Sneaky Chef" provides some wonderful options. If you occasionally want to serve familiar American comfort foods with the bonus addition of pureed whole foods, all of the recipes in this book work and taste GOOD. Don't, however, use this as a SUBSTITUTE for preparing fresh produce for your children at all or most meals. If they never eat the real thing, how will they learn to appreciate and enjoy healthy foods?