Book Review: The Sneaky Chef
My mom gave my sister-in-law and I this for Christmas. Well, one of my sisters-in-law. The one sister-in-law I had at the
time, as one of my other brothers married since that time and now I have TWO
awesome sisters-in-law which for someone who grew up with only brothers is
pretty fantastic. Anyhow, back to
the book review.
The concept of the book is hiding nutritious things in
food. My mom did this to us- we
have family jokes about the things that she added wheat germ and chicken broth
into that normally wouldn’t have had those things. She really tried to convince us that wheat germ was a great
ice cream topping, but we rebelled against that. I was a little skeptical about the book going in,
though. I want my children to eat
their vegetables KNOWING that they are eating veggies. We had joked with one of our other
friends as her husband won’t eat veggies that maybe this was a way to help him.
J, however, is a picky eater. Not picky in the sense that there are certain foods he likes
and certain ones he doesn’t. Picky
in the sense that he will like something one day and refuse to eat it the next
time we serve it or that he sometimes refuses to eat altogether. Dinner has been a very frustrating
experience numerous times and it felt like we were getting to the point that it
was always a battle just to get him to eat anything. So, we started trying out some of the recipes from here- on
the belief that if I could only get him to eat 3 bites at dinner, I wanted
those to be the 3 most nutritious bites possible.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how well the additions
have gone over. Hands down
favorite? The Orange puree. The book’s recipe calls for carrots and
sweet potatoes to be steamed and pureed together. We usually add butternut squash as well. We also don’t worry too much about the
stated amounts in the recipe, instead we just get a bunch of all 3 veggies and
have at it. Then we freeze it in
various portion sizes (this last time I did portions of about 1 cup) to use in
recipes as needed. The puree works
really well in anything tomato based and thickens sauces very nicely. J likes the puree so much that he will eat it by itself.
We’ve also tried the “white” puree- cauliflower and peeled
zucchini. This one comes out a
very light green instead of white, but does mix in well with light colored
sauces. It doesn’t add much flavor
to the sauce, so I use this in cream based sauces and soups and it works very
well for that. J will eat it
plain, but isn’t nearly as keen on it as the orange.
The Green puree- spinach, broccoli and peas. We haven’t used this one as much- as it
is REALLY green and has a strong flavor.
So, I have to use it in things where the flavor will work, and that I
don’t mind being obviously green.
I’ve put it in tuna casserole- which gave it a funny color, but the tuna
flavor was strong enough to work with the veggies- and J liked it. I’ve also put small amounts in spaghetti
sauce and that sort of thing. I’m
going to try it in a ham quiche- probably tonight and will let you know how
that works out. Maybe I can make
an omelet for “green eggs” and ham.
I tried the white bean puree and that didn’t go over as
well. It gave a very “beany”
flavor to things and J wasn’t thrilled by that.
The purple puree. This is a mix of blueberries and spinach. My brother
and sister-in-law tried this in the author’s recipe for chocolate cookies and
raved about the results. I tried
it as “quick fix” for brownie mix (along with the recommended wheat germ- my
mother would be so proud!) The
results were pretty ok. Flavor was
fine- no spinach taste at all- maybe a slight hint of fruitiness from the
blueberries- although I may have been looking for it since I knew it was
there. The texture wasn’t as
unnoticeable, however. There was a
slight graininess, whether from the blueberry seeds or the wheat germ is
unclear. Very edible, and I don’t
think J will really notice or care since he is not yet a brownie connoisseur.
Altogether? I
would give the book 4 out of 5 stars.
Some great stuff and some ok stuff. I think I will also try her other book which focuses on quick fixes for things.
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