Wow.

When Harper Collins first notified us about the upcoming publication of Deceptively Delicious, I expected it would spark some interest among our parent bloggers. I did not expect the sort of widespread discussion - and criticism - that we’ve been seeing across the blogosphere, probably because I had read and reviewed a similar cookbook six months ago (which generated no outcry that I knew of).

Never underestimate the power of celebrity, I suppose.

Forty of our parent bloggers received a copy of Deceptively Delicious, and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive thus far. Not only have they read the book and tried the recipes (well, those who are suffering from morning sickness have been given a pass), they’re getting into the spirit of it. One blogger took a cue from the author and introduced her children in a similar manner:

“Meet Maddie: Charming pubescent daughter who eschews food that touches, food that doesn’t coordinate with the current seasonal palette for Abercrombie & Fitch, and at times, food that contains molecules, nutrients, or atoms.

Heeere’s Chloe: Preteen in training. Chloe likes food that doesn’t moo, oink or bleat. She is willing, however, to eat pasta salad, chocolate, and air.

Awww! It’s Jacob: Five year old adventurer. Will eat anything dangerous, evil, or imbued with super powers. Does not like fish, however still believes us when we say salmon is the thigh meat of Darth Vader.

Whoa! Jack is in the house: Jack is a fifteen month old who likes food that can be placed in his mouth and chewed. Favorites include pasta with fresh pesto, coq au vin, and anything Playskool.”

A sense of humor is always helpful when preparing meals for children, don’t you think? Especially when they prefer gnawing on plastic broccoli rather than deigning to eat anything you’ve cooked.

But let’s get down to business. Which recipes did our bloggers try, and how did they and their families react?

Creamy potato soup:

• “…my soup had an orange tint (Did I use too much butternut squash? Or not enough potato? It’s possible. I told you, I’m hopeless in the kitchen!) but tasted pretty good when I sampled it. [My daughter] actually ate it…[my husband] complained that it tasted too vegetably to him. As I ate more of it I had to agree with him. The flavors of cauliflower and squash seemed to overpower the potatoes.“

Chicken strips/nuggets:

• “Unless it comes in a bag or has the word nugget in it, they are skeptical of this healthy food business…Then something miraculous happened. They ate it. No, really! They ate all of it. And liked it.“
• “I used spinach puree in the recipe and found the puree/egg mixture a bit thick to really stick to the chicken. The strips cooked up and had very nice flavor but weren’t nearly as crisp as I would like. I will be trying the recipe again but will add a bit more egg to the vegetable base to hopefully get a better final coating. The boys and [my husband] were very happy with the chicken strips with [one son] proclaiming they were the best chicken he’d ever tasted.“

Meatloaf:

• “I did try the meatloaf - mainly because it didn’t require pureeing food - and my family liked it (I did add garlic and onions to it, for my husband and because [my daughter] doesn’t mind the combination in meatloaf). It was easy and tasty and my family liked it so I’ll make it again.“

Lasagna:

• “I tried the lasagna. It involved pureeing cauliflower and hiding it in low fat sour cream to make a ricotta like filling. Both kids loved it…I couldn’t taste the cauliflower.” (This from a woman who refuses to eat cooked cauliflower.)

Chocolate chip cookies:

• “…fresh out of the oven, no one could detect the presence of chickpeas in my chocolate chip cookies. They received an enthusiastic thumbs-up from my husband, my daughter, and five elementary school boys from the neighborhood. But once I’d stored them, they quickly turned overly moist - wet even.“
• “Once cooked the cookies definitely had a noticeably different texture but not so different that my boys complained at all. After a taste test by 2 moms and 5 kids ranging in age from 2 to 6 the cookies were definitely a huge hit.“
• “My 3 year old helped me add handfuls of the chickpeas to the mixer…the cookies looked and smelled so delicious that he actually tried them. He ate 4 cookies. Those 4 cookies contained more chickpeas than he had ever eaten in his entire life before this day.“

That’s right; one child actually helped prepare the food by which he was deceived, and that brings us to one of the objections that’s been raised against Deceptively Delicious: Is it dishonest to sneak veggies into foods that normally wouldn’t contain them? Our bloggers’ thoughts on this question ranged from a resounding “YES!” to a desperate “Who cares?!”

• “I did have a little struggle with whether or not I should be hiding things in my kids’ foods. I reasoned that I don’t tell them what else is in it, so why would I tell them about the cauliflower or butternut squash purees?“
• “Can you really equate blitzing and hiding food as something that is deemed habit changing for your kids? I want to prepare real food in a way that is appealing to my little one, thereby acclimating him to the taste or texture of a vegetable in hopes that we will build healthy eating habits for a lifetime. No, it usually doesn’t work, but at least I’ve tried.“
• “I don’t plan on telling either of my boys that the Blueberry muffins have pureed yellow squash in them, or that the chocolate chip cookies contain pureed white beans. I’ll know I’m sneaking extra bites of fruit and veggies into their food, and they will be none the wiser.“
• “I can do that! I can hide pureed food into main meals and trick these kids into eating it. (Or at least I was sure going to try it!)…I love this book and will use it for as long as I can. (Until they go to college is my guess.) Now, I am off to find other ways to deceive my kids. Does anyone know if there is a book about getting them to clean their room and making them think it is Big Fun?“
• “Why not make something that the kids really enjoy and add a little something to make it even better? It’s a win-win for all!“
• “We’re all getting a little more goodness with every bite of our favorite foods.“

The chick pea-eater’s mother summed it up beautifully: “And he doesn’t even need to be tricked to try these foods. He knows there is something he doesn’t recognize in each recipe, but it doesn’t matter because the food is so delicious that he wants to eat it anyway.”

Some bloggers weren’t thrilled by the time and effort involved in pureeing: “I have exactly 30 minutes from the time I walk in the door to prepare dinner or everyone spontaneously combusts into a wild explosion of super crabbiness. Every minute I spend cleaning my kitchen at night is one less minute I have to talk to my kid or my husband or go to the bathroom.” Others found pureeing to be easier than they’d expected: “I found that pureeing my veggies and fruits in one day is not that difficult even with a temperamental blender such as mine. Simply steam the veggies and puree. Store them in the fridge or freezer in ½ cup servings and when it’s time to cook or bake you are ready to go!” and “I filled our freezer with ½ cup portions of puree and have incorporated purees easily and effectively in our food every single day.”

A few bloggers threw themselves wholeheartedly into testing the techniques and recipes in this cookbook, with amazing results:

• “…using the purees in the book as a flavor additive. This can be done with pureed steamed (or roasted, as appropriate) roasted peppers, onions, squash, beets, green beans, or any fruit or vegetable that you might like to use to flavor a dish. This cookbook should be a welcome addition to anyone’s kitchen, even if you don’t have kids.“
• “On the entrée side of things, I largely used the ideas in Deceptively Delicious as a springboard to incorporate purees into meals that I can prepare off the top of my head (i.e., no measurement required). [My daughter] has gobbled up everything from tuna fish (fabulous because purees cut the amount of mayonnaise you need, and also taste great), to scrambled eggs, to tacos (I incorporated a subtle balance of zucchini and yellow squash purees into the ground chicken and bean filling so the green was completely hidden to her discerning eyes), to mac and cheese. The process has been enormously gratifying.“

The book itself has been a big hit with the bloggers too:

• “The retro graphics are cute and I love the spiral binding.“
• “What I really liked about this book is all the colorful photos of the finished products. For me, I need to have a visual when deciding what to make…I just feel more motivated if I know what it looks like.“
• “I absolutely know that if I met Jessica Seinfeld, I would love her. I know it because peppered throughout the pages of recipes are random commentaries about table rules, tips to get your kids to help with meals, common mealtime pitfalls and how to avoid them which convinced me that Jessica is the kind of mom I strive to be…Her short paragraph about the misuse (or as I call it the abuse) of sugar in the name of celebration I finally felt like there was someone who was in my corner.“

But back to the salient question: Why go to the effort to steam and scheme? Why not just dump the spinach on the plate and announce “Like it or lump it”?

Two bloggers answered that question quite well - one from a scientific point of view, and one from a philosophical point of view.

The scientist says:

“As I made some of the recipes, I wondered just how much of an impact a vegetable puree would have on a recipe. Most purees are added in only half-cup increments. So for twelve PB-cauliflower-banana muffins, each muffin has 2 teaspoons of cauliflower. That isn’t exactly a serving of vegetables, right?

Well, not exactly. But the purees are concentrated. The aforementioned delectable brownies had an entire bag of baby spinach in them: that stuff wilts down pretty small! Vegetables have a bunch of water in them, so even as I added back some during the pureeing process, I still ended up with rich, condensed vegetables. So a half cup of a puree represents a much larger portion of raw or traditionally prepared vegetables.”

And the philosopher agrees:

“My husband originally told me that he thought the idea of this book was silly. He wanted to know why any parent worth their salt should try to hide fruits and vegetables in their kids’ foods instead of teaching them to eat the foods themselves. I explained it to him this way: if I have a choice between feeding our daughter a processed, packaged cookie or a homemade brownie chock full of hidden veggie goodness? I’ll chose the homemade brownie every time. And, once I explained it that way, he started to see the light.”

More blogger reviews coming up - see the schedule below. And if you’d like to see some actual photos of blogger-made goodies from Deceptively Delicious, check out this fantastic Flickr photoset!

Mon 10/22 - Chaos Theory and Mommy’s Must Haves
Tues 10/23 - Bananas and Toddlers, Sunshine Reviews
Wed 10/24 - Chicken and Cheese and Girl Con Queso
Thurs 10/25 - Sarah’s Dandelions and Sweatpants Mom
Fri 10/26 - Girl Plus Two and Mother Bumper and a Blog Blast!
Mon 10/29 - Lipstick to Crayons and Ruth Dynamite
Tues 10/30 - Domestic Diva and Jennster
Wed 10/31 - Builder Mama
Thurs 11/1 - Mom to the Screaming Masses and Suburban Oblivion
Fri 11/2 - Cheese Party and Creature Bug
Mon 11/5 - Rookie Moms and SusieJ
Wed 11/7 - Round-up review on PBN

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This week’s Blog Blast is all about commiseration: Are your kids picky eaters? Were YOU a picky eater? What have you tried to get them to eat, and what have they done to avoid eating what you’ve served?

Full disclosure below:

1) Post about your mealtime skirmishes and strategic maneuvers on your blog anytime Friday, October 26, before midnight PST. Give it a unique title!

2) Send us the link to your post - parentbloggers@gmail.com. Be sure to include links to Deceptively Delicious (http://www.deceptivelydelicious.com) and Parent Bloggers Network (http://blog.parentbloggers.com) somewhere in your post.

3) We’ll round up the posts on PBN that Friday, October 26. Maybe you’ll get some good ideas from other posts, or maybe you’ll get some good laughs. Sounds like fun either way!

4) One winner will be drawn at random from all the posts that meet the above criteria.

What’s the prize? A $250 gift card for use at Williams Sonoma - otherwise known as Heaven for the chefs among us! Even if you don’t cook, you can buy yourself a stylin’ Kitchen Aid mixer to dress up your countertops, a rainbow array of Le Creuset, or ten boxes of Peppermint Bark.

Any questions, please email us at parentbloggers@gmail.com. Looking forward to some good tales on Friday!