10/8/09 Spinach and Broccoli and Tofu, Oh My!

I mentioned in passing a few days ago that I'd been cooking with the Sneaky Chef recipes in an attempt to eat more veggies painlessly. (I know I should be eating fruits and vegetables...I'm just to lazy to actually do it. Something about the buying and the washing and the dicing and the cooking makes me just want to throw my hands up and reach for a frozen pizza instead. Plus, those suckers seem to turn moldy and mushy seconds after I get them into the crisper. Nothing destroys a vegetable's will to live like disappearing into the never-ending abyss of my refrigerator). So when I saw the Sneaky Chef books, I thought what the hey, I'll give it a try. That was last week, and I wanted to come back and give ya'll a follow-up on how that's working out for us.

Which, in a word, is AWESOME.

Now, I'm not much of a cook. Never have been, probably never will be. Toasting a pop-tart is about the extent of my culinary prowess. However, these Sneaky Chef recipes are fool me-proof! One, she has a lot of tidbits about adding things to pre-packaged stuff like Spaghetti O's and Kraft Mac and Cheese and instant chocolate pudding, so it's not like I had to immediately go from my previous "open can, dump in bowl" style of cooking to gourmet chef overnight. We still eat a lot of box mac and cheese. Only now, we do it with cauliflower and zucchini hidden in it.

The other thing is that when I actually feel like trying to cook something, the recipes are easy to follow, don't require a lot of weird stuff, and don't take long to throw together. Tonight I made a homemade lasagna that was delicious, and not much of a fuss at all. (Tony was so impressed! He normally approaches all of my dinner attempts with wary concern. You make one tomato pie with a graham cracker pie shell by accident, and you never hear the end of it...) But this one was great! Annnnd, he got 4 servings of vegetables in one meal, and didn't even know it! Hee hee!

So far this week, we've eaten carrots, sweet potato, blueberries, spinach (if he only knew!), cauliflower, zucchini, great northern beans, broccoli (another of Tony's "never!" foods), rolled oats, whole wheat, and tofu (yes! Tofu! Normally I wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole, but it was invisible and tasteless in the lasagna! And really filling!) all hidden in our food. Tony doesn't have a clue, and even I can't see, taste, or detect a change in texture, and I'm the one who put the stuff in there!

The Sneaky Chef is targeted towards getting your kids (or husband) to eat better without telling them (thus the sneaky), but I find that it works just as well for the completely aware yet stubbornly veggie-phobic. I KNOW that they're in there, but I swear I couldn't tell you that anything in the recipe was healthy. And while I'd tell Tony if he asked, it's so well hidden that it doesn't occur to him that his pizza has an extra boost, so why should he care? It's health without effort.

Believe it or not, I'm not being paid to endorse these books. Sneaky Chef doesn't even know I exist. I just came across the books in the library one day and thought I'd try them out. And since they worked like a charm, I thought I'd pass the information on to you. Think of it as a "Works for me Wednesday" only on Thursday.

You're welcome. Can you please pass the spinach?