Deceptively Delicious

Hello All, I know it has been awhile since I have updated my blog. To be honest, I kind of forgot about it. I was tempted to shut it down. But recently I have been inspired to pick it back up. What is the source of my inspiration, you ask? Simple...vegetables. I guess I should say my realization that I really don't like vegetables. Yes, it occurred to me as I was cleaning out my vegetable drawer in the fridge. I spend lots of money on vegetables only so they can get moldy, squishy, and runny. Yuck!! Not only is it an inconvenience to clean out....it is also a mega waste of money. Something had to be done. I couldn't just stop buying vegetables!! The check out person at the grocery store will look at me funny, I just know it!! As I stand there with four growing boys, the checker will know that I am neglecting their major nutritional needs. Dilemma. What to do? Then the answer came to me as I was sitting with my girlfriends in a Chinese restaurant. They told me about the movie, "Julie and Julia". Apparently (I have never seen it) a woman decides to take a year to cook through Julia Child's cookbook. Well, a few days later when I was pondering my dilemma and trying to prepare my grocery list it came to me. I will cook through Jessica Seinfeld's cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious." It was a perfect solution. My mom gave me the book for Christmas. (I think she secretly suspected my snubbery of green foods. Moms have a way of knowing these things). The book's premise is to sneak vegetable purees into normal foods. The audience doesn't realize they are eating vegetables, which presented openly would certainly cause immediate choking, burning, or one's eyeballs to fall out. Since I am one, along with my kids, who frowns on eyeballs rolling around on the floor, I quickly devised a plan to eat my vegetables without really having to "know" I was eating my vegetables. Here it is: I will cook through as many recipes as I can in a two week period. I start tomorrow!!
Prep. work so far. I sat down and wrote down a 2 week meal plan including breakfast, lunch and dinner. I excluded any recipe that I knew we wouldn't like; for instance the Tuna Salad. No one in our family likes tuna. Then I prepared my grocery list. I decided that since I was going to commit to eating these vegetables, I was going to invest in really good veggies. I went to our local whole foods grocery store, Huckleberry's, and bought very fresh, very ripe, organic produce.
Next I spent some time this weekend prep-ing the veggies. I steamed or roasted them, then blended them in the food processor to make beautiful purees. Then I sealed them in freezer bags in 1/2 - 1 cup portions. Labeled them, then stacked them in the freezer. I am happy to say that I currently have yams, sweet potatoes, carrots, beets, and broccoli ready to go. I still have cauliflower, spinach, and acorn squash that I will work on tomorrow.
As a side note, my kids have really enjoyed being involved in my little adventure. My oldest, Isaac 6, enjoyed accompanying me to the grocery store. I let him pick out which veggies we should get. I think we both were a little amazed and disgusted at what beets really look like. They are really ugly!!! ...more on that later. Also, they have enjoyed the processing of the veggies. Today I had my 3 older kids and 2 neighbor friends all helping me peel carrots and mush potatoes. It was really fun!! But I would avoid this if you are one who enjoys a tidy kitchen.....yeah, about that.
So, anyway. If you want to join me on this little adventure, tomorrow we will be eating Applesauce muffins (carrot) for breakfast, and meatball soup (carrot and sweet potato). I will be adding my own sides, but these are the recipes in the book that will be attempted.
Now, one last observation before I sign off for the night. What is the deal with beets!! I don't understand how they became something that humans were willing to eat!! First of all, they are incredible ugly when you pull them out of the ground. They have these long roots that grotesquely resemble rat's tails. I admit they are choked full of nutrition and during recessions, famines, or great depressions people are forced to do desperate things, but I am quite surprised at their staying power during these fairly affluent times. OK, it's true that when you puree them they have a beautiful color that reminds me of a blackberry/raspberry sauce....but the smell!!! The smell reminds me of a pungent cross between dirt and YUCK....about a 30:70 ratio. I am sorry it I am offending any beet farmers of America. I am sorry. I can not give my endorsement to the beet. Not until they make it taste a lot more like what it looks like. Yeah, lets make the beet taste like a blackberry/raspberry hybrid. I think then we would really see a serious upturn in consumerable beet market.