The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals
The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals
Price: $8.95
- ISBN13: 9780762430758
- Condition: New
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The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals
Product Description
Parents will do nearly anything to get their kids to eat healthier, but unfortunately, they’ve found that begging, pleading, threatening, and bribing don’t work. With their patience wearing thin, parents will “give in” for the sake of family peace, and reach for “kiddie” favorites–often nutritionally inferior choices such as fried fish sticks, mac n’ cheese, Pop-sicles, and cookies.
Missy Chase Lapine, former publisher of Eating Well magazine, faced the same challenges with her two young daughters, and she sought a solution. Now in The Sneaky Chef, Lapine presents over 75 recipes that ingeniously disguise the most vital superfoods inside kids’ favorite meals. With the addition of a few simple make-ahead purees or clever replacements, (some may surprise you!) parents can pack more fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants in their kids’ foods. Examples of “Sneaky” recipes include:
-No Harm Chicken Parm
-Power Pizza
-Incognito Burritos
-Guerilla Grilled Cheese
-Brainy Brownies
-Health-by-Chocolate Cookies
-Quick fixes for Jell-O(R)
It’s a book chock-full of strategies that will help any parent incorporate better health for the whole family.
The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals
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Comments
This book is truly incredible. 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 amusing 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 party serving size freezer bags and then place all of the small bags into a gallon bag (one per type of puree), mark them, and you are excellent to go! This is much simpler 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 simpler (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, simple and healthy breakfast. The meat recipes in this book are also brilliant- 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 nearly exclusively on recipes from this book for a month now and we all feel so much healthier. Kudos to Missy Chase Lapine! Thank you!
Our Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
Let me first say I like this book and I am glad I bought it. I echo other reviewers who question the thought of hiding foods instead of teaching your children to delight in them. But, 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 fantastic 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 dietetic values listed. yes, there is a list of nutrients provided by the sneaked in foods, but no real nutrional value – ie calories, stout, fiber, etc. My next project will be to calculate dietetic value based on my ancient recipes versus adding the new recipes. I am not certain how much I am really changing the value – in other words, am I doing a honest amount of work for small 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 honestly 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 chose 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 administrative 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 place in the oven. He is NOT in on the sneaking (just for fun). I have included my 13 year ancient in the plot b/c she is a very healthy and adventurous eater -so this is our small 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 plot 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 started adding the purees.
My last concern about the book is that (much like me in this post) she spends nearly the first half of the book going on and on about how fantastic it is before ever starting to tell me what to do. Also, the recipes are certainly not hard or gourmet quality, but they do require a small 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 huge deal, you just have to figure out what they mean).
Overall, useful book…gave me several thoughts 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 fantastic success…no flops, and no one has suspected a thing.
Our Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
I wanted to serve one meal to everyone in our family and quit playing small order chef. I never have wanted food to become a field for my kids. And, I wanted to incorporate more veggies and fiber in to all of our diets. This book has some fantastic thoughts 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 loved the cooked carrots, and my kids didn’t throw the chunks of veggies off their plate onto the floor. One of them really licked the carrot in curiousity. I’ll continue to serve sneaky nutrition AND recognized versions on the plate. Eventually, my kids will eat the recognized versions.
What works for me is to plot on preparing ONE puree a day, if at all possible when it is silent. 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.
Our Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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 Tasty: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Excellent Food (Spiral-bound)
This weekend 7 friends and I got together to compare recipes from The Sneaky Chef(TSC) and Deceptively Tasty(DD). Our primary loyalty is to our kids and getting excellent 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 keenly awaiting the release of Deceptively Tasty.
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 refined 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 Tasty 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’ inclination: TSC. Main reason: “Creamier.” DD was called “watery” by most kids. Cooks found both recipes simple to make and would do so regularly.
Mac n cheese: Kids’ unanimous inclination: 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’ inclination: none. A clear tie. This was probably due to the dominating peanut butter flavor in both recipes. Kids did prefer the advent of DD, though, as the jelly was visible on top of the muffin and TSC is hidden inside.
Brownies: Kids’ unanimous inclination: TSC. Main reason: DD had a slightly bitter to some kids but all found the texture “too pasty.” Cooks found both recipes simple 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
Our Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
This cookbook gives you brilliant 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 simple 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 brilliant! 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 brilliant resource.
Our Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
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