Eat your vegetables

One of the gifts I received this Christmas was the cookbook Double Delicious! by Jessica Seinfeld. I love to look at recipes and cookbooks. I love to cook if I have all the ingredients. That is where my weekly meal plan is essential.

What I was most excited about in this new cookbook was the fact that the recipes are not very complicated and she tries to incorporate better ingredients. For example, whole grain pasta instead of plain old regular pasta. Another thing that I love is that every recipe includes a vegetable puree for a little extra boost of nutrition. There are pureed vegetables in them and you don't even taste them!

So before you start to cook up any of her yummy recipes - first you have to whip up your purees. I was a bit nervous, but it was so easy! And if I can do it, anyone can do it. All I have is a cheap, little, in pot steamer basket and a sketchy food processor at best.

Trent was my kitchen assistant (he was just as excited as I was about this) and we tackled three purees on our first try. It took about an hour from start to finish for all three.

Broccoli - which we have already tried in a chicken balsamic sandwich that was out of this world!


Cauliflower - We had this in a baked ziti and bacon and egg cups that Trent and Spencer made.

Carrots - We had these in the ziti, chocolate chip waffles, tuna casserole and in homemade granola. Can you believe granola? You can't even taste it. I swear I could have eaten the carrot puree with a spoon. It was so sweet and yum.

You portion them into half cup servings which is what most of the recipes call for and when you need them, just thaw and add them in.

Tonight I am going to make a batch of sweet potato puree. I am making honey mustard chicken fingers tomorrow and that is the secret ingredient.

Can you tell I am excited about this? So fun, easy and healthy. If I had known how easy it was to make these veggie purees I would have saved myself a fortune in baby food costs!