Friday, December 31, 2010

Deceptively Delicious Challenge

We have a picky eater. Her name is Emma and she is 3. We also have a food processor. His name is Eli and he is 22 months old. Mealtime is usually a battlefield and I am so tired of it. I received the Deceptively Delicious cookbook for Christmas the year I was pregnant with Emma. I dug it out a couple of nights ago and had a light bulb moment. I will be making my way through this cookbook that is full of simple secrets and recipes to get your kids eating good food. I will be posting the recipes and comments on each one that I do. Ready?
First step is to make vegetable and fruit purees. Well... my kids do like fruit so I just concentrated on veggies... cauliflower, broccoli, squash, zucchini, spinach, carrots, bell peppers, and sweet potatoes are he ones I did last night. I used a blender and then put them in sandwich baggies in 1/2 cup portions.




This morning we had sweet potato chocolate chip pancakes and i was SUCCESS! Emma ate 1 and 1/2 and Eli ate most of 1 and then some grapes. On mostly all of these recipes I took her ideas and most of her recipe and made it my own with a Sarah kick to it :) Example: I added chocolate chips to the pancake recipe. So if you want the recipes as they are in the book you will have to go buy it.
RECIPE:
1 cup water
1/2 cup mini chocolate chips
1/2 cup sweet potato puree
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup Bisquick Heart Smart pancake mix
Mix together and make you some good pancakes :)
Then I made some brownies....
1/2 cup spinach puree
1/2 cup carrot puree
A box of Sugar Free Pillsbury brownie mix- make according to he directions on the box but add the veggie puree. She makes them all from scratch in the cook book and I just didn't have the time for that. My kids loved them.
A couple more recipes that I will be making in the next couple of days is grilled cheese with sweet potato and squash & macaroni and cheese with cauliflower- wish me luck and check back for the recipes and comments!!!

A December to Remember







Santa Came & he brought SNOW! We were so excited about having a White Christmas!


Ready for bed (& Santa) on Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve at Gabby's house


Playgroup Christmas Party at The Little Gym



Emma's show week at the Little Gym


Emma & Eli both attended classes at the Little Gym this past fall semester. I'm not going to lie... it was a lot... a little too much Little Gym. And with all the crazy things tat were happening with moving and going down to one car it got a little hectic. So this next year they are sharing a class, meaning each kid will get to go to a Little Gym class every other week instead of each kid getting to go to their own class every single week. A couple of weeks ago they both had their big "SHOW WEEK" at the Little Gym where they got to show us what they learned in the past semester. Adam and I were very impressed and very proud of both of them!

Emma & her teacher Mrs. Joselyn

We attended the end of the year Christmas program for Emma & Eli at their preschool. Emma got on stage and sang a few songs with her class. It was really sweet... she was looking right at her cheerleader section (Mommy, Daddy, Gabby, and Aunt Julie) and sang directly to us. She was not really into doing the hand motions with the songs, just singing them. She did so good, we have a little performer on our hands!



Baking Cookies
Eli's show week at the Little Gym



Adam's work Christmas party







We hope everybody had a Merry Christmas and have a Happy New Year!