A few weeks ago I was able to watch Jessica Seinfeld on Oprah discussing her new book, Deceptively Delicious. I love to eat and am doing my best (well, okay, maybe NOT my best) to lose the last 15 pounds to get me down to my ideal weight. I know the importance of veggies in your diet and know that if you can consume more, you will not only gain more energy, but the veggies will help in the overall maintenance of good health.

I’m also a mother of two. My daughter, Angela (6), loves anything that is made out of white bread and sugar. My son, Alexander (4) loves everything-- and the more the better! So I’ve been doing all that I knew to do to get them to eat more veggies. My husband wants to lose weight, but he’s so busy, the first thing he needs is more energy.

Enter Jessica Seinfeld.

As Oprah ate the yummy looking food, it inspired me to get the book. So my husband ordered it for me from Amazon.  I got the book last week and tried some things over the weekend. Here is the scoop:

In spite of the slack that Mrs. Seinfeld has been getting, this is a great book. For those of us who love to eat (and consequently, love to cook) this was inspiring. I did switch up the recipes and adjusted them to my taste. And below is the outcome of my experiment:

I pureed some of the veggies I had gotten (broccoli, cauliflower, and bought some pureed pumpkin). It took longer than I thought it would, but by the cauliflower I was getting the hang of it and the consistency was smooth and creamy.

What I made

I took her idea for adding puree to French toast. I adjusted the recipe so that it was my own. It’s a pumpkin French toast:

Add 2 tablespoons of pumpkin puree to your egg mix, dash of nutmeg, cinnamon, and all spice. Blend well. Allow the bread (and I used a hearty grain bread which my children “hate” to eat) to soak up to 1 minute, and make as usual. Top it with a bit of sprinkled powered sugar (I don’t give my children much syrup. It’s barely a teaspoon). Serve.

Outcome? Alex smelled it and exclaimed: Wow! This smells so good! He then gobbled it up like the good little boy that he is. Angie said: it’s not as good as Denny’s (well, they do give you half a bottle of syrup and use huge pieces of white bread), but it’s still good. Awesome. That’s progress!

I made some pita pizzas but I added too much veggies. I didn’t even like it. I’ll try it again. I think I just need to add less or a different veggie.

I made some mashed potatoes and created my own recipe. I used 1 cup of regular mashed potatoes, I cup of cauliflower puree, a bit of butter and mixed well. My husband loved it. My children actually ate every bit of it (to them, if the potato doesn’t come in the form of a French fry it isn’t a potato). I’m loving this.

For my husband and me, I made a quick broccoli soup. I used half a cup of broccoli puree, half a cup of cauliflower puree, ¾ of a cup of filtered water, a few dashes of Adobe (a Spanish seasoning that has salt, garlic, onion, and black pepper powders) and simmered. Delicious! This would be great as a mid-morning snack or mid-afternoon snack. I was thinking adding some potato cubes and some almond slivers for protein. Or some pieces of chicken. Yummo.

The last thing I did was some breaded chicken. Now mind you, my children love the McDonald’s chicken nuggets so I really wanted this one to go over well. I changed the recipe to be bread crumbs and wheat germ and used pumpkin puree with a little egg on the chicken first in order to get the bread crumbs to stick. Sautéed them in a bit of butter and olive oil. My son ate his meat so fast that I looked on the floor thinking he dropped it. When I asked what happened to his chicken, he said: “It was so good I ate it fast!”. My daughter ate hers pretty quickly herself (not as fast as Alex, but fast for her). She didn’t even mention that McDonald’s was better!

So as for me, I have elevated Mrs. Seinfeld to the level of genius. She wasn’t the first to think of it, but she presented the information is such a way that it seemed doable. My weekend experiment has given me hope that my children will develop the taste for vegetables in their diet, as I am still giving them something they can see on the side (which is something Mrs. Seinfeld does advocate). They may not eat everything that is on the side yet, but they are eating it in the food. It’s about baby steps to healthy eating.

And for that, I am grateful.