Seinfeld (yes the wife of THAT Seinfeld) includes wisdom from parenting experts Jean Mandelbaum and Pat Shimm, a foreward by Mehmet Oz and Roxana Mehran, and a nutrition primer by Joy Bauer to round out her own experiences from feeding a family. Together they offer a well rounded view of feeding your kids healthy food and avoiding food battles. Although most of the books recipes sneak extra veggies into to places you wouldn't expect them, the point is made multiple times that you still need to offer your kids vegetables that they recognize. Eventually most kids will eat them, even if it requires dipping them in something.
Seinfeld's program for adding extra vegetables to food is broken into four sections:
- Equipping your kitchen
- Stocking up on staples
- Making purees
- Recipes
Her suggestion is to make purees a few at a time, keep the ones you'll use immediately in the fridge and freeze the rest in 1/4 or 1/2 cup portions, labelled in your freezer. This syncs up nicely with my efforts this summer to try and eat fresh local products, it would have been a great idea to make purees in addition to freezing whole veggies. I still have time to catch up with winter squash for recipes like tacos, sloppy joes and grilled cheese! Jessica Seinfeld shared a few of her recipes with Oprah and thus with you too!
I like the physical book itself (I'd love to show you a picture but blogger is being a bit difficult), the hard covered book with an interior spiral binding is set-up is perfectly for use in the kitchen to cook. Its also easy to wipe clean (yeah, I am a really messy cook!). The pictures of the food are beautiful yet approachable. The food isn't so styled that you can't imagine ever making it at home but it still looks incredibly appetizing--even with the extra added veggies. Serving french toast with a small glass of milk and a plastic fork is certainly do-able at my house! The use of bright colors and lots of plaid gives the book a fun retro feel.
If figuring out how to keep your kids well fed without having constant battles at the dinner table is your goal, this may be the book for you. I did have a little struggle with whether or not I should be "hiding" things in my kids foods. I reasoned that I don't tell them what else is in it, so why would I tell them about the cauliflower or butternut squash purees? I probably won't be whipping any cauliflower puree into our morning eggs--we are lucky to be eating cereal or yogurt in the van in the morning--but the other recipes are definitely an easy add to my repertoire.
You can read the thoughts of more bloggers on Deceptively Delicious over at Parent Bloggers.
