So I have 2 very picky eaters. When I mean picky, I mean from birth. Neither of them would eat fruit or veggie purees or baby food. Life can get very stressful when you can not feed your baby. Kids can not survive on cheerios and plain pasta. My hellions would not even eat cookies or cake. I am the only mom at a birthday party yelling “just eat the cake!!!!”
About 10 years ago, 2 books came out about hiding vegetables in meals. I will reference them below and. One was written by Jerry Seinfeld’s wife. In both, there are recipes for all meals, desserts and snacks. This is where I learned to hide fruits and vegetables in meals. Now, this also works on husbands or even just helps us moms get in our servings of fruits and vegetables. I call it Sneaky Vegetable Hiding.
Essentially there are 2 steps.
- Cook and puree fruits and veggies and freeze in ice cube trays. It takes very little time and you can store it for whenever you need it. I blend them in a Magic Bullet until very smooth.
- Add the thawed puree to whatever you can!
Fruit:
It is pretty easy to hide fruit in things such as pancakes, muffins, oatmeal and cookies. One of the best suggestions was Breakfast Ice cream. You can use any fruit but bananas was easiest. You freeze ripe, peeled bananas in chunks and in the morning, blend it with a tbsp of yogurt and you get a frozen banana puree that has the consistency of ice cream. You can do strawberries, blueberries, what ever fruit you like. My daughter still eats very poorly. I add protein powder for some added punch.
Cauliflower:
Cauliflower is an easy one to hide because it is white and almost tasteless. You can hide cauliflower puree in tuna salad and many sauces but my favourite is in mac and cheese. It works best in homemade sauces.
Butternut Squash:
I LOVE butternut squash because it is sweet and creamy. My favourite was to make plain pasta and add butter, butternut puree and Parmesan cheese. You can also add butternut squash puree to a quiche or souffle. Sounds bad, I know but it tastes good.
Sweet Potato or Yam
These sweet little jems are my favourite because they are like a dessert. I always add a couple sweet potato cubes and a carrot cube to my spaghetti sauce. It tastes good and it helps make the sauce less acidic. If you are baking and add cinnamon, they are hidden even better. I add sweet potatoes or pumpkin to pancakes, french toast or oatmeal. I even make hot chocolate with milk and chocolate syrup, I add some sweet potato and cinnamon. As long as you drink it fairly quickly, they will not notice. I add it to coffee with pumpkin spices for a pumpkin spice latte…for a treat for me
Avocados:
The avocado “pudding” was really popular for a while. You blend avocados with cacao powder and sometimes coconut milk or melted chocolate. There are many recipes online. It is pretty good but remember they are high in calories.! I add avocados to my boiled eggs instead of mayo in egg salad. Now this makes them slightly green so I suggest reading green eggs and ham before eating..
Zucchini can add a creamy flavour. You can add this to meatballs or hamburgers
I only successfully hid spinach in pita pizza’s. I would put a thin layer under the pizza sauce. The trick is to make sure it is covered by lots of sauce and toppings
Last but not least is onions. Sometimes onions taste really good in a dish but your kids hate looking at the slimy little devils. The other night I was making butter chicken and so I sautéed some onions and then pureed them for the sauce. No one ever knew.
If you would like more ways to trick your kids, check out these books
