Adding extra vitamins to our food!

When Jason and Michelle left after their visit they left the book "Deceptively Delicious" for us. (Thanks guys!)I was quite excited as I have read about this cookbook and thought it would be a fun one to have. Ken saw it and let out a groan but he has eaten the food fine that I have tried.



The main idea of this cookbook is to add vegetable or fruit purees to the food you make to give it extra nutrition. This is actually something that I have done for a long time with some things as my mom did it. However we mainly used winter squash and summer squash and hadn't gone much farther than that. Also Jessica in "D.D." has recipes for including things in foods I would never have thought of.

One night last week I decided to try a whole meal with extra "hidden" ingredients. I am not real good at following recipes, I usually just get the idea from them and then adjust it according to what I have. So I didn't follow any of the recipes perfectly but I got my inspiration from the new cook book. This was our menu:

• Hamburgers (with pureed squash, grated zucchini from the freezer and oatmeal)
• on Homemade Hamburger buns (with pureed squash which is a trick I learned from my mom) and with fixings.
• Mozzarella "sticks" (With grated zucchini, whole wheat flour and flax seeds)
• Celery and dip
• Brownies (with pureed squash and zucchini)

Everything turned out pretty good. Ken recommended that we didn't call the mozzarella sticks by that name as they weren't like what we were used to from the restaurant but none the less we liked them quite well. The Hamburgers were pretty breakable -I think I should have had egg in there as well but they were yummy. The brownies were a quite nice texture for having little oil or sugar. They were not very sweet though. I cut the sugar down as I always do but after eating them I realized that she had already cut the sugar to the minimum. Oh well we (the kids and I, Ken didn't try them as he isn't into chocolate) still enjoyed them.

I was especially pleased with the buns. Ken hasn't really liked homemade buns for hamburgers as the whole wheat ones tend to be really heavy and so I do usually buy buns when we have hamburgers but I decided to try a roll recipe (from another cookbook) and then adjust it some and they ended up being nice and light and nutritious as they had whole wheat flour, Oatmeal and squash in them. Here is the recipe:

Hamburger Buns

4 to 41/2 cups flour (I used around 1 to 2 cups whole wheat flour, 1 cup oatmeal and the rest white flour)
1 Tablespoon yeast
1/4 cup sugar
3/4 cup milk
1/2 cup squash puree
1/3 cup oil (Or a little less and a little more squash)
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 egg

Mix 2 cups flour, yeast and sugar. Heat all the liquids(except egg) to warm (120-130 degrees) and then mix in with flour and yeast mixture. Stir well and then add the egg and salt. Mix well. Stir in as much of the remaining flour as possible. Then on a floured surface knead in the remaining flour to make a moderately stiff dough. Place in a bowl and cover. Let rise until double in size (about 1 hour).

Punch dough down and make the dough into the shape and size of hamburger patties and place on a greased baking sheet. Let rise until nearly double. Then bake for around 15 minutes in a 350 degree oven. Slice each bun in half and enjoy with your hamburgers.

Have any of you used the Deceptively Delicious cookbook? What did you like? What was yucky? Is there anything that you can get your family to eat by hiding it in something? How do you do it?