When Missy Chase Lapine’s The Sneaky Chef appeared on the scene in ’07, I didn’t think I needed her help since my kids were pretty adventurous eaters. Shoot forward two years though and ho boy, do I need her. With her new book The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue, I was determined to tackle the abysmal eating habits of my four-year-old son.
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The basic premise of this new Sneaky Chef remains the same: Make a few easy purees with healthy ingredients like blueberries and spinach, or sweet potatoes and carrots, then mix those purees into kid-friendly dishes like meatballs or pancakes to sneak healthy fruits and veggies onto the plates of picky eaters. And if that sounds familiar than yes, this is the author who did it before Jessica Seinfeld did it. But we’re staying out of that one.
Based on readers’ requests, Missy has added more light dishes, recipes for kids with food allergies, and special recipes for birthdays and holidays–her Sneaky Gravy for Thanksgiving is yum.
I’m now a convert. While it’s not a substitute for actually serving vegetables in their real, undisguised form, there’s a lot of good in this book. I love her super-easy Flour Blend and Better Breading recipes which could be used in dozens of ways. Most of the recipes my family tried, from chicken tenders to enchiladas to chocolate chip cookies, were gobbled up without any cajoling, begging or bribing.
She even has ideas for saving time using premade baby food in place of the purees, and tips for making store-bought items healthier on a moment’s notice. Case in point: I added purees to my store-bought tomato sauce, and my red-sauce phobic 8-year-old had seconds.
As she licked her plate clean, she proclaimed, “This is the best sauce ever in the history of sauce.”
I’d say this book delivers.
You’ll find Missy Chase Lapine’s The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue at Amazon.
Congratulations to Jennifer O and Wendy K – each won a copy of The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue!
