Who Can Find the Veg?

I always hoped my kids would be good eaters and I’ve been fortunate that they are.  There are a lot of parents that go out of their way to ensure their children are getting enough veggies by hiding them in other foods.  I’ve started doing this as well but I never would have imagined I would need to do it for hubby and I and not for our children!

Here’s a few ways I’ve found to beef up our veg consumption as well as vary the type of veg we eat by “hiding” the veggies in other foods:

• Broccoli:  Honeybun loves broccoli and I hate being wasteful.  So whenever I buy fresh broccoli, instead of throwing the though stalks away, I make baby food.  I freeze the puree in ice cube trays just as I did when the girls were babies.  Whenever I make pasta with marinara I toss a few broccoli cubes into the sauce.  No one can even tell it’s there and it actually adds a bit of sweetness to the sauce.
• Sweet Potatoes:  We love breakfast for dinner but I always feel bad that we don’t get our veg in when we have it so I devised a “Sweet Potato French Toast” recipe.  I make sweet potato baby food and substitute for about ½ of the eggs in the French toast batter then use brown sugar instead of white and add my favorite baking spices (my mix is always cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves).
• Vegetable Juice:  I have a few recipes that call for apple juice that we really like.  Instead of apple juice, though, I’ve started using mixed Vegetable/Fruit juices like V8 V Fusion or Bolthouse Farms.  The recipes taste just as great but we get some extra veg in!  I also bought some popsicle molds for a few bucks at Ikea and use the mixed juices to make the girls popsicles.  The fresh type juices work best as the popsicles stay somewhat soft and don’t get really hard and icy.

Usually hubby will not touch cauliflower with a 10-foot pole but I found a recipe that I gave him a while ago, not telling him what was in it and he actually liked it and didn’t realize it was cauliflower:

“Just Like Loaded Baked Potatoes”:

• Cook cauliflower until tender (can use frozen or fresh) then chop into small pieces
• Mix cauliflower with sour cream, shredded cheese, and crumbled bacon
• Put in casserole dish and top with more shredded cheese, bacon and chopped scallions
• Bake at 350◦ for about 30 minutes.

Next hidden veggie mission: get hubby to eat asparagus!