Wednesday, January 16, 2008

They're Full of Spinach!

I have really been enjoying my new cookbook Deceptively Delicious which I got just after Christmas. When I first heard of the concept of the book, hiding vegetable purees in regular foods to boost the nutrition, it didn't wow me that much. But when I saw the cookbook at Barnes & Noble I was attracted to the lovely photographs and so many recipes looked appealing. Now I am really into it and have made several recipes and have a little stockpile of vegetable purees in my freezer.
Over the weekend I made these Blueberry Oatmeal Bars. After the success of Nigella's Breakfast Bars I wanted to try something else kind of grainy and healthy. These have a lot more fat than the Nigella bars so are much more dessert-like and are very yummy. The oat mixture is pretty standard (except instead of butter you use trans-fat free margarine) but the blueberry layer is full of pureed spinach. I admit I had my doubts when I stirred my beautiful bright green puree into my beautiful bright purple blueberry preserves and ended up with a muddy runny concoction, but it all turned out okay in the end. The recipe does say to let the bars cool completely because the spinach taste can still be detected while they are warm. I did that and they were delicious. Honestly, these are much more for the big people in our family than for the young children--we don't give the little ones too many desserty items. I for one like to take a little something sweet in my lunch and I love the fact that I'm getting green vegetables in my blueberry bar. Bring it on!

I've tried another couple recipes from the book as well. In the interest of fairness, after the "Macaroni and Cheese #2" was a giant flop on Dieter's birthday, I decided to try the alternate recipe "(the #1) and it was much much better and perfect for packing in Rainer's lunch for daycare. And this weekend we had the pasta with Bolognese Sauce which was pretty good. Bolognese sauce already has veggies in it, but this recipe adds sweet potato puree as well which lends a nice sweetness to the sauce. So that's it--I'm definitely trying more recipes from this book soon.

2 comments:

Melissa said...

Those bars look so yummy!

Kate said...

wow, so cool! I never thought about adding vege puree to things... what an interesting thought.