The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids' Favorite Meals | 
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| Author: Missy Chase Lapine
Publisher: Running Press
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $5.25
You Save: $12.70 (71%)
New (53) Used (37) Collectible (1) from $4.95
Avg. Customer Rating:  259 reviews
Sales Rank: 409
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 10 x 8 x 0.7
ISBN: 0762430753
Dewey Decimal Number: 641.5622
EAN: 9780762430758
ASIN: 0762430753
Publication Date: April 4, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: SATISFACTION GUARANTEED! NEW Book! May have remainder mark. Most orders ship within 1 BUSINESS DAY with ORDER CONFIRMATION.
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Product Description
Parents will do almost anything to get their kids to eat healthier, but unfortunately, they’ve found that begging, pleading, threatening, and bribing don’t work. With their patience wearing thin, parents will “give in” for the sake of family peace, and reach for “kiddie” favorites-often nutritionally inferior choices such as fried fish sticks, mac n’ cheese, Pop-sicles, and cookies. Missy Chase Lapine, former publisher of Eating Well magazine, faced the same challenges with her two young daughters, and she sought a solution. Now in The Sneaky Chef, Lapine presents over 75 recipes that ingeniously disguise the most important superfoods inside kids’ favorite meals. With the addition of a few simple make-ahead purees or clever replacements, (some may surprise you!) parents can pack more fiber, vitamins, and antioxidants in their kids’ foods. Examples of “Sneaky” recipes include: No Harm Chicken Parm Power Pizza Incognito Burritos Guerilla Grilled Cheese Brainy Brownies Health-by-Chocolate Cookies Quick fixes for Jell-O(R)
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| Customer Reviews: Read 254 more reviews...
 Great Idea for Dieters! August 18, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
basically, Missy tells us how we can puree fruits and vegetables that are high in fiber, vitamins and antioxidants and add them to basic recipes so that they're undetectable. the purees are a little time-consuming to prepare, but once you have a stockpile of them, you can use them in virtually everything. (i freeze mine in ice cube trays, then store them in airtight freezer containers - usually 3 large cubes are enough for a recipe).
once you learn how much, or how little puree you can get away with, the possibilities are endless. the best part is if you're dieting, this is a great way to get extra nutrition (and fiber) without adding a lot of calories. i've even come up with my own veggie/fruit combos to puree.
my one concern was how the processing and cooking affects the nutrients of the veggies, so i did some research....and for most veggies, as long as you keep them under a certain temp (like maybe adding them towards the end of the cooking), the nutrients remain....some, like tomatoes and carrots actually need a little heat to break down the cell walls and make the nutrients digestible.
Missy has put some great info in the book and my favorite part about it is that it's really inspired my creativity in my everyday cooking. whenever i pick up any recipe now, i instantly think about which puree i can sneak into it, or how i can enhance the nutritional value in some other way. i no longer feel guilty when i have to resort to one of those frozen skillet meals or jarred pasta sauce; i just add some frozen veggies (fortunately, we like to eat them whole, too) and drizzle a little olive oil on top at the end ;-)
The Recipes I've Tried are Tasty. The Fixes are Fabulous August 16, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This cookbook is for those who want to eat healthier and still eat the classic/standard American diet. Though it takes a little planning ahead and thinking about the details these are fairly easy steps toward better eating. Lapine includes helps for store bought items that make it easy to improve standard meals. All the purees can be made ahead and frozen for later use. Most if not all the recipes have more than one healthy addition or change. I love the Brainy Brownies and the Triple Stuffed Potatoes. My family raved about them, too. (I didn't hide the ingredients as much as play a guessing game with them after they ate them, of course.) I plan to prepare more recipes and continue to make the ones we've already claimed as ours.
I did spend some time with Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious and like The Sneaky Chef better because of the multiple changes per recipe. I didn't care for the font choice in The Sneaky Chef, though. The ingredients are printed in orange and black. The orange amounts were challenging to read.
 I'm a new sneaky mum (chef) August 15, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book is terrific. My two children refuse to eat vegetables and one refuses to eat fruit. I've used many of the recipes to hide nutritious food and the kids are loving it, and have no idea what they are really eating! Like many parents, I was sick of the food fight. Now we're all happy at the dinner table.
I've been looking for a cookbook like this for years August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I've long looked for a cookbook that took favorite dishes and made them more nutritious. My children eat nearly any vegetable I put before them -- but what they really love are foods like macaroni & cheese, buttered noodles, white bread, mashed potatoes, etc. This cookbook has completely changed the way I cook. When I made the chicken nuggets (which had an unbelievable amount of pureed vegetables hidden underneath the whole-grain breading), my husband & children said, and this is a direct quote, "These are the best chicken nuggets you've ever cooked!" I am now adding vegetables purees to everything -- beef stew, chicken noodle soup, tacos, spaghetti, buttered noodles, mashed potatoes .... I think that every mother in America ought to read this cookbook just to rethink ways to cook favorite recipes. Even the way I make popsicles has changed.
I would like to note that I also bought a copy of "Deceptively Delicious," which had a cute cover that caught my eye at Target. If you are trying to pick between the two, I have this advice. If you are a visual person, you will might be inspired by the D.D. book, for it had a very talented graphic artist design the book. It is adorable as much as a cookbook can be. But if you want the best content, by far the Sneaky Chef is superior. The recipes are better, the quality of the content overall far better, and the author has real-world experience in nutrition and cooking and food writing. If you take the time to read both books thoroughly, and then to test a few recipes from each, you will see exactly what I mean.
More Than Just "Hiding" Strategies August 3, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
My oldest and youngest sons are wonderful eaters. My middle son, who is autistic, is not. I have recently been strategizing on how to improve his diet by finding nutrient-rich foods that he enjoys (tomato soup, for instance, and sugar-free peanut butter, both favorites). I read the reviews on Sneaky Chef and was instantly won over. "However," I said to myself, "I'm not going to just 'fool' my kids constantly. I'm going to continue to offer them *whole* vegetables and fruits with their meals in addition to hidden-vegetable foods."
Surprise! That's exactly what this author recommends. She devotes a section to it, as well as a section on why children dig their heels in about "new" or "icky" foods. The author does NOT say one should sneak in good foods and never present the child with the real deal. She states just the opposite and she states it explicitly, with its own little explanation.
I agree that a lot of the book seems to be filler. As a writer, it's easy to see where she was asked to flesh a section out by repeating herself. That doesn't make the book less worthwile, in my opinion; if you already know it all, skip those parts. Worked for me.
There are plenty of recipes; enough to round out any child's day for a number of days. The recipes (as well as the bulk of the book) also give good indications of where you can take the ideas from here on how to up the nutritional value of your children's own favorite foods.
I tried pureed zucchini (forgot the cauliflower at the store...d'oh!) with a tiny pinch of salt in boxed macaroni and cheese tonight (rather than the author's recipe--it looked good, but I figured, one change at a time) and at first my middle son took a bite and paused. I did, however, use the maximum recommended amount (another d'oh! for me). After a minute or two, he started again to eat...and he ate plenty. As for the toddler, he ate his mac 'n cheese plus the carrot sticks I cut up for both of them. :)
I'd recommend this book to anyone trying to increase the nutritional value of his or her children's foods. Personally, I don't think I'll need to be all that sneaky, if at all...EVERY recipe has a few ingredients that the entire household doesn't automatically know about. If you're thinking of trying this philosophy (no one food philosophy is for everyone) but worry about the "trick" factor is still nagging at you, ask yourself whether you've yet informed your children that their favorite Jell-O is made from pig cartilage, whether you've gently let them know that there's baking soda and TSP--a stain remover and enema ingredient--in their Trix, and whether you always warn them in advance, "Mom is putting a pinch of sugar into the tomato paste and canned tomatoes...I know any child would think sugar with tomatoes is 'yucky', and I'd feel deceptive not telling you."
Again, not for everyone; but definitely for us. Loved this book; would recommend it...and am doing so.
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