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The Sneaky Chef: Simple Strategies for Hiding Healthy Foods in Kids’ Favorite Meals
By Missy Chase Lapine
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Customer Reviews

This is a GREAT cookbook!
After spending couple of hours this evening preparing green puree, orange puree, and flour blend, I have successfully made the Breakfast Cookies, Guerilla Grilled Cheese and Magic Meatballs. I wasn’t feeling very confident about the Breakfast Cookies when I took them from of the oven – I was sure my 3-year old wouldn’t touch them. But when she saw them, she asked if she could have one and proceeded to eat THREE! I hadn’t even sprinkled cinnamon-sugar on them as suggested. She was thrilled when I told her she could have cookies for breakfast, too. I was just plain stunned. The Guerilla Grilled Cheese was a big hit – she had no idea she was eating carrots and sweet potatoes, too.

The kids haven’t tasted the meatballs yet, but my husband, who suffers from an acute Fear of Green Vegetables, gave them two thumbs up (I like them, too). I can’t wait to see my kids eat them, especially knowing that they’ll be eating spinach, broccoli and peas without even knowing it.
Tomorrow I’ll be making the white puree and the Masterful Mac n’ Cheese.

It’s hard to be enthusiastic about preparing a nutritious meal when you’re almost certain that someone in the house will push it away and say, “Yuck!” Since I’m already two for two with the recipes in this book, it has me excited about cooking again. I’m very happy with The Sneaky Chef – so happy in fact, that I just ordered her new book. Thanks to Ms. Lapine, my whole family will be eating better – though some them won’t know it .

Take the basic ingredients and use them in your own recipes
This book has strategies for sneaking healthy foods into recipes that supposedly your kids will eat. There are recipes for several purees (mostly veggie mixtures), and other things such as a flour blend that contains all-purpose flour, whole wheat flour, and wheat germ. I really like these recipes for things to hide in foods. The carrot and yam puree is my favorite.

However, I found the recipes for the foods you are supposed to “hide” this in to be hit and miss. The macaroni and cheese recipe wasn’t that great…the cheese, milk and puree would have been better if it had been made into a sauce instead of just put into a dish and baked (it didn’t incorporate together very well). The chocolate chip cookies were okay considering all the stuff that was “hidden” in them, but my son would not eat them. The crunchy elbows were inedible…they were very tough. We did like the baked ziti, and my son ate a lot of it.

I would recommend taking the purees and other “basic” mixtures that are in the front of the book and incorporating them into your own recipes.

Sneaky is right
This is one of my favorite cook books. I bought this book about a year ago. I have a 10 year old, a 3 year old and a very picky husband.

This book has more than just recipes. It is filled with nutritional information about the purees you are sneaking into the recipes. It also has a “must have in your pantry” list, which are items that are now a must have in my home. There is also a section that talks about how to sneak the purees into your own recipes. Very helpful I must say.

The first thing I made was the brownies. My husband and 10 year old liked them but asked me what I had done different, texture wise. My 3 year old had no clue they were different. I even gave some to my father in law who called me later when he found out that they had spinach and blueberries in them and told me that it wasn’t right to be able to sneak that kind of stuff in there and him not know.

I have made several other items in this book that have gone over very very well. The favorite has got to be the chicken on a stick. They are not only yummy they are on a stick which makes it cool for the kids.

Today I purchased The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on your husband Cook Book. I can’t wait to get it.