doing the sneaky...

...and no it's not what you think.  2 and a half years ago I met my now husband and our beautiful family, a family not keen on vegtables.  How was I to get the nutritional goodness in to them that their bodies longed to have?  For starters you do not serve up brocilli and cauliflower cheese soup!  I learned the hard way.

Now I know Jessica Seinfeld came up with all this pureeing business but really after you steam, puree and then cook again, I'm guessing you are losing a fair amout of nutritional value (but I'm no nutritionist.)

The answer to my problems was "doing the sneaky"  I grate up carrot, zuchini, mushroom, spinach and I've even graduated to, shredding up, khale (appaerntly a super food).  I have "sneakied" these vegtables into lasagne, cabbage rolls, pizza, spagetti, sheppard's pie, hamburgers and as little m says "everything you make".  Now, my kids are pretty smart so after seeing the grated up vegtables on the chopping board never to appear on their plate, they began to realise that they were in fact eating to good stuff.  Yet there were no complaints because it all tastes, well they eat it, so it must be ok.

Sick days in our house used to be frequent, not anymore.  We take our vitamins and eat our vegtables (the sneaky way) and have happy smiling, healthy faces.  If you would like to know how to incorporate these ingredients into your meal, drop me a line and I would be happy to share my tricks with you.

*disclaimer
We are not perfect and I often mess up meals.  Step parenting is hard, but rewarding when you get it right.

Recipes From a Box

Who knew they could be so wonderful?  I first heard about this jam recipe when I went to visit my sister-in-law and her family on the St. Claire River.  We were sitting at the breakfast bar when her mother brought out the "freezer jam", it was running and fruity and tasted deliciously fresh picked from the garden.  I thought for sure it had to be a secret family recipe, passed down through the generations but I was wrong.  It came from the back of a Certo pectin package.  Here below I have a few wee photos of this very easy process.  I hope you all take advantage of the very reasonabley priced fruit this season and make some of your own.

 

Ta daaaaaa!

My next recipe from a box is for stuffed pasta shells.  I can honestly say that the jam recipe gave me some confidence and so I thought I could kill dead things with all this cooking domesticness.  This was a pretty yummy dinner although not super healthy as there was a lot of cheese (however my friend later shared a fat cutting secret, use half ricotta half cottage cheese, apparently no one can tell the difference)