Rascal 1, Jessica Seinfeld 0

My kids are picky eaters. It's something that I have created/nurtured/encouraged/allowed for years. When Domino was a baby he would eat anything as long as it came from a jar. Anything with texture was rejected completely. When we finally got him into "real food" it was just bland convenience foods that we knew he would accept - dinosaur nuggets, pizza (he takes the cheese off), fish sticks and the like. Rascal started off as a pretty good eater - and that just means he ate whatever processed food we fed Domino without fussing - but is taking more and more cues from Domino and becoming increasingly picky.

I’m trying to get us all eating healthier and heard mixed reviews about the “sneaky chef” methods of cooking, specifically pureeing and hiding veggies in everyday food. Many detractors of this method argue that you shouldn't hide veggies from kids but teach them to eat them. I argue that I put veggies on my kids plates every day and with the exception of frozen peas (still frozen!) all veggies basically end up in my garbage disposal.

I bought myself the Jessica Seinfeld book Deceptively Delicious for Christmas and went to work yesterday steaming and pureeing cauliflower, carrots and blueberries. I’ve got a batch of sweet potatoes in the oven as I type and plan on attacking a butternut squash later today. My freezer is now filled with about 2 dozen little baggies of what appears to be baby food for grown ups.

I attempted to smuggle out my first recipe of sneaky food this morning – scrambled eggs with cauliflower. I modified the recipe slightly because I could already tell there would be issues. The recipe called for 2 eggs and 4 egg whites, ½ cup of cauliflower puree, ¼ sour cream, 2 tablespoons parmesan cheese, pinch of salt and 1 teaspoon olive oil in the pan. Knowing that Rascal refuses any white part of an egg I used 5 whole eggs, reduced the cauliflower in half to ¼ cup, a big blob of sour cream and a sprinkling of shredded Mexican cheese.

Uhhh…. The eggs never really solidified. Even after cooking and cooking they had the texture of thick lumpy oatmeal. Not exactly a selling point. I cooked the hell out them some more and finally got them to a texture I could put on a plate without them spreading. Rascal took one look at the eggs and said “no thanks”. I cheerily said “Eggs! Your favorite! We haven’t had these in a long time!”. He hesitantly put a spoonful in his mouth and said “these taste funny”. I volunteered up MORE CHEESE ON TOP! And he said “No, no, I don’t like these”. GARLIC PEPPER! YOUR FAV! MORE ON TOP!! “Mom, I don’t want any eggs”.

So, I managed to spoon feed Rascal like a baby about 5 bites while singing “Eggs! Oh soooo- delici-oooo-so!” before he said “Can I be done now?”.

I ate the rest. Squishy, a slightly different flavor than I’m used to, but really not too bad. I can’t imagine what it would have been like had I used all the cauliflower the recipe called for.

I didn’t attempt any with Domino. I know better.

I hope I haven’t completely ruined scrambled eggs for Rascal.