Veggie Hide & Seek

(photo credit)

There's a lot of chatter on the blogs I follow about eating more veggies.  I guess the glut of nutritionally based New Years Resolutions has brought on a demand for ideas.  So, I thought I'd link you up with some of my favorite ways to pack veggies into our diet.

I enjoy hiding veggies (namely pureed squashes) in my baked items.  From Blueberry Bread to Chocolate cake, mild squashes can replace some of the fat calories of oil and eggs and nobody will ever know!

I also pump my Marinara with pureed squashes, carrots and other veggies.  I usually leave peppers and onions in chunks, but if you need to hide those too, just hit it with your wand mixer and blend it all together.

Soups are a great place to pile in the veggies and when the weather turns warmer, I've even been known to sneak some veggies in the smoothies.

Looking for more creative ways to add veggies to your menu?  Check out the Ultimate Recipe Swap over at Life as Mom.

HV Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

A while back I saw a blog talking about incorporating black bean puree into brownies.  Intriguing. I already hide veggies in my baked goods, why not some extra protein & fiber. When I found this recipe for Chocolate Zucchini Bread, my first thought was "YUM!"  immediately followed by "how can I cut back the sugar and oil?".   I thought I'd try the black beans.  I have to say, it was a great success.  Unless you share your secret, nobody will know that this recipe has been healthified.  If Ihadn't made it I wouldn't have guessed it had zucchini, let alone black beans!

This is a very versatile recipe as it makes a nice muffin or breakfast bread.   You can dust it with powdered sugar and garnish with summer berries and serve as a pretty dessert.

Double Chocolate Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

• ½ cup cocoa powder


• 2 eggs


• ¾ cup  Sugar


• ¾ cup Brown Sugar


• 2/3 cup oil


• 2 cups grated zucchini


• ¾ cup black bean puree


• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract


• 1 cups All-purpose flour


• 1 cup White Whole Wheat flour


• 1 teaspoon baking soda


• 1 teaspoon salt


• 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips


• 1 cup chopped pecans

Directions:

1.  Combine sugars and eggs.  Add cocoa powder, oil and black bean puree and mix thoroughly.  Add in zucchini and blend.

2.  Add all remaining dry ingredients (combine in a separate bowl if that's your style).  Mix them up.   Fold in chocolate chips and nuts.

3.  Pour batter into two greased loaf pans or into prepared muffin tins.  Bake at 35o for 20-25 minutes for muffins and 40-50 minutes for loaves.

Enjoy!

HV Blueberry Bread

I have to admit, while trying to use up the yellow squash in my freezer I've come up with some hidden veggie recipes that were tolerable but not worth sharing. However, I struck gold with this on on Saturday. It turned out delicious! You can make it in loaf pans as a bread or it would be just as yummy in square/rectangle pan as a coffee cake. Just adjust your baking times accordingly.

HV Blueberry Bread

3/4 cups Margarine
1 1/2 cups Sugar
3 Eggs
3/4 cups pureed Yellow Squash
3/4 cups Milk
2 teaspoons Vanilla
3 1/2 cups Flour (I substituted 1-1/2 cups White Whole Wheat and it was great!)
2 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder
2 cups Blueberries (fresh or frozen)

1. Cream margarine and sugar together. Add Eggs and vanilla and beat until smooth.
2. Add squash and milk and blend thoroughly.
3. Add flour and baking soda and mix. Once batter is smooth, fold in blueberries.
4. Spoon batter into greased pans (2 loaf pans or 1-9x13) and bake at 350 until inserted toothpick comes out clean. 40-60 minutes for loaves, 35-45 for pans.

Enjoy!

Linked up at $5Dinners Yellow Squash Grow Eat $ave post.

Freezer Friday: HV Lemon Blueberry Muffins, etc.

The next couple of weeks are going to be bringing company to our home which means that I'm going to need to be cleaning up the house, and not cooking so much.  So, this week I did some freezer stocking.  I made a triple batch of this Spanish Rice Bake and put two batches in the freezer.  The key is the cilantro garnish - don't skimp on it,  it makes the dish!  I also put a batch of the Corned Beef and Cabbage Stew in the freezer.

When I browned up the beef/TVP mix for the Spanish Rice Bake earlier this week, I cooked up extra and divided it.  I used half for the Bakes and half for Taco Meat.  One skillet, washed once: I love saving time and doing less pot scrubbing!  Two containers of Taco Meat went to the freezer and one in the fridge for today.

My baking project of the week was Hidden Veggie Lemon Blueberry Muffins.  I used up blueberries and frozen squash puree from my freezer.  They were a great combination of sweet and tangy!

HV Lemon Blueberry Muffins

1/2 cup melted butter

1 1/2 cup white sugar

1/3 cup lemon juice

3 eggs
1 cup pureed squash

3 cups all-purpose flour (sub 1c Whole Wheat)

2 teaspoon baking powder

2 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup milk

2 cup fresh or frozen blueberries

Directions
1.  Combine butter, sugar, lemon juice, eggs and squash puree until smooth.
2.  Add dry ingredients and mix well.  Then add milk and combine until smooth.
3.  Fold in blueberries and nuts.


4.  Bake as muffins for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees or as two loaves for 50-75 minutes.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Homemade Spinach Linguine

This week I put the MamaMixer pasta rollers to work.  Our Christmas plans are in a semi-fluid state, sort of like a really good molten chocolate cake - but I digress.  So it ends up that we'll have family at our place for Christmas, for which I'm thrilled.  In a moment overtaken by a craving, I've decided to stray from the 'normal' holiday meal of ham or turkey and all the trimmings and go for an Italian feast.

Since the pasta rollers hadn't seen a workout since March and green is a great, festive, Christmas color, I decided to make homemade Spinach Linguine.  I did some google searching to find tips and tricks and below is the recipe and notes I used. We tested some for dinner last night, it's good!

Homemade Whole Wheat- Spinach Linguine

Ingredients:

2 cups Unbleached All Purpose Flour

2 cups Whole Wheat Pastry Flour (finer than regular whole wheat)

2/3 cups Spinach Puree (as smooth as you can possibly get it)

1/3 cup Water plus 3+Tablespoons for consistency

Directions

1.  Make your spinach puree.  I took 1-10 ounce package of frozen spinach and microwaved it until thawed and semi-cooked.  Then took ran it in the blender, liquid and all, and added more water 1/4 cup at a time, until the puree was the consistency such that it would pour smoothly.  (Freeze the puree you don't use in the pasta and add it to another recipe for extra nutrition.)

2.  Combine flours in a large mixing bowl, or the bowl of your mixer.

3.  Form a well in the center of the flour in the bowl and add spinach puree and 1/3 cup of water.  Blend ingredients with a spoon or fork until crumbly.





4. Add water 1 tablespoon at a time as you (or your mixer) kneads the dough until a stiff dough forms.  If using a MamaMixer once the dough forms a ball and all pulls away from the bowl - you're there.  Knead it for a couple more minutes until smooth.



5. Roll & Cut.  If you have pasta rollers, follow the directions on your rollers to roll and cut the dough.  If working by hand, roll it out as thinly as possible and then slice it up.



6.  Cook or Preserve.  If you're cooking up your pasta right way, place it in a pot of boiling water for 5-8 minutes, drain and enjoy.  If keeping it for a while, allow your noodles to "dry" a bit until they are the consistency of soft fruit leather - usually a couple hours.  Then put in seal-able bag and place in refrigerator or freezer.



A Couple Notes: As I was working with the dough I was really afraid that the texture was going to be off because of the whole-wheat flour.  The dough kind of felt like a fine-grit sand paper and that's not appetizing at all!  I'm happy to say that the whole wheat cooked up beautifully and the texture was soft and fabulous as you would expect a homemade pasta to be.

Also, I was concerned because there seemed to be a lot of fibers from the spinach that I couldn't get out of the puree, these too seemed to disappear in the cooking process.  If you have particularly fibrous puree, you may want to run it through a strainer before putting it in the pasta dough.

Now I have to decide if I want to make an Alfredo Sauce and garnish with roasted red pepper or make a rose sauce.  Decisions decisions!

Freezer Friday: Shepherd's Pies and HV Orange Chocolate Chip Bread

This week I managed to get three Shepherd's Pies into the oven and made a bunch of muffins and breakfast breads to take to a party and to stash in the freezer.  I made Pumpkin Bread, this Lemon-Blueberry Bread and a great Hidden Veggie Orange Chocolate Chip Bread/Muffins.  All turned out super yummy and the Orange-Chocolate Chip Bread recipe is below.  Did you get anything stashed in your freezer this week?

HV Orange Chocolate Chip Bread/Muffins

Ingredients:

2 Eggs
1 cup Sugar
1/2 cup Brown Sugar
1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
1 cup Orange Juice
2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
2 cups Pureed Yellow Squash
1 1/2 cups Semi-Sweet Chocolate Chips
2 1/2 cups Unbleached Flour
1 cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder
1-1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda

Directions:
1.  Preheat oven to 375*
2.  Cream together eggs and sugars.  Add Vegetable Oil, Orange Juice and Vanilla Extract and Yellow Squash and mix thoroughly.
3.  Add flours and then Baking Powder and Baking Soda on top of the flours and mix all at once.
4.  Fold in chocolate chips.
5.  Pour into two greased loaf pans or muffin tins.  Recipe will make two loaves or two dozen muffins or a combination of each. Bake muffins for 17-22 minutes and loaves for 45-60 minutes.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

[Green] Baked Potato Soup

Growing up I remember my mom’s potato soup on cold winter nights and since I’m a meat-and-potatoes girl at heart, potato soup often comes up on our menu once the temperature drops.  Originally I tweaked my mom’s recipe to turn it into at Baked Potato Soup.

This last time I made this soup is was particularly special because I used potatoes from our garden.  So yummy!  I added the [Green] before the recipe because when I made it this time around I added pureed zucchini to add a few more nutrients.  HandyMan said he could taste the zucchini a little, but I couldn’t. I may be becoming immune to the flavor of the zucchinis.  I did change the texture a bit but overall the finished product was pretty good.

The premise of the Baked Potato Soup is that you start with the soup as your base and pile on whatever you would want on a baked potato.  For us this has included steamed broccoli, grated cheddar cheese, bacon bits, chopped chives and even chili.  The list could go on as far as the reaches of your imagination.  By adding the broccoli (and the zucchini in the Green version) you add a bit of vegetables to this starchy comfort food and a bit more nutrition.

I cooked the entire package of bacon and put remaining bacon strips in the fridge to use for meals later in the week, like egg sandwiches or on top of salads.  The flavor for this recipe really comes from the bacon drippings left after you’ve cooked the meat.

[Green] Baked Potato Soup

2 lbs Potatoes, scrubbed, peeled and chopped.

1 onions, chopped

2 cups Milk

1 tsp Salt

1/2 tsp Pepper

[2 cups Pureed Zucchini]

1/2 lb smoked Bacon

4 cups Water (less if using Zucchini)

Soup Toppings: Steamed broccoli, bacon bits, shredded cheese, chives, etc.

Directions

1. Boil your potatoes in a large stock pot until fork tender.



2. Drain potatoes and put potatoes in a different bowl.

3. Cook your bacon in your stock pot until it reaches your preferred crispiness. Remove bacon, but leave drippings in the pot.



4. Add onions and sauté until clear.



5. Add milk, salt, pepper, water and [zucchini puree if you so choose] to the pot. If you want a smoother soup base, puree this mixture with an immersion blender.



6. Once the base is as smooth as you would like it, add the potatoes back into the pot. The liquid base should cover the potatoes, if not; add more water until the potatoes are covered.

7. Allow to come to a boil. Once soup is hot all the way through, gently mash with a potato masher to break the potatoes into soup size pieces. Again – this is a matter of preference. To mash or not to mash is up to you.

8. Serve with your soup toppings and enjoy.



Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Updated 10/7/2010 - If you've landed here from LifeAsMom's Ultimate Recipe Swap - welcome!  I made this last fall about this time and it will be on my menu again as soon as we get around to digging up this year's potatoes.  I love that there's extra veggies hidden in this soup to make it a little healthier for me and  my family!

A to Zucchini Sweet Bread

I cannot tell you how much I love this recipe.  I made two loaves – we had one for breakfast and snacks and the other I served with ice-cream for dessert and it was perfect.  While I had hoped to send one to the freezer, that didn’t happen so I’m going to have to try again!  It not only uses the zucchini that I have coming out my ears but I could also use my homemade plain yogurt – double bonus!

For this time around I used dried cranberries, chopped pecans and brown sugar for the filling.  The bread is vanilla-y sweet and neutral that you can easily substitute just about anything for the filling – that’s where the A to Zucchini comes in.  Options for fillings: apples (diced), blueberries, chocolate chips, dried apricots … you get the idea.

You can also make it as loaves or in a tube or Bundt pan if you need a coffee cake or dessert.  A simple glaze can be made from 3/4 cup Powdered Sugar, 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract and 2 teaspoons Milk if you’d like to frost this as a dessert cake.  So experiment, and be sure to come back and tell us how yours turned out!

A to Zucchini Sweet Bread

Ingredients

1/3 cup Vegetable Oil

3/4 cup Sugar

2 Eggs

3 teaspoons Vanilla Extract

1 1/3 cups Plain Yogurt

3 cups All Purpose Flour

1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Salt

2 cups Shredded Zucchini



Filling:

1/2 cup Pecans

1/2 cup Dried Cranberries

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

(Brown Sugar may be omitted, feel free to be creative with your filling – you will need about 11/2 cup of the filling items of your choice.)

Directions:

1. Beat together Vegetable Oil, Sugar and Eggs and Vanilla in a large bowl.  Mix in Yogurt.


2. Add dry ingredients and mix thoroughly.


3. Mix in Zucchini.  Batter will look like this:


4. Combine Filling ingredients in a separate bowl.  


5. Batter will be divided between two greased loaf pans.  Pour one third the batter in the bottom of the pans.  Sprinkle half the topping over the batter.  Continue with batter layer, filling and remaining batter.


6. Bake at 350° for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

HV Zucchini Bread

Update 7/17/2010: If you've landed here from $5 Dinners Grow. Eat. $ave. series, Welcome!  Please take a moment to look around.  This zucchini bread recipe is still one of my go-to zucchini bread recipes!. It is quick and easy, moist and freezes beautifully!  It's also really good with cream cheese. Click here for more of my zucchini recipes including Veggie Spaghetti Quick Dinner and [Green] Potato Soup.

This is another one of those hearty quick breads that is great for breakfasts or snacks.  While it's obvious that there will be veggies in zucchini bread, this particular recipe is absolutely packed with veggies!  You can substitute your pureed squash for the pureed zucchini in this recipe and you can also substitute in up to 2 cups of whole wheat flour for more whole grain goodness!  Still need to find uses for more zucchinis?  Check out this article.

Zucchini Bread

Ingredients

3 cups shredded Zucchini

1 cup pureed Zucchini (or Yellow Squash)

2 Eggs

1/2 cups Vegetable Oil

2 cups Sugar

3 cups Flour (can substitute up to 2 cups Whole Wheat)

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 Tablespoon Cinnamon

Directions

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees

2.  Cream together eggs, oil and sugar.

3.  Add Zucchini puree and blend.

4.  Mix your dry ingredients in a separate bowl then add to your batter.

5.  Add shredded Zucchini to the batter and mix thoroughly.

6.  Divide batter between two, greased, loaf pans.  Bake for 45-60 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Yogurt 1.1 & HV Peach Smoothie

We guzzled through the first batch of yogurt, Yogurt 1.o, that I made and it was delicious!  A lot of it ended up in Strawberry Banana Smoothies which were wonderful!  Yogurt 1.0 yielded two large jars and one small jar.  I had stashed the small jar in the back of the fridge so that it would be there when I was ready to make the next batch of yogurt - Yogurt 1.1.  So this morning in my whirlwind of multitasking I went to the fridge for my stashed starter only to find that HandyMan had busted into it for his breakfast!  Fortunately, there was enough left to do a quart batch.  I made it with whole milk again because I was testing to see if the cultures in Yogurt 1.o would in fact produce another batch of equally thick, yummy yogurt.  So I mixed up Yogurt 1.1, let it spend the day in it's happy warm place and it is a complete success!

In working our way through Yogurt 1.1 and the freezing of pureed yellow squash for my Hidden Veggies recipes, I decided to get creative with my smoothies.  I added a 1/4 cup cube of frozen yellow squash puree for added nutrition and you can't taste it at all.  HandyMan is on to me and will commonly ask "What'd you sneak in this?", to which I will promptly reply "You tell me."    So mix this up and see if your family can tell that you're sneaking them some veggies!

Hidden Veggie Smoothies

Ingredients

1 Banana

1 Peach or 1 cup Strawberries

1/2 cup Plain Yogurt

1/4 cup Pureed Yellow Squash

Directions:

Using a blender or a cup and an immersion blender, blend all ingredients until smooth.  Makes 2 servings.



Click Here for a printable version of this recipe.

HV Spiced Applesauce Bread/Muffins

Updated 9/16/2010 -Hi!  If your visiting from LifeAsMom's Ultimate Recipe Swap - Welcome!  I posted this last year about this time and it's time to add this one to the menu again. Enjoy :)

Once I drag myself out of bed, I usually hit the ground running.  The chore list, dirty diapers, and well being of GBaby usually take priority over a lingering breakfast.  For me breakfast needs to be something that I can grab quickly and will fill me up for a while.  I enjoy hearty breads recipes that can be made as loaves or muffins and easily enjoyed fresh or frozen.   This recipe can be made as muffins or as a loaf and is great warmed or toasted.  For an extra energy kick, it's also very good with cream cheese.  Enjoy!

HV Spiced Applesauce Bread/Muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups Applesauce

1/2 cup Squash or Zucchini Puree

1/2 cup White Sugar

1/2 cup Brown Sugar

1/4 cup Vegetable Oil

2 Eggs

2 cups Flour (may substitute up to 3/4 cup Whole Wheat flour)

1 teaspoon Baking Soda

1/2 teaspoon Baking Powder

1 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon Ground Nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon Ground Allspice

Crumb Topping:

1/3 cup melted Margarine or Butter

1 cup Oats

1/2 cup Flour

Directions:

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit

2.  Beat Eggs, Vegetable Oil and Sugars.  Add Applesauce and Squash Puree and mix thoroughly.

3.  In a separate bowl, mix together all dry ingredients and add to the mixture of liquids and mix thoroughly.  (Or if you are comfortable with cheating, dump in flour(s), then spices then baking soda and baking powder and then mix until thoroughly combined.)

4.  Spoon batter into a greased loaf pan or muffin tins (1 loaf or 18 muffins).

5.   Mix up the crumb topping and spoon on top of loaf or muffins.

6.  Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes, and loaf 45-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.

For a printable version of this recipe, please click here.

Nutrition Facts from http://caloriecount.about.com

Freezer Friday: HV Yellow Squash & Green Beans

This week has been a much more productive week in terms of getting produce into the freezer.  The 4 quarts of blueberries made it to the freezer as well as 7 quarts of green beans and lots of yellow squash and zucchini cubes.  The mountain of squash that had taken residence on my kitchen counter earlier this week has been conquered, pureed and sent to the freezer!

I cooked and pureed the yellow squash for the use of hiding it in baked goods this winter.  Since my garden is yielding quite the zucchini crop and the yellow squash were 3/$1 at the local produce market, I got to work.  I found that 1 cup of chopped squash yielded about 1/2 cup of puree.  This is an adult serving of summer squash according to MyPyramid.gov.  The process is the same as the process for making baby food, only frozen in different portion sizes.  I froze the pureed squash and zucchini in 1/4 cup and 1/2 cup portions so that they can easily be thawed and added to my recipes later.

I also froze green beans this week. Mine were purchased due to a munching critter in my garden this year.  As HandyMan's taken to saying: "There's always next year".  I used the directions from PickYourOwn.com with a couple variations.  I have a pasta kettle with a colander insert.  This works great if you are needing to do more than one batch so that you don't have to wait for a fresh set of water to boil.  The other difference is that I just used cold tap water to cool mine and it worked just fine.

What did you get to your freezer this week?

Going grocery shopping this weekend? Save money on your favorite brands at Coupons.com. Click for grocery coupons.

So, I have to admit, I am a bit of a chocoholic.  The darker and richer, the better.  Cakes, pies, mousse, candy, I don't discriminate- although I do try to limit the frequency of indulgence so that my family history of diabetes doesn't catch up with me.

A few summers back, HandyMan and I worked at a great summer camp in Southwest Colorado that we love!  They made a chocolate cake on the regular menu rotation and it was fabulous - and the frosting was amazing! Since I was helping out in the kitchen I snagged their recipe and have used it dozens of times.

I'm usually the last to mess with a good thing.  But I have to admit, that I cannot tell the difference between this chocolate cake and the one we made at camp -unless you lick the spoon.  The batter doesn't taste quite the same but the finished product is fabulous!.

Hidden Veggies Chocolate Cake

Prep Time: 20 Minutes  Cook Time: 40 Minutes

1/2 cup Vegetable Oil

1 cup pureed yellow squash

1  cup Sugar

2 Eggs

1 1/4 cup 1% Milk

1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa

2 1/4  cups Flour

1 teaspoon Salt

1 1/2 teaspoons Baking Soda

1 cup Boiling Water

Directions

1. Beat oil and sugar and eggs until smooth.  Add squash and mix thoroughly.

2. Mix cocoa, flours, salt and baking soda in a separate bowl.

3.   Add dry ingredients liquid mixture slowly while mixing or alternate adding dry ingredients and mixing.   *When you have finished this step, it will look like normal cake batter, but you're not done yet.

4. Once fully blended add boiling water and mix until smooth.



5. Pour into a greased 9"x13" pan and bake at 325 for 45 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.  Recipe also makes 12-18 cupcakes, or 2 9” round pans.  Cook rounds and cupcakes for 15-20 minutes or until inserted toothpick comes out clean.



The finished cake is firm and fudgey!  I plan on frosting this one with an Almond Butter Cream frosting - I'll try to get that recipe up next week-but it's great just dusted with powdered sugar as well!  Give it a try and let me know how yours turns out!  Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

9pm ETA: This cake was such a hit at our lunch gathering that the kids were the first to ask if we were going to leave the cake.  So, to requests by many, we came home cakeless.

Hidden Veggies

Recently a friend told me about Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfield.  I liked the premise of it so I put it on my Inter-Library Loan list.  I skimmed through it and caught the major points and then set out to re-invent some of my recipes.  Jessica’s idea is to add vegetables, in pureed forms, to foods that your kids already eat to infuse them with a bit of nutrition.  It is a great in theory. However in practice it seems to be extra work with little results.  While her recipes were nutritious and the few I tried were very good, there weren’t enough veggies in her recipes to take the place of the veggie servings that we and our children should be getting.

BUT – when I did the numbers and realized that but substituting pureed yellow squash for some of the liquid in my favorite chocolate cake recipe, I was able to cut the fat calories almost in half and not tell the difference! Now we’re talking!   Since I love to bake, any opportunity to make recipes a bit healthier is right up my alley.

I’m working to infuse some of my favorite recipes with more vegetables using the pureed method that Jessica outlines.  Recipes will be posted as I experiment marked on this site with “HV” or “Hidden Veggies”.  Nutrition Facts I post are calculated through CalorieCount.

Do you have any veggie packed recipes that leave the eater unsuspecting?

Hidden Veggies

Recently a friend told me about Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfield. I liked the premise of it so I put it on my Inter-Library Loan list. I skimmed through it and caught the major points and then set out to re-invent some of my recipes. Jessica’s idea is to add vegetables, in pureed forms, to foods that your kids already eat to infuse them with a bit of nutrition. It is a great in theory. However in practice it seems to be extra work with little results. While her recipes were nutritious and the few I tried were very good, there weren’t enough veggies in her recipes to take the place of the veggie servings that we and our children should be getting.

BUT – when I did the numbers and realized that but substituting pureed yellow squash for some of the liquid in my favorite chocolate cake recipe, I was able to cut the fat calories almost in half and not tell the difference! Now we’re talking! Since I love to bake, any opportunity to make recipes a bit healthier is right up my alley.

I’m working to infuse some of my favorite recipes with more vegetables using the pureed method that Jessica outlines. Recipes will be posted as I experiment marked on this site with “HV” or “Hidden Veggies”. Nutrition Facts I post are calculated through CalorieCount.

Do you have any veggie packed recipes that leave the eater unsuspecting?