Feeding my family :: being sneaky

I tend to stay focus on homeschooling here at Canadian Home Learning, but lately I have felt the desire to share a bit more of our lives. I keep a personal blog where I share my adventures in quilting, photography, reading, and other "stuff" (you can visit my corner here).

I am not sure how often I will post in this new category of posts that I am starting called "feeding my family". I think a lot of us moms have an interest in what we feed our families. I like to make meals that nutritious. I also make a conscious effort to keep artificial ingredients out of our house, or as I usually call them "fake stuff". We are not vegetarians, but we don't eat meat often, and when we do it's usually chicken, turkey, or fish.

I am always trying new recipes. I have always been that way and my family is used to looking at something new to them at dinner time. My kids know that they need to try the food I make for them and that I won't make them something else.

Anyway, what I would like this new series of posts to be about is food. Recipes I have found that pleased my family or a particular cookbook that has become a favourite.

This past week, I have tried several recipes from the Sneaky Chef cookbooks. I took three books out of our local library.  The titles are "The Sneaky Chef", "The Sneaky Chef: How to Cheat on Your Man (in the Kitchen)", and "The Sneaky Chef to the Rescue", all by Missy Chase Lapine. My oldest daughter helped me make our meal planning for the two weeks and chose many recipes from two of the books (the man one and the kids one). We both narrowed it down to a few to try and so far, we have been very pleased with the results.

The Sneaky Chef's recipes all include a little boost of nutrition. The boost comes from purees (best made in advance) full of healthy vegetables and fruits, or extra grains. I made these purees last Sunday afternoon. It didn't take very long and I froze a batch of green and orange purees for the week ahead. The rest of the purees I used I made right before starting on the recipe.

Our favourite recipes so far are the Enlightened Enchiladas (kids), the Doctor's Choice Chili (men), the Blockbuster Blueberry Muffins (men), and the Roasted Squash Soup (kids). [kids or men refers to which cookbook the recipe came from].

The Enchiladas were my husband's favourite. The kids loved them too. At that point, only Adrienne and I knew what was in them! I didn't tell them until yesterday that the delicious meals they had been eating contained extra veggies! These had ground turkey and extra veggies were sweet potatoes, carrots, baby spinach, broccoli, and green peas. All those were blended with the meat so you couldn't see anything! I didn't use whole wheat tortillas this time, but will next time. We'll be making this one again.

Another favourite was the Doctor's Choice Chili. I forgot to take a photo of that one, but we all liked it. Made with ground turkey again, it contained extra veggies too: baby spinach, broccoli, green peas, cauliflower, and zucchini. It also had red kidney beans and tomatoes.

Another recipe that I missed taking a photo was the Brainy Brownies. They didn't last long! Very moist and tasty, they had purple puree (blueberries and baby spinach)!


Today I made some soup, the Roasted Squash Soup from the kids cookbook. It has extra veggies from the orange puree (sweet potato and carrots). I love butternut squash soup and this one is delicious.

We will be trying a few more recipes, some drinks and breakfast recipes from the Sneaky Chef.  

Sneaky Chef has a great website with lots of information, free recipes and videos. You can visit here, and also find her on facebook and twitter.  I always recommend checking your public library before buying books. I think it's a good idea with cookbooks to try a few recipes first, then decide if the book is for you or not. So far, this is a winner in our house!