Deceptive? hardly. Delicious? hmmmmm.....

I can safely say that Z is officially a picky eater. She basically eats milk in all its forms, fruit and some bread-type products. Anything else is a crap shoot.

I know where this comes from. Though I am currently well known among my friends as a healthy eater (chocolate obsession aside), my mother swears I didn't eat a single vegetable until I was 15. She used to boil pasta in some green vegetable's cooking water so that I would at least get some trace amounts of greenery into my system. As I watch Z vehemently fend off even the remotest proximity of broccoli, I know exactly who to blame.

So I was primed and ready for the hard sell from Oprah when Jessica Seinfeld was on to talk about her new book Deceptively Delicious.

First of all, do you really expect me to believe that Jessica Seinfeld, who's married to Mr. Moneybags Seinfeld, actually cooks all her family's meals?!?! That's certainly the picture she paints in this book. I don't know about you, but hiring a beck-and-call cook to make healthy, tasty meals for me is always a part of my strike-it-rich fantasy.

Also, I have to rant just a bit about the crazy infomercial that Oprah gave this book. She was cackling and hollering after every bite during the taste test. She was slapping her thighs and wiping her mouth like this was the most amazing food she's ever eaten.

Well, I'm here to tell you that after my exhaustive (read: one recipe only) experimentation, Deceptively Delicious is a load of hooey that .... uh.... maybe works?

On Monday night (First mistake: never, ever take on complicated dinner recipes on a Monday night.) I made the "rice balls". The name alone should have warned me away. I chose it because it had pureed chicken (eeewwww) in it and I hoped to get Z to ingest some chicken sometime this millennium.

First, I had to make the purees (Second mistake: you're supposed to be all organized and spend your Sunday nights with your veggies and your Jerry Seinfeld and your Cuisinart making ziploc baggies full of pureed spinach for your week's worth of fine dining. I, uh, didn't do that.). I roasted butternut squash and sweet potatoes during Z's nap and pureed them. Then, after CG got home so I could pass the Z baton one hour before dinner time, I set out to make the hugest mess my kitchen has ever seen. I dirtied every pan and bowl and spatula in the house and spattered grease on every horizontal and most vertical surfaces in the kitchen.

Behold the results of several hours of cooking!:



Yeah, they look about as good as they tasted.

By the time I dragged my tired and oil-splattered self to the table, I was grumbling full force about my hours and energy wasted only to be greeted by the sweet face of my daughter eating RICE BALLS with pureed chicken, sweet potatoes and butternut squash in them. She happily ate about 4 of them while CG and I stupidly grinned at each other and sucked a few down ourselves before taking turns eating some chips in the kitchen.

I think it will be awhile before I attempt another recipe from this book. I like that the veggies are supposed to be hidden but I just don't see how that's possible. These rice balls had a distinct orange hue from the butternut squash and sweet potatoes. I can only imagine how they would have looked and tasted if I had actually used spinach or broccoli puree.

I have some culinary ambitions and I have the desire to get Z to eat vegetables at some point in her life but I'm not sure I have the time and energy necessary to devote to this insanity right now. Spinach brownies? Not any time soon!