spinach brownies

you've probably heard about the sneaky chef by now. if you haven't, let me fill you in briefly. jessica seinfeld (wife of comedian jerry) wrote a cookbook called deceptively delicious. it's all about how to disguise vegetables in other food so your picky children will eat it unknowingly. unfortunately, apparently unbeknownst to jessica (and i guess the publisher and editorial staff), an extremely similar cookbook was published a couple of months before hers came out. it's called the sneaky chef, and didn't do anywhere near as well as jessica's, presumably because jessica is something of a celebrity and the other author is not. so there have been lawsuits and insults on all sides. jessica's book is a bestseller, on all the displays at b and n.
BUT, the long and short of it is, i checked out deceptively delicious from the library when i saw it sitting on the new titles shelf. it really is fascinating, although some of the recipes are still too adult for sunny. but i'm a firm believer in broccoli doughnuts whenever possible :), so i've attempted a couple of the recipes to see how they work. my first discovery was that she uses a lot of fruit and veggie purees, i guess to disguise the texture as much as possible. but i don't have a food processor. what i do have, lo and behold, is a cupboard full of baby food. now, what is baby food but finely pureed fruits and veggies? voila!
so i made sweet potato pancakes on the sly, using a jar of baby food sweet potatoes instead of the real thing. result? both husband and son gobbled them up with much lip smacking. (jon still doesn't know i did this. don't tell him. he's a born veggie avoider.)
next i made chocolate chip cookies. they are similar to regular cookies only in that they do contain regular chocolate chips. but they have only brown sugar (not much of that), egg whites, oatmeal, and CHICK PEAS. you know, GARBANZO BEANS. you just throw them in the cookies like the chocolate chips and bake them up. i found it rather disgusting. sunny said, "these delicious, mommy! thank you, mommy!" i couldn't hide them from jon, though, as the beans kind of stick out everywhere. he was appalled. "is nothing sacred?" he asked. all's fair, baby, in love and veggies.
then i tried the squash and applesauce muffins (trust me, the recipes get much much weirder) (with baby food squash). michaela (visiting from across the street) said: "these taste kind of strange. i guess it's the applesauce."
my next project? the carrot and spinach brownies. i'll be sure to let you know how they turn out. i'll be careful to follow the cookbook's instructions, though: not to eat them until they are entirely cooled, because only then does the spinach flavor completely fade.
:)