She ate spinach and squash, and it's not even 8am!

Looks like a normal breakfast right? Well, it is...but it's loaded with fruit and vegetables. Spinach scrambled eggs, pumpkin pancakes, smoothies with peaches, strawberries and squash, peanut butter and jelly muffins with carrot, and oatmeal with butternut squash. These are all "Lucy and Nate approved" recipes.I've been working on this "puree" post in my head for a week. Ok, two weeks. I wanted to post about it last week, but didn't get to it. That's okay though, it gave me more time to take pictures of our meals loaded with veggie purees. I got the idea a couple years ago from Jessica Seinfeld's book,Deceptively Delicious. She roasts, steams and mashes fruit and veggie purees, puts them into ziplock bags and freezes them till she's ready to add them to a recipe she's making. In her book, the recipes are really kid friendly foods fortified with broccoli, spinach, carrot puree etc. I've made a lot of the recipes in her book, tweaked most all of them to fit my family's preferences (using whole wheat, and agave instead of sugar etc) and can tell you one thing. Spinach brownies are VILE!!!!!!! This should come as no shock to you, I don't know why I tried it, I definitely regret it. Anyway, you don't need her book to start "sneaking" more veggies into your meals. You can just add the purees to recipes your family already likes. NOTE: I still serve veggies in plain sight to my family, this is just another way to fortify our foods. You can make your own purees or buy them (canned pumpkin and baby food jars). Then take recipes your family enjoys and mix in a puree. So here are a few ideas of things I do, adding a couple spoonfuls to 1 cup of puree:

Breakfast

pancakes/waffles/french toast: sweet potato, yams, banana, butternut squash, pumpkin, carrot.

oatmeal: butternut squash, pumpkin, sweet potato

scrambled eggs: spinach, cauliflower (Lucy's FAV thing for breakfast are the spinach eggs. Try introducing this one with the book Green Eggs and Ham to make it fun)

muffins: carrot, applesauce, banana, squash

Lunch

PBJ:carrot (stir the pbj and carrot puree together, then spread on bread. They'll never know!)

smoothies: fruit obviously, butternut squash, avocado

grilled cheese/quesadillas: butternut squash

Dinner

chicken nuggets: broccoli, spinach (dip nuggets in spinach puree, then seasoned breadcrumbs and bake)

mashed potatoes: cauliflower

pasta: squashes, sweet potatoes, carrot, cauliflower

tacos: carrot puree with the meat

I'm sure many of you already do this. Would love to hear your combos.

Here's my FAV puree recipe. Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins with CARROT. I took these to playgroup for feed back and they were a hit. Maybe they were just being nice of course, but here were some comments, "SO MOIST!" "Gotta have this recipe," and "Oh my gosh so good."

Peanut Butter and Jelly Muffins - with carrot

1/2 c. peanut butter (natural or regular)

1/2 c. carrot puree

1/3 c. agave or 1/2 c. brown sugar

2 T. trans-fat free butter (I use brummel and browns yogurt/butter blend)

1/2 c. yogurt (plain, vanilla, raspberry - whatever!)

1 large egg white

1 c. whole wheat flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 c. jam

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees, spray muffin tin with nonstick spray, or line with baking cups

2. In a large bowl beat peanut butter, carrot puree, agave/sugar, and butter with wooden spoon until well combined. Stir in yogurt and egg white.

3. Add flour, baking powder, baking soda ad salt. Stir till just combined, but do not overmix- batter will be lumpy.

4. Divide batter into muffin cups and drop a spoonful of jam on top of each.

5. Bake 20-25 minutes until toothpick comes out clean.

6. Store in airtight container up to 2 days, or wrap in plastic and freeze for up to 1 month.