My Deceptively Delicious Creative Space

Miss Almost Eight has an amazing palate and will eat - or at least try - any food placed in front of her. And most of the time she will enjoy it too. In my ignorance I thought that it had everything to do with the way I had weaned her onto solid foods and then presented her with a wide variety of foods in those formative early years.

And then along came Miss Four.

"I don't like that, it's got green bits in it."

"I only like the garlic bread if the green bits aren't garlic."

"You can have the rest of this - it's delicious. But I didn't eat it because it's yucky."

"I don't like it...no, I haven't tried it but I just don't like it."

I have been able to fool her sometimes - like the time I processed the lasagne she wouldn't eat the first time around and turned it into sausage roll fillings. "These are the best sausage rolls ever!" Heh heh.

I've done all the right things by the experts - not made a fuss, allowed her to be involved in the growing and cooking of food, kept clear boundaries over meals. And gradually she is becoming more adventurous with her food (as is consistent with her "slow to warm up to new things" personality, as opposed to Miss Almost Eight's risk taking nature). And on the average day her fussiness doesn't bother me because there is plenty that she will eat that is good for her, and she is certainly not wasting away as she easily sits in the 97th percentile for height for girls of her age.

But we can all do with a little boost to our cooking repertoire, can't we? And why not try one that involves more vegetables? After all, even those of us in the family who will eat anything placed in front of us could probably do with more vegetables.

So when my friend showed me her copy of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious I became very excited. Rather than just doing the polite flick through with a "what a great book" comment at the end, I actually looked at every page and became increasingly more convinced that as soon as I was home I would find myself ordering a copy. As well as a copy of the sequel.

And they arrived this week! Hooray! So I think today, in My Creative Space, I will be roasting some home grown beets ready for pureeing for chocolate cake, as well as steaming home grown cauliflowers ready for banana bread. Yep - you read that right, banana bread with cauliflower.

I'll let you know how it goes.