I suffered a false start on this one, as I got the onion and carrots all chopped up and in the skillet, then minced a couple garlic cloves right into the pot – only to find that my garlic had gone bad while I was away last week. Oh well. Tossed it all out and started over!

Instead of garlic cloves (I didn’t trust what I had left), I used 1 tsp of Garlic Earth Italian garlic salt – an organic seasoning that my friend Becky makes.

Score another winner for the Stealth Ninja Vegetable Experiment, and another winner for all organic ingredients! This one was so tasty I very nearly licked my plate clean. Highly recommended, and  easy to throw together.

The recipe serves 8, so I immediately froze half of the sauce after dinner, then portioned the remaining 3 portions in the fridge for leftovers. I love a recipe that I can get some mileage out of!

[recipe-show recipe=pasta-bolognese]

EpicOrganic.net

So let’s get to it!

It was slim pickings for dinner tonight, as my cupboards are nearly bare – but I did have enough to pull together another recipe from Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cookbook. With that, I bring you Baked Egg Puffs with Stealth Ninja Squash! Sadly, there will be no pictures this evening, as I’ve spent so much time with my camera over the last week that we need a couple days apart. (I still have over 1,800 photos to go through from the trip!)

This recipe was super easy to make, and was quite delicious! Whisk together a few ingredients and throw it into the oven. As for its stealth ninja qualities, I think kids (or adults!) could be easily fooled with this one. It’s almost not necessary though, as the squash tastes really good with the eggs! I’ve learned from this stealth ninja vegetable experiment that I actually like squash (butternut squash, in this case). I had my egg puff with a side of veggie sausage patties – a wonderful breakfast-for-dinner!

The recipe suggests making the puffs in ramekins or small coffee cups. I, unfortunately, had neither, so I used larger coffee cups. Be aware that you might need to add a few minutes to the bake time with larger cups – I had to tack on 5 extra minutes. My puffs looked nothing like the picture in the cookbook, but I also used too much squash, so that might have affected it. Handsome puffs or not, they tasted great! I could even see throwing in some chopped peppers or onions (but that would defeat the stealth-ninja purpose).

[recipe-show recipe=egg-puffs]

Now, I’ve actually had some success in the past coaxing cauliflower into going all stealth-ninja on me, in the form of fake mashed potatoes (one of the few recipes I actually liked back in my low-carb days). I expected similar success from the Scrambled Egg recipe in Jessica Seinfeld’s Deceptively Delicious cook book.

The recipe is super-easy (assuming you already have your veggie purees made up – which I do!). Toss the eggs, egg whites, sour cream, puree, and parmesan into a bowl with a pinch of salt. Whisk it all up, toss it into a hot skillet with some olive oil, and scramble!

I added some pepper to my eggs, and must say – they were pretty darned tasty. I could see a kid falling for the deception. There were no obvious signs that any vegetables were in the vicinity. These eggs had some substance to them – they were more dense than your typical scrambled egg, but in a good way. They were still fluffy and maintained most of the texture of a typical scrambled egg.

The use of egg whites decreases the cholesterol in this recipe. I imagine it would work just as well with Egg Beaters or a similar egg substitute. I used to use Egg Beaters, but have recently gone back to real eggs in a step back towards eating real food.

I’ll definitely make these eggs again! They actually made a filling dinner, with an organic English muffin on the side.

[recipe-show recipe=eggs-cauliflower]

First, the ingredients (minus the ones I forgot in the fridge – the milk, the squash puree…):

Please forgive the Blackberry-quality pictures. They are pretty terrible, but my G9 and my 50D were both out of commission with charging batteries, and I figured this was better than whipping out the film beast and spending the evening in the garage darkroom!

Note the organic ingredients

I put the pasta on boil and started mixing up the cheesy goodness. I was a little short on cheddar cheese, so my combo was about 3 parts cheddar to 1 part mozzarella. I used low fat cream cheese, though fat free can also be used.

The cheese sauce smelled really good as I mixed it up. It was very thick.

Once the macaroni was done, I drained it and dumped it into the cheese pot.

Stirred it up, and omg who wants?

The verdict: This mac and cheese was delicious and very filling. The sauce was super thick – like, stick-to-your-ribs thick. To get 4 servings out of this recipe as described, the servings seemed a bit small, but the density definitely made up for it. Very filling. I think it might be possible that the serving sizes indicated in the cook book are for kids.

One thing I did differently in this recipe was to add a bit of Nutritional Yeast Flakes. They’re yellow flakes that dissolve into just about anything with very little to no effect on flavor. They’re described as having a nutty, roasted taste, but I don’t really notice them in anything I’ve tried. They give a great nutrition boost, with some high quality protein, and a slew of vitamins (including big doses of the B’s). Why not?

Much like the quesadillas from this cook book, I cannot wait to eat these leftovers! Warm, gooey, cheesy goodness – and successfully stealthy vegetables! A big thumbs-up to Mac and Cheese with Stealth Ninja Butternut Squash.

[recipe-show recipe=mac-cheese-squash]

EpicOrganic.net

I’ve got a wonderful old Toastmaster Snackster sandwich maker, which makes grilled cheese a snap – even easier than the old fashioned way. This recipe appeared to have real potential – I mean, how can you possibly screw up grilled cheese, right?

I tried out Rudi’s Organic bread, 7-grain with flax (delish!). Also featured: Organic Valley shredded cheddar (hoorah! No ridiculous chemicals or orange dyes!), and organic sweet potatoes.

The verdict: this sandwich wasn’t exactly the cheesy melty pillar of goodness that I’ve come to know as grilled cheese. The problem: there was either not enough cheese, or too much sweet potato puree. I suspected this would be the case, from the photos of the sandwiches in the cookbook.

The sandwich itself tasted delicious. It was plenty good. But the sweet potatoes weren’t exactly stealth – I could taste more potato than cheese. That wouldn’t be a bad thing, if the sandwich weren’t masquerading as grilled cheese. If you have kids that were to this point raised on “regular” grilled cheese, they’re going to know something’s amiss without some modifications.

So I tried it again with a little less sweet potato puree and a little more cheese. It came much closer to passing for grilled cheese.

Here’s the recipe with my modifications. I’ll definitely be making this one again, because – well, any grilled cheese is good grilled cheese.

[recipe-show recipe=grilled-cheese-sweet-potatoes]

I made 2 more recipes out of the cookbook, Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food: Chicken Quesadillas (with Stealth Ninja Butternut Squash), and Guacamole (with Stealth Ninja… well, I guess the avocados are pretty Out There with their Green Flags Flying… hmmm).

In addition to butternut squash, the quesadillas also had stealth ninja white beans! What a crazy amount of ninja going on in there!

I did not have my camera nearby, so alas, I have no photos, but the prep was super easy (and therefore not worthy of Adventure status here at Epic Organic). All I can say is – these quesadillas were wonderful and the guacamole was heavenly! I used all organic ingredients and can’t wait to have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. Insanely delicious, and again – not a single sign of odd vegetable tastes anywhere (aside from the flamboyant avocados). If you’re a fan of chicken quesadillas, these are gooey-delicious and filling (and a great source of vitamin A!)

Here are the recipes as I prepared them, along with approximate nutrition info at the bottom of each one:

[recipe-show recipe=quesadillas-squash]

[recipe-show recipe=stealth-ninja-guacamole]

EpicOrganic.net

Now that I’ve got a fridge and freezer full of pureed vegetables, it’s time to try cooking something with them!

The first recipe I will try takes advantage of pureed beets. Beets are new to me – I’ve never eaten them before, so they’re officially New Food #10 that I’ve tried in 2010. I certainly didn’t expect to hit this New Year’s Resolution within the first month of the new year! That doesn’t mean I’m going to stop trying new foods, though.

I chose to use the beets first because there aren’t many recipes in the Deceptively Delicious cookbook that I wanted to try that use beets. This recipe could optionally use pureed spinach, sweet potatoes, or broccoli.

First up in this cooking adventure: cut up a chicken breast into chunks. This, too, is new to me (and almost earns an Adventures in Chopping designation!) I’ve never cut up a raw chicken breast before. I’m not much of a fan of handling raw meat. It makes me think of where it comes from, and being an animal lover, I’ve always had a bit of a hard time reconciling my love of animals with my enjoyment in eating meat. Ignorance is bliss, I suppose (though I do feel better about my meat choices since switching to eating organic meats. At least this chicken wasn’t a genetically modified FrankenChicken).

I got out my One Big Knife and sliced up the chicken breast. (The recipe calls for a pound of chicken breasts, but I only had 1 thawed, so I went with that).

Next, I mixed up the bread crumb mixture. Wow, it smelled delicious!

Then came the pureed beets mixed with egg. This would be the dip that would hold the bread crumbs on the chicken nuggets.

One by one, I dipped the chicken pieces into the stealth ninja beet mixture, then coated each one with bread crumbs and it aside. When they were ready to go, I heated up the skillet.

I cooked the nuggets 3 minutes on one side and 4 minutes on the other. I may have needed to go a little longer over slightly lower heat, as my breading was starting to burn. They smelled great, though!

At long last, all of the chicken nuggets were cooked, and it was time to give these puppies a day in court.

The obvious thing here is, well, they’re red. I can just imagine a picky eater shunning these nuggets because they look weird. I’m guessing that the best bet, color-wise, would be to make these with pureed sweet potatoes instead, to get the closest match possible to the color of the chicken and breading. (Green nuggets from broccoli or spinach would look equally weird, I suspect).

However, this isn’t about looks so much as it is about taste – at least for me, as I’m getting pretty used to eating funny colored things that happen to taste good.

So, I sat down with my funny looking chicken nuggets and a cup of ranch dressing, and…

Nom nom nom!

They were mighty, mighty good! No sign of beets in the flavor. I could eat these chicken nuggets all day long! So, despite having eaten beets tonight, I still could not tell you what they taste like – and that’s A-OK with me!

In conclusion, the first Stealth Ninja Vegetable Experiment, Beets Edition, was a success.

What stealth ninja vegetable will I try next? *dun-dun-duuuuuuuun!* You’ll have to wait and see!

[recipe-show recipe=chicken-nuggets-with-stealth-ninja-beets]

Actually, I think this mission is quite possible! I am embarking upon what I call the Stealth Ninja Vegetable Experiment. You are about to bear witness to Phase 1: Prep.

It all started when my sister in law Amanda suggested that I check out this book: Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, Jerry’s wife). Since I was already sold on the possibility of hiding veggies in my smoothies, I thought this book might hold some promise (though I’d be attempting to deceive myself, not kids). I picked it up at my local library (Homer Township Library ftw!) and decided to give it a test-drive.

The basic premise of the book is that you puree a variety of vegetables and store them in 1/2 cup portions in little ziplock baggies, then sneak them into recipes as needed. Sounds good to me!

But first, I would need a food processor, as mine arrived DOA last week from the cupboard, when I was making the spinach stuffed shells with tofu ricotta. I wasn’t really ready to sink a lot of cash into this food processor, so I settled on a well-reviewed $99 model – the KitchenAid 7 Cup Food Processor. I’m only cooking for one most of the time, so I doubt I’ll need anything bigger.

Next, I would need some organic vegetables. Luckily, Peapod had just delivered my groceries earlier that day (including a couple that caused me to say, “What on earth is that?!” when I pulled them out of the bags). (Peapod review here if you missed it!) My fridge was stuffed with zucchini, broccoli, sweet potatoes, beets, cauliflower, and butternut squash, amongst other things.

There are basically 4 steps to preparing veggie purees for the Stealth Ninja Vegetable experiment:

1. Chop veggies.
2. Steam or roast veggies.
3. Puree veggies.
4. Portion pureed veggies into baggies.

Steps 1 & 2: Chopping, Steaming, & Roasting

Time for some more Adventures in Chopping! I got out the cookbook, the cutting board, my one sharp knife, and some veggies and went to town.

First up: Butternut squash. I’ve never seen one of these before, much less chopped one.

I learned that to prepare a butternut squash for roasting, cut it in half, then scoop out the seeds and roast for 50 minutes or so at 400F, flesh side down.

These reminded me of pumpkins – which momentarily terrified me, as I have a well-documented dislike of pumpkin guts. I don’t know why. My family carved pumpkins every year when I was a kid, and I’ve continued to carve pumpkins most Halloween’s as an adult… but I don’t like touching the guts. Eww.

I survived the scooping of the squash, though, after yelling at myself to grow the heck up.

Here are my squash halves going into the oven:

Next up: my “what on earth is that” vegetable: Beets. Wow – these things had a life of their own! They looked like they were just pulled out of the ground 5 minutes prior! Scary!

They actually weren’t so bad. The stems were easy to cut off (though I did get a little nervous when red juice shot out all over the place, thinking that if I happened to cut myself I wouldn’t notice with all the beet juice everywhere!) Luckily, I did not cut myself and all went well. I do, however, recommend wearing an apron when working with beets. I will be investing in one ASAP.

I cut the stems down to 1 inch and wrapped the beats in foil, and stuck them in the oven next to the butternut squash for roasting.

Time to figure out how to steam some veggies!

My next subject was broccoli. I have to admit, I cheated and used a bag of frozen organic broccoli florets instead of chopping them fresh. Still, they turned out well. I steamed them on the stove.

After the broccoli was steamed, it was time to chop another new-to-me vegetable: cauliflower. Now, I’ve seen cauliflower before, but only after it had been cut up, like on a veggie appetizer tray. I’ve probably even eaten it, though not regularly. I had no idea that it came in such a cute little package! It’s like a little cauliflower softball! I resisted the urge to play catch with it and began looking at it from all angles to figure out how the heck to chop it.

As I pulled back the leaves an examined the anatomy of the head of cauliflower, I couldn’t help but think (and this is going to sound weird, but I’m gonna run with it), “What an intimate plant!” It really is a very intricate, delicate sort of plant. I was really impressed with my new friend cauliflower! I chopped away from underneath to free the stems from the core and ended up with some cauliflower florets. I steamed these in the microwave to try out a steamer tray that I found in the back of one of my cabinets.

Next veggie: zucchini! I had to be careful with this one, as I was unsure for a moment which was the zucchini and which was the cucumber. The stem on the end eventually gave away the zuc’s.

I sliced these guys up into 1 inch chunks and steamed them on the stove.

Zucchini Towers!

After the zucchini, it was time to roast the last of the veggies – the sweet potatoes. I was a little confused, as my bag of sweet potatoes said “Yams” on it, but I figured – well, if I got the wrong veggie, then I’ll be pureeing yams instead! I’ve since learned that these softer, orange sweet potatoes are marketed as yams in the US to distinguish them from the white variety of sweet potato (even though they’re actually quite different than real yams).

The sweet potatoes didn’t need any prep before roasting, so I tossed them onto a baking sheet and into the oven.

Step 3: Pureeing

Now it was time to see if my new food processor could handle my Ninja Stealth Vegetable Experiment!

The butternut squash were done roasting, so I started with them first. Wow, they smelled wonderful! How did I go so many years never trying butternut squash? I got out my ice cream scooper and scooped the flesh out of the skins and set it aside in a bowl to cool.

I continued with the zucchini, the broccoli, and the cauliflower, pureeing each one separately. The KitchenAid food processor worked wonderfully – it was easy to handle and was plenty big for my purposes.

Here’s a before and after: veggies, cooked – and veggies, pureeing:

By the time I got done pureeing the broccoli, the zucchini, the cauliflower, and the butternut squash, I’d been at it for almost 3 hours. I was beat – and still had a tray full of sweet potatoes and a few beets to puree and bag. Ugh! I made way too many sweet potatoes (an hour of peeling worth), and I have no photos of that process because honestly, I was ready to strangle the sweet potatoes (even though I did decide that they’re mighty tasty).

I was, however, quite amused by the beets. There were a pain in the behind to handle due to the quick-staining beet juice, but when I was done chopping them, I looked like I could have been in a scene from Psycho:

Yeah, I amused myself.

Finally, after 4 hours of chopping, roasting, steaming, pureeing, and bagging, I was done. I had a variety of vegetables bagged up and ready to sneak into some recipes. I stuck a few in the fridge to use soon, and the rest were put in the freezer. All were labeled with “1/2 cup [insert veggie name here]” and the date. (Can you find the misspelled veggie in the photo below?)

Thus concludes Phase 1 of the Stealth Ninja Vegetable Experiment: Prep.

Stay tuned as I try some Deceptively Delicious recipes with my stealth ninja veggies!