I’m the first to admit that I don’t use cookbooks. I copy recipes that I like at restaurants, see on tv or taste elsewhere by making them up myself and they’re often better than the original. Not because I’m a great cook but because they contain things that I like! If I really need a recipe, I get it from the internet. I use recipe books so rarely that I recently gave away 30 when I moved because I couldn’t foresee using one any time soon. However, I was an easy convert when I received Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld. (Yes, she’s married to Jerry.)

It’s a book full of simple ways to sneak vegetables into your kids’ food. Like pureed cauliflower in scrambled eggs. Who’da thunk? I consider myself very creative in the kitchen and I’d never have thought of that one. My son is a fruit & veggie kid, but I know there will come a day when I need to perform these sneaky maneuvers so I’m grateful to have some great ideas from this book to add to my bag of tricks. The instructions on how to puree food are, well, duh…but I can see how someone who has never really cooked would benefit from that. I did love the idea of making a bunch and freezing them to throw into recipes when you need something quickly. That would also be a great way to use cases of fresh produce that’s on sale before it goes bad.

I tried a couple of the recipes and plan to try many more. My faves so far are the french toast (with pumpkin puree in the eggs), scrambled eggs (with pureed cauliflower that you totally can’t taste) and pita pizzas (which we make all the time but now will be spreading spinach puree on) and macaroni and cheese (with butternut squash). The four recipes I had time to try all took just a few minutes and hardly any work. And yes – they were delicious! When I have some more time, I can hardly wait to try the coffee cake and some of the muffins!

I can tell I’m going to love this book!

Though these books are CRAZY in demand, we were lucky enough to get an extra copy to give to a lucky T.O.P. reader. To enter, email theopinionatedparent@gmail.com by midnight tonight (10/19) with Deceptively Delicious in the subject line and include the answer to one or more of the following questions: What tricks have you used to get your kids to eat their veggies? How have you encouraged your kids to eat healthy? What are some of your nutrition goals as a family? Congratulations Alana!

(Here’s a contest from Harper Collins where you can also enter to win your own copy!)