A couple of years ago, I set out to cook and bake my way through Jessica Seinfield’s book, Deceptively Delicious. I did manage to cover a lot of the book, but I didn’t do every recipe. I brought it with me to LA though, and I’m still working through it!

This is one of those recipe you’ll likely enjoy of you’re down with tofu. If you’re not, this is probably not a winner! I made these for a handful of tofu-friendly friends and everyone really liked them, my husband and littles? Notsomuch.

Tofu Nuggets via Deceptively Delicious
1 cup whole wheat breadcrumbs
1 tablespoon ground flax
1 tablespoon grated Parmesan
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1 cup spinach or broccoli puree
1 large egg, beaten
1 14oz package extra form tofu
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon olive oil

The process for these is, unsurprisingly, the same as for breading pretty much anything else. First dipped in vegged up egg and then in fibered up breadcrumbs. Bake or fry and voila!

To health up the breadcrumbs, mix them with the flax Parm and paprika. Then cut the tofu into nuggets. I sliced the block in half widthwise first so it was half as thick as it was, and then in half lengthwise so I had four blocks. Each of those blocks I cut into 6 more pieces for a total of 24 pieces.

Whisk the pureed broccoli or spinach (I used spinach) and you’re ready for dredging!

Each piece goes first into the egg and spinach mixture to have something for the coating to stick to, then into the breadcrumb. Done!

Add the olive oil to a frying pan and cook the nuggets for 3-5 minute each side.

Just like with a lot of kids, peanut butter and jam is a real weakness with mine. A weakness I try my best to exploit – to their own advantage, of course! As with all the recipes in Jessica Seinfield’s book, there is a hidden vegetable snuck into these muffins. Some of the recipes in this book seem like an easy sell (like these brownies with spinach and carrots) but turn out to have a telltale veggie taste that totally turns off anyone with a vegetable radar – aka anyone under the age of 10. However, this recipe disguises a healthy dose of carrots with peanut butter and jam. Genius! If you use sugar free, low sugar, or otherwise healthier jam than a run of the mill glucose fructose garbage, it’s even healthier!

So what’s so amazing about carrots? We know veggies are good for us but the why is helpful to know. We think of carrots and we think two things usually, they’re good for our eyesight and they’re full of beta carotene. Both of those things are true but there’s so much more to it than that! There’s a 10 year study out of the Netherlands that was recently released that explains that carrots are actually amazing at reducing the risk of cardiovascular disease. Like, really significantly reducing the risk and all you need is about 3/4 of a cup of carrots a day. Also, in addition to the beta carotene we are always talking about carrots also have polyacetylenes, which are power houses against colon cancer. Protect your butts, people! Vitamin A is in serious abundance in just 1 cup of carrots (over 407%).

I served these with homemade hot chocolate and milk to the kids after school one day with no mention at all of any added veggies and they gobbled them up while going over their homework to-dos – and asked for seconds!

Peanut Butter and Jam Muffins – from Deceptively Delicious (p. 63)

1/2 natural peanut butter
1/2 cup carrot puree
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons butter/margarine
1/2 cup non fat plain yogurt
1 large egg white
1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low sugar strawberry, blueberry or grape jam

Essentially, you just beat the peanut butter with the carrot puree and then with the brown sugar and the butter. Then stir in the yogurt and the egg white and you’re ready for the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.
Line your muffin tin with paper cups and divide the batter between 12. Now drop a spoonful of jam over each one. Bake at 350F for about 20-25 minutes. So good with a nice boost of beta carotene!

With just six school days left, there has been a lot of planning for end of year treats for the kids’ classes and their teachers. It’s a lot of fun to plan serious treats for their classes because there are 14 kids in Wee One #1’s class and 6 kids in Wee One #2’s class. Yup. 6 kids. More on those treats and end of school year fun in the next couple of weeks. For now, it’s catchup post time and man there are some really cute and tasty treats posted today!

The ‘homespun chocolate bars’ are 3 Musketeer bars, my Dad’s hands down favorite chocolate bar – I made a homemade version after seeing them on Beantown Baker last fall. Essentially, you make the filling, freeze it and then cut it and coat it in melted chocolate. This idea is only good in theory because the filling is made with ‘frozen whipped topping’ and we all know that stuff doesn’t actually freeze. So it’s beyond tricky to try to get them to hold their shape while either coating them or submerging them in melted chocolate. So naturally, I turned to my trusty chocolate molds to get the job done. It just occurred to me that I should have ordered some chocolate bar molds from Confectionery House when I ordered molds for the end of year treats. Oh well, next time. I think I will hold off on homemade chocolate bars until I have those molds though, they would make the job quick and painless. In my tute, I only posted instructions and photos of the filling in heart shaped molds.

 

The Wee One’s contribution to this week of playing in the kitchen was the Baking With Kids’ Chocolate Fudge Birthday Cake. I’d like to point out that it wasn’t anyone’s birthday! They passed it off as their sister’s birthday cake but that was weeks before and she had already had a cake. We don’t need an excuse to make a serious chocolate cake do we? What about a serious chocolate cake covered in sprinkles, candies and chocolate shavings? No? That’s what I thought! They had a blast making it and I really stepped back and let the two oldest ones have at it and they did a great job. It was dense but really, really moist and while there’s no denying it was chocolatey, it wasn’t too sweet. Just right for a birthday cake to be shared by little kids and grown ups!

 

This week’s cookie came from my Great Cookies cookbook – there are more than 200 cookie recipes in this book and much like a lot of my most used books, I’d love the opportunity to bake through this book. I’m trying! I’m not sure how many I’ve made from the book that I’ve posted on my blog so far since I haven’t been officially counting down but I have already made a few and a couple of them have become my most used recipe for certain types of cookies – like this one, the Double Chocolate Chip Cookie. There are a lot of double chocolate chip cookie recipes out there. Martha has a great double chocolate cookie with M&Ms and she has a really great espresso double chocolate chunk cookie (I really love adding coffee to pretty much whatever I can but I never ever ever give it to my kids – they don’t need any help at all with energy or stamina). So back to the recipe for this week’s cookie, this one has melted chocolate as well as cocoa in the dough plus of course the chocolate chips so technically you could call these triple chocolate chip cookies and get away with it!

 

After that triple shot of chocolate, I’m going to leave you with a healthier take on the traditional chicken salad. It seems chicken salad is another of those love love love or hate hate hate kind of foods. I am madly in love with chicken salad (almost as much as I love tuna salad) so I was equal parts leery and excited when it came time to try out Jessica Seinfield’s version in Deceptively Delicious. Another hit from this book for me. I’m the only one who ate it, because I’m the only one even remotely interested in chicken salad and I really liked it. I could not taste the cauliflower but knowing it’s in there I can see that it added to the creaminess of the salad and the yogurt also helped keep it all together. The celery gave it a little crunch and the eggs lent their familiar taste and texture to make this a really well rounded and tasty chicken salad (especially on ancient grain bread)!

 

I know that today is technically Work in Progress Wednesday but honestly, finishing a foot, kitchener stitching the toe and starting (and finishing) the ribbing on the second sock are all that’s happened on my Nemesis socks for my dad. I was crafty this week though – I finally made a really cute denim skirt from a very sad pair of jeans that had a serious rip up the side of one leg! I’m also starting work on a cute photo project I don’t want to say too much about until I’m done and ready to show it off. I will however say that I will be back a lot this week to post as much of the fun stuff in my cue as possible so I can get back to posting as I do stuff. This is our first summer in cottage country full time, so we’ve been walking to the beach after school and having bonfires after dinner to make legit s’mores for dessert! I smell a fun and delicious summer ahead!