Deceptively Delicious

If you would like to order Jessica Seinfeld‘s Deceptively Delicious as a gift for the holidays, the book is available at:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

or go to her author page at Harper Collins for a list of additional booksellers.

Baby Buggy

Jessica Seinfeld‘s charity, Baby Buggy, is having its 2008 benefit, An Evening with Jerry Seinfeld, on Monday, December 8, 2008 at the Rose Theater (Frederick P. Rose Hall, Home of Jazz at Lincoln Center).

Baby Buggy is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing NYC’s families in need with essential equipment, clothing, and products for their infants and young children.  Since 2001, Baby Buggy has delivered over 2,500,000 essential items to thousands of families through a network of over 50 qualified social service partners.

Check out the Baby Buggy website or blog for more information.

Jessica Seinfeld behind-the-scenes on Oprah

Oprah.com has a number of behind-the-scenes videos, slideshows, and even recipes from Jessica Seinfeld‘s appearance on the show to share Deceptively Delicious.  Check it out here.

“At dinner tables across America, fed up parents and finicky children face off over a silent enemy…vegetables.

These nightly battles have been fought since spinach, peas and other good-for-you foods first found their way onto plates. Many parents try every trick in the book—from bribery and bargaining to begging—but nothing seems to work.

Thanks to a new cookbook by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld and mother of three young children, parents can stop fighting and start savoring dinnertime!

Jessica’s cookbook, Deceptively Delicious(SM), was inspired by her own family’s veggie wars. Before discovering the secret to delicious, nutritious meals, she says she dreaded dinnertime. “The last thing you want to do is come home and make dinner and have people spit it out or say, “Ew! This is disgusting,’” she says.

Rather than giving up on healthy eating all together, Jessica figured out a way to get her kids to eat everything from beets to broccoli…without any whining!”

Jessica Seinfeld Q&A at Parents.com

Parents.com has an entertaining Q&A with Jessica Seinfeld about her cookbook; check it out here.

“Parents.com:  Who’s your chef inspiration?

Jessica Seinfeld:  My mom and my grandmom. They both worked but somehow got home at 5:30 and made us a delicious home-cooked meal. This is a tradition I wanted to continue. I work, and my husband’s been making movies for the past few years, so I use stuff out of the box all the time, but once a week I make and freeze different purees. Then, even during a busy week, I add them to everything to make meals yummier and more nutritious.”

Deceptively Delicious

Amazon.com Review
It has become common knowledge that childhood obesity rates are increasing every year. But the rates continue to rise. And between busy work schedules and the inconvenient truth that kids simply refuse to eat vegetables and other healthy foods, how can average parents ensure their kids are getting the proper nutrition and avoiding bad eating habits?

As a mother of three, Jessica Seinfeld can speak for all parents who struggle to feed their kids right and deal nightly with dinnertime fiascos. As she wages a personal war against sugars, packaged foods, and other nutritional saboteurs, she offers appetizing alternatives for parents who find themselves succumbing to the fastest and easiest (and least healthy) choices available to them. Her modus operandi? Her book is filled with traditional recipes that kids love, except they’re stealthily packed with veggies hidden in them so kids don’t even know! With the help of a nutritionist and a professional chef, Seinfeld has developed a month’s worth of meals for kids of all ages that includes, for example, pureed cauliflower in mac and cheese, and kale in spaghetti and meatballs. She also provides revealing and humorous personal anecdotes, tear–out shopping guides to help parents zoom through the supermarket, and tips on how to deal with the kid that “must have” the latest sugar bomb cereal.

But this book also contains much more than recipes and tips. By solving problems on a practical level for parents, Seinfeld addresses the big picture issues that surround childhood obesity and its long–term (and ruinous) effects on the body. With the help of a prominent nutritionist, her book provides parents with an arsenal of information related to kids’ nutrition so parents understand why it’s important to throw in a little avocado puree into their quesadillas. She discusses the critical importance of portion size, and the specific elements kids simply must have (as opposed to adults) in order to flourish now and in the future: protein, calcium, vitamins, and Omega 3 and 6 fats.

Jessica Seinfeld‘s book is practical, easy–to–read, and a godsend for any parent that wants their kids to be healthy for a long time to come.

Bob Greene, author of The Best Life Diet:
“I found the techniques for adding vegetables to meals extremely creative and the recipes fantastic! Deceptively Delicious is a must have for your healthy kitchen.”

Readers Digest

Today we’re posting another recipe from Jessica Seinfeld‘s Deceptively Delicious featured in Readers Digest:  Healthy Mozzarella Sticks.  This healthy take on a favorite makes a great anytime snack.

Read the full Readers Digest article here.

Be sure to check out the previously posted recipe for Chicken Nuggets.

Deceptively Delicious Chicken Nuggets

Jessica Seinfeld‘s Deceptively Delicious was recently featured in Readers Digest (click here for blog article).  Today we’re posting Jessica’s great recipe for healthy Chicken Nuggets.  Readers Digest has a number of recipes from Deceptively Delicious we’ll be posting here over the next several days.

Deceptively Delicious Chicken Nuggets

basilandspice.com

Well known health and wellness blog Basil and Spice reviewed Deceptively Delicious recently.  Click here for the full article.

“Recently, I reviewed Deceptively Delicious, by Jessica Seinfeld, wife of comedian Jerry Seinfeld. The author has been plagued with the same complaints all mothers have–”One won’t eat! The other is picky! They say it’s disgusting!” Dinner hour, an unpleasant way to wrap up the day, is one of the largest obstacles mothers face. Rather than resorting to takeout Chinese or chicken nuggets from the freezer, Jessica has become an expert at hiding vegetables and fruits in family favorites, making dining with the children a happier healthier experience.”  MORE

Today we’re posting Jessica’s interview with Amazon.com; be sure to check out the original page:

Deceptively Delicious on Kindle

Questions for Jessica Seinfeld:

Amazon.com: My seven-year-old inspects the food on his plate like a hawk (if there was a hawk that only ate bagels and macaroni). Anything with the least bit of color goes untouched. What’s a mom or dad to do?

Jessica Seinfeld: Two of my three children were exactly the same way. The vegetables, which I worked hard to prepare, not only went untouched, they were often insulted (“Eeewww…!”). And the harder I pushed them to eat good food, the harder they pushed back. We were literally ruining each other’s meals.

That conflict was the inspiration for the book. I realized I wasn’t going to win the power struggle, so I decided to join them on their turf. I started with the foods they would eat (chicken nuggets, tacos, macaroni and cheese) and I added a pureed vegetable of the same color. So if your child only eats macaroni and cheese (or noodles and butter), you should add cauliflower or yellow squash puree, which utterly disappears. Everyone wins: they get the nutrition they need and you get the satisfaction of doing a better job as a parent.

Amazon.com: That same picky second-grader will often try something new one time and declare he likes it, but the next time we serve it, he seems to have lost his spirit of adventure and won’t eat it again. Any advice?

Jessica Seinfeld: First and foremost, remember that not every meal you prepare for a child will be a success. Kids at this age are naturally testing preferences, pushing boundaries, and changing their minds. That’s part of their development and those are urges not worth battling. As I learned the hard way, the more pressure you apply, the more kids will “hate” certain foods. And, while it would be nice if kids had a “spirit of adventure” when it comes to food, I’ve found it’s best to eliminate adventure and stick to the basics–foods they already love, laden with added nutrition they don’t know is there. Finally, be consistent, firm and patient. I have a rule in my house: you don’t have to eat what’s on the plate, but what’s on the plate is all that’s being served. Eventually, they come around.

Amazon.com: Are your kids interested in cooking yet? Are there ways to introduce healthy eating habits with the child helping in the kitchen?

Jessica Seinfeld: My children are interested in baking because they love any excuse to be around sweets. But I make sure whatever we bake has pureed veggies in it and is actually low in refined sugar. So my children actually think baking cakes, brownies, and cookies with sweet potatoes, carrots, or beets is the proper way to cook.

Amazon.com: What are your kids’ favorite recipes in the book?

Jessica Seinfeld: Every recipe in this book is a favorite. I’ve tried out countless creations on my kids, and if they didn’t love them (which happened frequently!), they didn’t make it into the book. But, if pressed, I will say they are crazy about the tacos, the chicken nuggets, the brownies, the pancakes, and my birthday cakes. [See her recipe for delicious brownies made with carrot and spinach.]

Amazon.com: I have to ask it, since I know many readers will: do these recipes require a squad of personal chefs to prepare, or can a busy mom or dad without seven years of Seinfeld residuals put them together by themselves?

Jessica Seinfeld: I’m a busy mom with three kids, a job, and a husband who travels constantly, but I’m uncompromising when it comes to my kids’ health and nutrition. Leaving that to someone else is out of the question. My parents had three kids and both worked too, and we always managed to eat healthy meals as a family. That’s the standard I’ve always wanted to meet. So when I started creating recipes from my pureed veggie experiments, I had three criteria: my kids had to love the food, the preparation had to be quick, and the process had to be simple. Believe me, if I can do these recipes quickly and easily, ANYONE can.

Amazon.com: How are the reading skills of Sascha, your oldest child and pickiest eater? Have you blown your cover by publishing your secrets?

Jessica Seinfeld: My daughter is almost seven and she not only can read, she’s fully aware that her mother cooks with vegetables all the time. Two years ago, she was a picky four-year-old who thought she hated vegetables. But once she was converted and started seeing those purees going into the desserts she loves, she started to ignore the fact that they were going into the rest of her foods as well. Now it’s the only kind of cooking she knows. So, to anyone with young children–start cooking Deceptively Delicious food when they are young! It’s much easier than trying to change habits later on.

For more information on Kindle, click here.