Hiding the Spinach

I know most kids probably eat spinach, lettuce, or some form of the vegetable. Mine do not. If salad is our main dish that night, I make them eat two bites and then they can have the chicken. I try to always make them eat two bites of something new, and much to Sawyer's surprise, he usually ends up liking it, and then Dawson follows. Not the case with spinach. So I have been trying out recipes in my favorite new cookbook, "Deceptively Delicious", by Jessica Seinfeld (yes, it is Jerry's wife). I have tried several and have had a lot of great luck, the sweet potato pancakes are our favorite. Anyway, last night I decided to be adventurous and try the chicken nuggets. Each of her recipes call for some vegetable puree that you can "sneak" into things they love to eat and they are not even suppose to know the difference. Slowly, they begin to develop a palete for veggies they normally don't touch. Veggies become just a part of meal time and not the ememy. Now, you must also remember that we can't use eggs so I had to substitute a few things and so please know that if you tried the recipe, it would look just like hers I am sure. I just want you to see how interesting it looked when I substituted only the egg. Would your kids eat green chicken strips?

Now I got a little scared and thought I can make them eat two bites, but there is no way they are going to get full on this. So instead of the spinach and egg sub mixture, I threw a bunch of applesauce in a bowl (the skillet was hot and I had to think fast) and then put it in the breading. It looked much better. You could still see chunks of the spinach from the breading, but much more appealing to the boys. It was really good and I might do it again sometime for a salad.

Now, this is what little Miss Jessica's look like, my perfect example...
Now, you must know they ate it all and it was actually very good! A great lesson in "looks are deceiving"! Here is the recipe:

Chicken Nuggets

1 cup whole-wheat, white, or panko

1/2 cup flaxseed meal

1 Tbsp grated Parmesan (we omitted)

1/2 tsp paprika

1/2 tsp garlic powder

1/2 tsp onion powder

1 cup broccoli , spinach, sweet potato, or beet puree

1 large egg lightly beaten (we substituted a package of plain geletin and 1/8 c. warm water)

1 pound of chicken cut into strips or chunks

You combine all the dry ingredients in one bowl and the egg and vegetable of your choice in another. Dip in veggie/egg mixture first and then in the bread crumb mixture. Lay the strips in a hot skillet coated with olive oil.

Hope yours turn out great!