Do you hide the vegetables?

I do.

I know that not everyone is a fan of hiding vegetables in food for their children. In an ideal world I know that all of our kids would be sitting down to a delicate saute of six vegetables but it just. doesn't. happen. here. Not with the Batsman. You can read all about his love hate relationship with food here. Thankfully the Bowler has not followed in his big brother's "Captain Beige" food footsteps and is having a red hot crack at every food you put in front of him.

So back to the vege hiding. I am a card carrying member of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious brigade. She has come up with purees I have barely even heard of and wow, can she hide vegetables. My favourite place to hide them is in muffins and cakes. During the Great Zucchini Glut of 2010 we did Chocolate Zucchini cake and I have had big success with both boys eating Pear, Almond, Zucchini and Carrot muffins.

This week I happened upon some very cheap sweet potatoes and I went in search of a muffin recipe that could incorporate them. I found one here. The Frugal Girl is a fabulous blog with loads of ideas for "cheerfully living on less". Kristen, who writes it, hosts a link up each week called Food Waste Friday where people post photographs of food that has been wasted in their household that week, as a means of motivating everyone not to contribute to the massive amount of food the world wastes. Go check it out, it's fascinating.

I had to adapt Kristen's recipe a little, mainly because I wanted to use fresh sweet potato not the American canned version. I also added some cocoa to make them extra chocolatey.

So here it is:

Sweet Potato & Chocolate Chip Muffins
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
450g mashed sweet potato (without butter, salt, or milk)
3/4 cup milk
3/4 cup oil
2 cups plain flour
1 cup whole meal flour
4 tablespoons of cocoa
2 teaspoons bicarb soda
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
3 or 4 handfuls of chocolate chips

In a large mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin, milk, and oil until smooth. In a separate bowl, whisk dry ingredients together. Add dry ingredients to liquid ingredients, and stir just until combined. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups 3/4 full. Bake 16-20 minutes at 180 degrees. Makes around 40 small muffins.

And here they are:



They were beyond delicious and four hungry children cheerfully put away a dozen of them after swimming lessons this morning.

All hail the hidden vegetable.

Do you hide veges to get extra goodness into the family diet? Do share your ideas. I'd love to hear them.



Weekend grateful - a friend

I have missed a couple of weeks of Weekend Grateful.

Life got in the way of being grateful. Oops.

But this week I am back. Being in the presence of gratitude for what we have in our lives is a lovely thing. Thanks Maxabella.

This week I am grateful for my friend T. I am so very fortunate to have her in my life.

She is the voice of reason. The one who, when I am full of angst about something, says “Yeah, except I’m going to be the voice who says.....” and all of this wisdom comes out. She gives, both the wisdom, and the friendship, without expectation or judgement. She has stuck with me but not crowded me. She loves my boys and watches them grow with the pride of the proudest aunty. She writes postcards and letters to the Batsman with pictures of trains and penguins, whatever she knows is his latest craze. The joy on his face as he fetches T’s latest offering from the letterbox is pure gold.

My friendship with T is one of those ones where even if we don’t speak for a while, there is no gap in the communication. We talk about everything and anything. We tolerate each other’s football team choices.

I saw T yesterday. We had coffee and a chat. I told her about my never ending to-do list and how when I get some time to complete some tasks without the boys with me that I am often struck by the paralysis of what to do first. Quick Suz, make the most of the time. Productive. And then came the wisdom.

T said, “how about instead of thinking about what you’re going to do, you think about what you’re going to be?”

A to-be list instead of a to-do list. More gold. Thanks T.

PS: I’m also grateful for this post. You made a huge difference yesterday Bianca. If you haven’t read the post, read it and follow Bianca. She has good stuff to say.

Another PS: I’m grateful to have lost 4.9kg and crashed through a weight barrier I haven’t been under for way too long. This woman is my inspiration. Thanks Lucy. You should read her blog too. In a “to-be” kind of way of course.

Image via weheartit