Deceptively Delicious

Well, last week I finally got around to making my purees inspired by the cookbook Deceptively Delicious. I went to the grocery store and bought a bag of carrots, one zucchini, a head of cauliflower and 2 sweet potatoes. I was wondering what they would equate to, once pureed. Well, you see it above (minus a carrot I let my neighbor borrow). Each bag is a 1/2 cup. I used my own hamburger recipe but added the pureed zucchini and finely diced mushrooms, like the cookbook suggested. I also made taco meat using the sweet potato puree. Ted said the hamburgers were great and couldn't tell those two vegetables were in them. The kids ate them fine! I haven't served tacos yet but plan to sometime this week. However, I did taste the prepared meat by itself and couldn't tell there were sweet potatoes in them. Yayy!! I'll let you know how future recipes go, but so far, this is a hit with me and the family! Now that the purees are made, it's easy to pop them into whatever I want....spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, mac and cheese (you don't have to make it from scratch), grilled cheese sandwiches (that will be interesting)

I also made use of my new soup crocks (bought last spring...you need a warm day to make soup) and loved them! I made french onion soup, homemade croutons and served it with some focaccia bread with olive oil mixture for dipping. YUM! Here are some recipes so you can enjoy it too.

The Ultimate French Onion Soup (Home Cooking Magazine Feb 2007)

3 tbs butter

3 large onions, thinly sliced (I used Vadelia... sp?)

1 tbs flour

1/2 tsp salt
Ground black pepper, to taste

5 cups beef broth

8 tablespoons grated Swiss or Gruyere cheese (I used Swiss Emmenthal...slightly cheaper)

4 baguette slices (I used homemade croutons so as to not waste the rest of the bread)

Melt butter in a soup pot. Cook onions slowly until limp and golden (about 25 minutes). Sprinkle flour over onions and cook for several minutes to remove floury taste. Season with salt and black pepper. Add broth. Bring to a boil; lower heat and simmer for 30 minutes. Spoon into 4 individual bowls. Sprinkle with homemade croutons (or lay a sliced baguette on top) and sprinkle Swiss cheese on top of baguette. Bake in the oven at 450 for 10 minutes.

Homemade Croutons (From local restaurant...Miss Aimie Bee's)

1 loaf day old French bread

3/4 cup olive oil

1 tsp garlic powder

1/3 cup Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 275 degrees. Dice bread into bite size cubes. Heat the oil. Drizzle the heated oil over bread and toss well. Add the garlic powder to season. Toss again. Pour the seasoned cubes into a cookie sheet and spread evenly. Bake at 275 for 45-60 minutes. Remove from oven and drain on paper towels until cool. Fill a ziplock bag with toasted croutons, add 1/3 cup Parmesan cheese, zip closed and shake. Refrigerate or freeze until ready to use.

Focaccia Bread --Ted loved this bread. I've wished I could be able to make my own artisan bread, but now that I found this, I don't feel like I have to! We dipped it in a olive oil, garlic, salt, pepper and Parmesan mixture. YUM!

This would all be too much to do in one day. The focaccia was left over from another day, the soup I made last week and refrigerated it until we were ready to eat and the croutons I made the same day. In case you're wondering...the kids had frozen pizza! They would never eat French Onion Soup!

Here's a picture: