Hats off to Nabisco for paying attention to what kids really want: the box. A toy comes with the current box of Ritz Crackers; there are no crackers to dig through to find the toy; there are no hazardous leads or plastics, and no choking dangers. Just a simple box that can be transformed into a simple make-it-yourself toy; the kind kids love best.

And kids, be sure to check out the games on the Ritz web site.

You can customize your Relish weekly menu by kid-friendly, vegetarian, super quick and simple gourmet. All dinners, they promise, require no more than 30 minutes prep time. There is also a section to help you create monthly freezer meals and slow cooker meals. What I like the most, however, is that the meals are in-season. When I clicked on my menu last week, I was pleased to see “The Beet Goes On” with a stunning picture of my favorite vegetable, and a recipe that included walnuts and blue cheese.

Relish! takes full advantage of family fun, and works hard to please picky eaters, with recipes like sweet and spicy drumsticks, cheddar mashed potatoes, and corn tortilla crisps. However, the Kid Friendly (KF) choices are limited each week. I was disappointed when I logged in to create my 5-meal menu plan, and only saw 5 out of the 15 menus that were offered were KF — and I know my kids would only like two of those. So, I switched over to the slow cooker section, and found 11 intriguing recipes (French onion soup with beef, and pulled pork sandwiches) in a PDF format. There was no way to select one of them to be added to my weekly menu plan, and so the ingredients would not be included in the printable shopping list. However, some crockpot meals were located in the 15 meal choices for the week.

Now the freezer meals were different. I clicked there, and found 10 meals that are updated each month. The recipes include broiled soy and ginger salmon, pistachio-stuffed chicken breasts, some soups. I could select 5 out of the ten recipes, and menu plan and shopping list were included. However, again, this was still not part of the weekly menu plan.

The dinner and a movie section includes the title of a kid-friendly movie, with the perfect food. “How about Ratatouille with Alfredo Linguine with Remy’s Eclairs? These meals too require a seperate meal plan and grocery list.

As I’m working my way through my free Relish! trial subscription, thanks to PBN, I am surprised that a subscription-based service imposes limits on how many menus you can select. Why only five per week? As nice and beautiful as the site is, I doubt that I will pay the monthly $7 fee to renew the subscription when mine expires. There are other weekly menu sites on the web that are free, with fresh ingredients that are in season, that generate printable menus, meal plans and grocery lists each week. I use one quite frequently. There are some weeks when I don’t have the time, or the need, to generate a cyber menu. — even when it’s free. I know how crazy meal planning can get. So, knowing that some weeks I won’t use the site, the $7 monthly fee would hang over my head on the weeks I didn’t have time to use the service. I know, seven dollars isn’t much, but it’s just a hassle, and that’s one less thing I need when it comes to meal planning.

Relish! does offer a free trial, and you should try it out for yourself and see what you think. The site incorporates fresh ingredients, and innovate presentation that will definitely liven up any drab same old, same old meals. I know the biggest problem all of us have is this one, “I just don’t know what to fix.” Relish can solve that problem for you with just one click.

Bribing our kids to eat their vegetables does more harm than good. My wish is for my children to grow up enjoying good nutritious food; I want the short time I have with them at my dinner table to be pleasant; I want my children to eat healthy meals, without stress. Using the recipes from  my wish has come true. Like Seinfeld says in the book, “I had begun to dread meal time.” Those days are over, thanks to this amazing book.

During the last several weeks that I’ve had the privilege to work with Deceptively Delicious, I’ve found that this cookbook is more like a how-to manual. Yes, there are amazing recipes in the book, but that’s only part of the gift this book brings. Follow one or two of Jessica’s recipes, and soon, you’ll know how to sneak nutrition into anything your kids are eating — including hot cocoa. (The secret? Just add sweet potato puree. “It makes the cocoa thick and creamy, even made with skim milk.” )

For example, her recipe for pink pancakes is simply a basic pancake mix, with the addition of pureed beets. Lots of vitamins; and no one can taste the “beets” in the finished product. Using Jessica’s method, I took a simple white box cake mix, and added the pureed beets to the cake. The cake was an instant hit — even without the icing. My kids HATE beets. But they are FULL of vitamins — I REALLY want them to like beets. So, instead of serving them a plate of beets, and pleading with them to “just try one bite!” I served it in a cake. The loved it, and asked for seconds. Thanks to Deceptively Delicious, beets are now a part of my kid’s diet. No bribing involved. And now, our blueberry pancake recipe includes a 1/2 up of beets.

Seinfeld’s book has an introductory chapter that shows you her four-step method to make the purees for 20 different vegetables and fruits. These purees are then stored in the freezer in zip-lock bags. This is one weak spot in the book. I can easily see many Moms not having the time to puree the veggies every week, but more importantly, not having the time to defrost the veggies for a quick cup of hot cocoa. So, I offer you this. Just keep baby food jars on hand. Already pureed, the perfect serving size, and full of nutrition. Baby food, like most frozen and canned vegetables, has not been sitting on grocery store shelves, and then in your vegetable bin. Seinfeld also offers this short cut in her book; canned vegetables. Just puree them in the food processor. And did I mention the book has a hard-wire binding? The book is built for the kitchen. It is awesome in every way.

So, here’s my only complaint about the book. Despite all the emphasis on nutrition, there are no nutritional numbers for any of the recipes in this book. How much am I gaining by adding one or two tablespoons of pureed cauliflower to our mac and cheese? I’d like to know.

For some kids, it’s the “texture” of food that makes them “repulsed.” Pureeing foods they don’t like makes the vegetables go down much easier. For years, I’ve tried to get my 9-year old to eat my chicken noodle soup. He prefers the Campbell’s soup variety instead of mine. This time, I tried the Deceptively Delicious method and pureed the vegetables — all the onions, celery and carrots. (Seinfeld adds pureed butternut squash). I added the broth and the noodles, and finally I had a hit. So simple. So logical.

There are many recipes in her book that are so completely off-the-wall, that I just had to try them, out of curiosity. I did not expect to like a chocolate chip cookie made with un-mashed garbanzo beans. But, these cookies were nothing short of awesome. My kids ate them before I could help myself to thirds. I found myself wanting to make a second batch, because, if it’s full of healthy garbanzo beans one more cookie won’t hurt the waist line that much. Right?

But my favorite “recipe of deception” of all is the chocolate fondue. The “fat” in this scrumptious dip is avocados. Avocados, pureed carrots, cocoa powder and powdered sugar make the most amazing chocolate fondue you’ve ever had. How ingenious to figure out that avocados also turn brown when they’re mashed — just like chocolate.
So, when you pick up your own copy of Deceptively Delicious, your biggest problem will be stopping yourself from eating up all that fondue. Because, after all, you can eat as much as you want, because it’s SOOOO healthy. Right?