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Deceptively a PITA
By Ann | November 30, 2007
The Deceptively Delicious program calls for cooks to create a store of fruit and vegetable purees, portioning them out so that they’re always on hand when you want to use them in a recipe. As author Seinfeld writes: “I encourage you to spend about an hour each week preparing the purees so that you’ll always have them on hand. You certainly won’t want to do it every week (how much do you really want to go to the gym?) but you’ll find that it’s worth it. As change begins to happen, you’ll hardly notice the extra 2-5 minutes it takes to puree, and you’ll increasingly find nooks of time to do it.”
Two to five minutes? Guess how long it took me to roast and puree two (only two!) vegetables yesterday? Two hours.
I prepared two sweet potatoes and one butternut squash. Granted, most of the time was spent with inactive oven roasting, but still, from start to finish the whole process took up most of the afternoon. (Actually, as a little experiment, I microwaved half the butternut squash. A quick seven minutes and it was done and I challenge anyone to tell the difference.) By the time I had pureed everything in the mini-prep, I was too tired (annoyed) to measure the purees into 1/4 cup portions. They’re currently sitting in my fridge in slightly overflowing tupperwares. And I still have two vegetables left to cook and puree: cauliflower and avocado.
Actually, the avocado doesn’t need cooking, just pureeing. But I hate the thought of grinding the buttery green flesh into mush, because I really just want to eat it (sliced on wasa crisp bread, another SSF). Which brings me to another Deceptively Delicious issue: expense.
A bag of baby spinach (which requires no preparation before cooking) makes only 1/2 cup of puree — that’s it! At $3.79 a bag, that’s some expensive deception. Here’s a little tally of this week’s vegetable bill — keep in mind, this is for raw, unprepared vegetables:
Baby spinach: $3.79
Butternut squash: $4.50
Avocados (two): $2.98
Cauliflower: $2.99
Sweet potatoes (two, on sale): $1.17
Total: $15.43
For busy parents on a budget, the Deceptively Delicious program seems, frankly, a bit impractical. But perhaps I’ll change my mind after making some more of the recipes. Anyone up for avocado-chocolate cupcakes frosted with cauliflower-enhanced cream cheese frosting?
Topics: Cooking the Books | 5 Comments »
November 30th, 2007 at 8:50 pm
Pureeing avocados? Won’t they turn color, lose their taste overnight, and get even mushier? I’d rather eat them as is or eat them soon after making a guacamole (finely diced, not smashed).
November 30th, 2007 at 11:40 pm
I agree with Bob. Avocados ought to be sliced or diced, not pureed. By the way, what does PITA stand for?
December 1st, 2007 at 8:22 am
Ah, but the avocado puree goes into the chocolate cupcakes. A waste of a good avocado? Perhaps!
December 1st, 2007 at 8:47 am
It’s not impractical if your husband is Jerry Seinfeld, and you have a household army to do everything else for you all day. Otherwise, i’m guessing, it’s just a lot easier for parents to throw some cheese on top of broccoli or implore their children to partake of “little trees,” than to spend so much time pureeing things in an attempt to outsmart the kiddies. Also, how do you teach them to eat vegetables as adults if they don’t ever know they are eating any as children? And thus don’t ever learn to enjoy them unless they can’t taste them because they are blended into something like a cupcake?
December 13th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
Okay Ann, I finally got around to visiting your web site. After a “kale of two soups”, I expected “deceptively a PITA” to be about an clandestine animal rights movement or sneaking meat into a vegetarian offering. I’ll need to browse your articles. Not sure I’m up to puree yet, but who knows?
Don