Hide the Spinach: Chocolate Brownies

I'm on a non stop quest to get my children to eat something other than raw carrots as their vegetables for dinner. That's pretty much all they'll eat at the moment. I've been looking at the palms of their hands and checking that they haven't turned orange yet. I know raw carrots are good, but they need some green.

So I figure the only way they're going to get it is if it's hidden in some deceptive way. Back when my Son was a toddler I had all sorts of clever tricks to hide veggies in his food. I often thought it would be a good cookbook to do, but 8 years of procrastination on my part, I find Jerry

Seinfeld's Wife has done it recently with a bit of shameless promotion from Oprah. Which now the book has no doubt made squillions. So of course I bought the book Deceptively Delicious as it looks really promising. In fact, I

was really excited about some of the recipes.

So the first one I tried was a chocolate brownie made with carrots and spinach. Very simple ingredients and pretty easy to do.

I have to say that it came out looking pretty good, and to me, it tasted pretty good too. But of course the real test would be the kids.

Well, the kids didn't like it much and didn't finish their slice nor begged for more. Which really surprised me I have to say. I mean, they look good right? They cut really nice, would be perfect to put in a lunch box. I guess they were kind of an odd texture. Perhaps reminded me of an egg slice in consistency. I think for an 8 and 5 year old palate, it wasn't a success at all. For a toddler I think it would be great. Chocolaty, spinach, carrot, egg, minimal sugar and fat and pretty much mess free. For kids over 5 who know what real brownies should taste like, not a great hit. But hey, those would be my kids who can sniff a green vegetable for miles. They eat steamed broccoli more than they would the brownie. Well, I refuse to give up the quest to hide the veggies.

Next week I'm going to try the blueberry spinach oat slice. The photo looks great and the kids like musli/granola bars...