Food Musings: The Deception

When I was a full-time teacher, two of my students would bring me chocolate chip cookies. The cookies were immensely satisfying but there was something intriguing about the texture. They were rich and moist, softer than the usual chewy chocolate chip cookie.

Whenever I saw the twins approaching me with their sandwich bags, I was delighted because I knew they were bringing me a treat! Perhaps you already know where this is going. My students had…deceived me, but the deception was delicious! Well, no. Actually, their mom told me the recipe was from Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld (and a large staff). The twins were bringing me chocolate chip cookies laden with chickpeas!

Murmurings of plagiarism aside, I think it’s a great recipe, even for adults who eat sufficient chickpeas. Not Quite Nigella makes a good point when she mentions that the health benefits of the chickpeas may be compromised by the two cups chocolate, one cup brown sugar, and three-fourths stick of butter in the recipe. You know what? The cookies are delicious and kids are going to want to eat cookies, so why not put something healthy in them? I guess the point is not to get carried away with the Trojan horse desserts.

I’m sure the mom in my class was not relying solely on the desserts. All of the extolling about baked goods on Oprah aside (You can eat doughnuts while dieting!), a body’s got to eat something besides baked goods with confidential vegetables. And of course, eating vegetable purees doesn’t guarantee portion control. (“So, if I mix some carrot puree into this chocolate cake, I can eat the whole thing!!!”) To her credit, Mrs. Seinfeld suggests always putting real vegetables on your child’s plate so that they learn to eat those too.

Rumblings aside, I’m intrigued by several of the recipes. I’m eager to try the chocolate cake with red beets and the macaroni and cheese with cauliflower. However, I’m a grown up and I like my vegetables. Coming soon, Miami Dish will conduct its own taste test with the real experts—call it a validity testing of the experiment on Oprah.