More Veggies Please!

Really impressed by this book, everything is well-thought off, the photography and the layout are wonderful! I would be tempted to say it maybe more for experienced cooks, but I think there is something for everyone. Love the checklist at the end where you can rate each recipe.

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for the free ebook copy in exchange of an honest review.

Although I don't have children myself I do like quick and easy meals and simple ways to add more vegetables to my meals to please my meat eating partner.

This was a book with many of your favourite types of meals but with an extra hit of good for you vegetables and they taste great. This is a book that isn't necessarily just for kids and they recipes used ingredients I have in my pantry and fridge and they weren't complicated so I found them easy to make and even adapt to my taste.

The photos were great and just reading through the cookbook was enjoyable so I would recommend this to everyone as it makes eating healthy fun whether you are young or young at heart!

This is a perfect cookbook for families! All the recipes in this book are made healthier by including some extra veggies or beans, but the food is recognizable, things the kids would be craving or asking for anyway. Recipes are in chapters on breakfast, lunch, dinner, sides and snack time, and dessert. There are full color photos of the recipes. Some of my favorite parts are at the very end - a checklist section to rate and write notes for the recipes you try, a "What to Make with What You Have" list of suggestions (perfect alternate index, although there's a traditional one, too), and a list of the recipes that are most freezer friendly.

Content:
The book " More Veggies please" is a vegetarian cookbook for the whole family. Dr nutritional value is increased by replacing unhealthier foods with healthy foods. And all of this, according to the book, barely noticeable on the taste. Nikki Dinki shows how she cleverly mixes the vegetables into other dishes so her kids don't even realize what they've been eating that's healthy.

Opinion:
I think this book is really well done. The pictures are of high quality and the dishes make you want to cook them. The recipes are very easy and I find the idea to consolidate a healthy diet in an unconscious way, a good idea.

Conclusion:
A useful cookbook with many great vegetarian alternatives. Therefore, I can easily give 5 out of 5 stars.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Although Nikki Dinki’s book, More Veggies Please!: Easy Kid-Approved Meals and Family-Friendly Comfort Foods with Surprising Veggie Twists is geared toward kid-friendly meals, it is also a perfect cookbook for those who have picky husbands who need to eat more vegetables and healthy meals. Husbands often get pickier as they age (mine’s 81) and it gets harder and harder to feed them and hopefully keep them alive and well. Dinki’s cookbook has dozens of recipes that will appeal even to my stubborn (but adorable) husband, and she has used her imagination to create great meals that everyone will love.

Spinach isn’t a much-loved vegetable and Dinki has included it in several recipes that will appeal to everyone. Eggplant is another vegetable that isn’t loved, especially by children, but as an ingredient in meatballs and other dishes, it adds nutrition and flavor. Butternut squash and sweet potatoes are also used often in this cookbook.

The recipes in this book are worth trying; it’s impressive how the author has taken vegetables and beans and inserted them secretly into dishes without giving it away that they are healthy. Children (and husbands) won’t know they’re eating healthy, but they will know that they like what they are eating.

This cookbook would make a good gift for cooks with small children. It has enough tempting dishes that everyone will love, and those dishes have been made much healthier than their traditional counterparts. My queue of meals to try keeps getting longer and longer as I try recipes from this cookbook and sample the dishes. Highly recommended for everyone who wants to eat healthy.


Special thanks to NetGalley for supplying a review copy of this book.

This is a very well-done cookbook! I really appreciated the philosophy of adding vegetables to recipes for what they can contribute to the dish (nutrition, texture, body, umami) instead of for what they can replace (fat, calories, etc.). The point is to enhance the food, not to make it "healthier" and just on the edge of tolerable.

I really liked:

Raw weights were given for produce (1 medium zucchini can mean lots of things to lots of different people!)
Recipes were beautifully photographed, including final results and technique steps
The list of suggested recipes based around what you have on hand at the moment
Convenient ingredients and quick techniques were encouraged where possible

This will be a great resource to have in the kitchen and I already have a list of several I can't wait to try!

Many thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review!

As a mom I’m always looking for ways to add more veggies to my family’s diet. I love that this book isn’t trying to hide the veggies as well as the flavor of a recipe. Who wants boring, sad, flavorless meals? Not all fat is the enemy and Nikki Dinki gets that. So yes there’s cream and parm in the cauliflower Alfredo (spoiler that’s what makes Alfredo taste good. Just cauliflower and salt does not an Alfredo make) there’s also a ton of veggies in all the recipes. While if I’m being honest I’m not quite brave enough to try the veggies in my desserts (yet), the recipes are there for you to try. (They aren’t low fat desserts. They are veggie enhanced desserts).

The pictures are beautiful. The recipes are well written and easy to follow. Bonus Nikki provides info on storing and substitutions at the end of each recipe.

Nikki Dinki is here to help you feed your family more vegetables. She’s not someone who wants to take away your butter, cream, sugar, or flour. She doesn’t want to take away your meat or your cake or queso. She just wants to show you how you can use veggies to make those not only more nutritious but also more flavorful. For her, it’s not about hiding vegetables into meals so your kids will eat them without realizing it. More Veggies Please! is about using veggies in clever ways, to add moisture, texture, and subtle flavors that will take your family meals to the next level.

Dinki was a picky eater as a kid, not interested in vegetables until she was in her 20s. But as a kid not wanting to eat vegetables, her mother made her cook her own meals, so that got her started on this path. As she got older, she found it harder and harder to avoid them. She started with an easy one—tomato, which she liked in her favorite jarred pasta sauce—and moved out from there. And now she’s here for us, helping us all expand our veggie horizons by adding them in new and interesting ways to the dishes we all know and love.

She understands that kids aren’t big veggie fans and may need some encouragement, so she uses baby steps. You can move from your regular scrambled eggs to her Cauliflower Scrambled Eggs, which just has a couple of tablespoons of cauliflower rice with the eggs before moving on up to the Cheesy Green Eggs, which includes spinach. For other breakfast ideas, you can try the White Bean Pancakes and Waffles, Pumpkin Pie Granola, or Zucchini Biscuits. Sounds weird, but these recipes are included because they are delicious and have more veggies, not the other way around.

Looking for lunch ideas? Try the Souped-Up Broccoli Cheddar, Cauliflower Egg Salad Sandwiches, Chicken Nuggets, or a sandwich with her Strawberry and Chia Jam and Peanut Butter and Hummus Spread. Time for dinner? Go with the Taco Meat with Pinto Beans, Mushroom and Beef Bolognese, Cauliflower and Potato Gnocchi, Eggplant Parm Meatballs, or Sweet Potato Pierogies. Or you could even try her Zucchini Crust Pizza, since she includes all the information you need to bake a pizza in the oven, on the grill, or in a skillet.

There are, of course, veggie side dish ideas, like her Creamed Spinach Garlic Bread or Twice-Baked Potatoes. And there are snacks, like her Buffalo Cauliflower Wings, Pea Guacamole, or Parmesan Spinach Crackers. And is it time for dessert? There’s a Brooklyn Blackout Cake, Black Bean Brownies, Sweet Potato Cinnamon Rolls, Peanut Butter Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Ice Cream Sandwiches, and Willa’s Lemon Bars.

She includes lots of extras throughout, like a list of recipes that are freezer friendly, and recipes that are flagged as her Top Ten (like the Mac and Cheese with Cauliflower and Sweet Potato), Classic (like her Chicken Cauliflower Alfredo), and Remix, which is a new spin on a classic (like her Roasted Garlic, Spinach, and Tomato Grilled Cheese). Plus she includes swaps that can make things easier or hacks that can save time. For example, for her Loaded Queso that includes butternut squash, she has a hack where she explains how you can add the squash to store-bought queso to get the silky texture and flavor bump without spending as much extra time putting it all together.

More Veggies Please! is a fresh take on how to incorporate more veggies into the foods we love to eat, and I love that. I love that she uses roasted eggplant to coat her chicken tenders instead of egg, that she thinks about what you can do with an ingredient after you make a recipe (you only used half a can of pumpkin puree—what do you do with the rest?), that she understands life is busy and chaotic and time is precious. I love that she still believes in cheese and chocolate and putting cream and parmesan into an alfredo sauce.

And the photos of the food and of her and her family are beautiful and fun and enticing. I do think that the recipes themselves tend toward Italian—not a surprise, she mentions her Italian heritage more than once—and while it certainly doesn’t bother me, a hearty pasta eater, I can see how others might be disappointed by the lack of diversity. But it’s also a family-friendly cookbook, and Italian recipes can be more accessible to kids, so maybe it’s not such a bad thing.

So if you are a cook wanting to add more vegetables to your dishes, or wanting to get your picky eater kids (or boyfriend) to be more open to veggies, then the ingenuity of DInki’s recipes will give you some good ideas for new ways to incorporate more veggies in your cooking. I know I’m going to have to try some of these recipes, and I look forward to seeing what clever ideas she comes up with next.

Egalleys for More Veggies Please! were provided by BenBella Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.

All I can say about this book is WOW!

I don’t know if I have I ever found a cookbook where I wanted to make nearly everything in it until today.

Not only is this cookbook absolutely adorable, from fun pictures, backdrops, and little details that make it an absolute treat to explore, but the recipes all sound amazing! There are a host of really awesome recipes that anyone could love that each have a healthier twist (something I can really get behind). I’m not trying to sneak vegetables into food, but at really just looking for ways to make comfort foods healthier and this book ACES that.

Another standout about this book is that you can tell it was made by a real person who has a busy schedule and is doing the best she can to add extra health without adding extra time. Wherever possible she uses canned foods (and the whole can no less), she uses whole vegetables, she uses accessible ingredients, and even gives instructions for how to freeze things for later. Plus, the book is filled with enough details that even the most nervous cook can have success through substitutions and cooking tips that don’t require a bunch of extra work. Again I say, not only are the recipes healthy and delicious, but they are actually made to be made in your regular life.

The book is beautiful (probably one of my favourites ever), the recipes are phenomenal, the ingredient list isn’t crazy or hard to find, the food is healthy and actually tested and re-tested to perfection, and the instructions are so easy, fun, and helpful. I truly don’t know what else anyone could want in a cookbook.

I don’t say this very often, but in my mind, this cookbook is a must buy for just about anyone, but especially for those looking for healthy meals and reasonable recipes!

First, what a beautiful book with so many great photos. The recipes sounds great. I read through the recipes and am excited to try many of these for myself and my family. These days with busy schedules and so much processed food, I feel so inspired after looking through the recipes. These will be great to include things my kids might not eat into meal giving us more variety. So often, working in a preschool, I see kids with lunches full of bagged foods. This book would be great to share some recipes with families who are looking to improve meals. Some are so super and easy to make. The foods we eat fuel us, so incorporating the healthy foods is important and I am excited to try many of these recipes as a way to include even more into our meals. Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for the advanced digital copy of this book!

More Veggies Please! is a wonderful family cookbook that puts a healthier spin on many classic dishes. I loved the inclusion of (more) vegetables in the recipes. There was beautiful photography throughout which I loved too. A fantastic cookbook for families and children!

Thank you NetGalley and the publisher for providing this ARC.

Thank you so much for the free ARC of this cookbook! It is the ultimate cookbook for veggie lovers.

Some of the recipes are beyond my skill level. I did, however, find a number of recipes for burgers and meatloaf that I can’t wait to try! Overall, a very good, versatile cookbook.

Thank you for this book! I’m absolutely amazed at the details that went into putting a book like this together for those picky eaters. I’ve never heard of this author but just the idea that you can use veggies to make great homemade dishes pulled me toward this book.

What did I like? Great pictures! The book is very family friendly. The chocolate cake with zucchini is going to be my first try. I’ve heard of this but have never had a recipe for it. For a ton of these recipes your processing the vegetables to make the recipe. So if you have a picky eater or you just need to incorporate more hidden vegetables then I’d recommend this. I will definitely order my own copy and check out the blog.

I received a complimentary copy to read and voluntarily left a review!

As a mom of a toddler I absolutely loved this one! I love that she takes recipes loved by all, and makes them so much healthier without making it noticeable. Definitely recommend this one to everyone!

I am quite impressed with this recipe book! Read this!

I love the down-to-earth introduction, as the author quickly connects with the readers. I love the discussion on the goal of this book - ways to incorporate vegetables into common recipes as a way to get them comfortable eating more regularly. These seem to cover all the basics from breakfast, lunch and dinner, with ingenious ways to incorporate fresh and frozen veggies.

The recipes are clearly well done, with tips and tricks, ways to freeze and reheat, and personalize. The final touches of a checkoff list at the end, a list of "what to make with what you have" (a list of recipes based off primary ingredients), a list of freezer friendly recipes, and small lists including "top ten", "classics", and "remix", make this quite the masterpiece!

This is a fantastic resource and cookbook! The photography is fantastic. The recipes look delicious. I can't wait to give them all a try! This is one I'll return to again and again. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a great cookbook. The recipes are interesting and diverse. And the pictures are beautiful!

So many yummy recipes in here! If you’re looking for an easy way to incorporate veggies into your meals, this cookbook is for you and your family!

Excellent cookbook showing so many ways to add veggies as an ingredient into many popular dishes. Some recipes have the veggies replacing ingredients and some recipes add the veggies. Every recipe I made so far has been a big hit with my large family. Thank you for creating this wonderful cookbook. I have needed this kind of cookbook.

An amazing and well thoughout book full of easy recipes which include more vegetables than traditional versions. The vegetables do not seem to be added for the sake of it, in each case they seem to contribute something to the finished dishes. My children have now grown up so I no longer need to hide veg in my meals but here the vegetables often take the place of other more unhealthy ingredients which in my mind is always a winner. I have bookmarked almost the entire book and can't wait to get started later today with the Strawberry and Chia seed Jam.

The tips on storing, freezing and using alternitive ingredients is also very helpful.

What a beautiful book! Delightful recipes and attractive photos of food, the author and her children. It was a nice touch to hear about the author and inspiring too. Especially touching was the recipe dedicated to the author’s daughter, Willa.
I’ve more than a few recipes I’d like to try! Particularly the chocolate avocado truffles!

This is reminiscent of Jessica Seinfeld's Deceptively Delicious cookbook. Nikki Dinki finds tons of creative ways to use veggies to enhance favorite comfort food/kid-friendly dishes. While I felt like this was targeted at parents with younger kids, I think I only felt that way because of the gorgeous photos of her own young children. The recipes are definitely suitable for anyone looking to get some more veg in their diet. I especially loved the sections at the end - there was a spot to right notes about each recipe and rate it, a section on "what to make with what you have", freezer friendly recipes, and Nikki's top ten recipes to name a few.

Thank you to BenBella Books and NetGalley for allowing me to read an advance copy of this cookbook. My review is voluntary and all opinions are my own.

I haven't loved cookbook this much in a long time!!
I don't have problems eating veggies (phew, because I am a vegetarian) and no children to try and get to eat them, but it's a fact that they fill you up and of course that they are much healthier than almost anything else.
This book is full of brilliant recipes where veggies and beans (vegetarian ears perking up because it's a great way to incorporate protein as well) to your daily "normal" meals.

And there are some great ideas! I tried most, only shying away from beets (not a fan) and tortillas and homemade pasta (because mine never turn out well). Otherwise, almost every recipe is a winner and some breakfast recipes make for amazing brunch ingredients as well.

But this book is an absolute winner!

I think this is a great cookbook. I love all of the ideas to sneak in veggies to regular food for little ones. One of my favorite parts was the section for using Ingredients that you have around the house.

This is wonderful cookbook. The pictures are great and make the recipes look delicious. I love vegetables. The cookbook makes it easy to hide vegetables in the meals without the kids realizing they are enjoying vegetables. There are so many yummy recipes and of course the kids think it is yummy too! This is a great cookbook for picky eaters to enjoy their vegetables. There are numerous wholesome recipes to enjoy. This is one cookbook you will want to add to your collection. You will not be disappointed. I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley and I am voluntarily leaving a review.

More Veggies Please! provides a ton of great recipes for clandestine vegetable consumption. Assuming anyone out there might have a guilty conscious about not being willing to go into a battle of wills with a Picky eater EVERY NIGHT just to eat a silly piece of broccoli, this book is for you. If you're trying to convince a loved one who should have grown out of his or her picky phase to eat that asparagus, this book is for you. If you just want to eat more vegetables but just can't imagine another night of broiled brussel sprouts stinking up your kitchen then this book is definitely for you too.

Nikki Dinki's adorable recipe introductions are short enough with just the right amount of self deprecating humor to make this book a winner for the entertainment factor alone. However, the recipes actually taste just wonderful! As Nikki says, these recipes do use butter and sugar so they may not be the most low calorie options out there for you but if you are making it a goal to eat more vegetables, which will help to make your body stronger and healthier in the long run, it's a winner.

What a well thought out cookbook! Although it's marketed for parents with kiddos, I found myself thinking some of her additions/substitutions would be good for myself as well. Next time I make avocado toast, I am trying her green pea addition! My children are young, and we are always looking to introduce more vegetables into their meals. This is the type of book I would pickup off the shelf in a bookstore. I think Nikki's substitutions and additions are very well though out, keeping young palates in mind. Several of our staple dishes are listed in her cookbook, with vegetable additions that have not occurred to me. Adding this book to birthday/holiday gift ideas list!

I enjoyed this take on adding veggies to your meals. It is simple but different. I'm especially intrigued by the chicken nugget and bagel recipe.

I will start this review with a disclaimer that I do not have kids and am using these recipes for my adult self. That being said, I was so surprised by how much I loved this cookbook. From the first page, you could tell how thoughtful and kind the book was. I really appreciated the author's own back story of being a picky eater and feel like that added another layer to the listed recipes. Some of these tips are so smart, like adding cauliflower rice to scrambled eggs. I have made the veggie macaroni and cheese before and it is absolutely delicious. The section at the end that is basically an index by ingredient is fantastic as well. I can't wait to try the other recipes in this book!

The pictures are beautiful. The recipes are well written and easy to follow. I love how the author provides info on storing and substitutions for each recipe. As a mom I'm always looking for ways to incorporate more veggies into family meals. Great book!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This cookbook exceeded my expectations! I loved it! I am always looking for ways to sneak more veggies in to my family's diet and this is the perfect book to do just that. Thank you Nikki for giving me just what my family needs!

More Veggies Please! by Nikki Dinki is awesome. The book is full of colorful and bright recipes and ideas to get kids and adults to eat more vegetables. Nikki write the recipes with the best directions. Kids would love it. Made a few of them

This cookbook is AWESOME. Look, I'm not a child, nor do I have kids. But I do love pasta, cheese, cream, and all the other indulgent goodness that our world has to offer. What's not to love about a cookbook that embraces all of those things and adds/sneaks in veggies where you least expect it?! I love doing this in my everyday cooking - adding in extra veggies wherever I can - in the hopes of making indulgent meals more complete. This is exactly the kind of thing that I love to have in my arsenal, so that I can make the foods I love, and still get veggies in the meantime. I imagine that this is indeed perfect for people with picky kids or picky friends, but I think this is just a plain great cookbook to have on your shelf so that you can cook something and tell people yeah, there's a ton of spinach in these double chocolate chip muffins! Thank you Nikki for making a cookbook that everyone can love!

Great recipes and ideas to try with others. Would highly recommend this for those with children to get them involved with cooking. Or if you like cooking yourself.

This is a really good recipe book. There are so many recipes here that I'd like to try, in the hope that my son will like and eat some of these dishes with extra vegetables added. Many of them have cauliflower rice or pureed beans added, and the photos certainly make the food look delicious. What I particularly like is the tick list at the end, where I can tick off the recipes I have tried. The author challenges us to try them all. There are certainly at least 75% of them that I'd be keen to try for my family.

This book is full of some absolutely wonderful recipes that I can’t wait to try.

I have a daughter who like all four year olds is a fussy eater, and getting her to eat veggies is always a challenge, but I can see that I will be filling her up with healthy meals and treats thanks to the recipes in this book.

Thank you BenBella Books and NetGalley for an ARC of this book.

A highly recommended book aimed at getting children to get more veggies by hiding them in food, however there are plenty of enticing recipes for everyone, The recipes are easy to easy to follow and accompanied by great photos of the finished product,

I liked the section at the back of the book which had an index list of recipes for using certain ingredients, as well as the usual index.

This book would get lots of use with a fussy toddler.
I look forward to trying out the broccoli soup once summer is over.

Thanks to NetGalley for allowing me to read N advanced copy in exchange for my honest review!


I’m always looking for new cookbooks- healthy, not so healthy, baking, new cuisines. Always on the look. The pictures in this one was gorgeous- and who would have thought I’d WANT to try cauliflower eggs or white bean waffles?! I didnt- until now. Reading the authors explanation on how little vegetables are included in breakfast really did open my eyes. The recipe for strawberry chia seed pudding- phenomenal. Going into 2022 I do want to really focus on my families overall health when it comes to meals. This book is definitely going to be on my repeat menu making rounds! Practical recipes for a modern family.

This was a great cookbook and I really enjoyed reading through the recipes. I definitely found some that I will be making.

I received this book from the publisher through Netgalley for review and all thoughts and opinions are my own.
A cookbook that has recipes that incorporate more vegetables into each dish. It's not about hiding them but rather development of the flavor and higher nutritional value in the meals you prepare for your family. Excellent addition to a family kitchen with loads of instructional photos and tips.

Thank you to Nikki Dinki and BenBella Books for the chance to read a copy of this book!

This is the perfect cookbook for me. It's aimed at children, but I intend to try pretty much every single one of the recipes here--black bean brownies were already a favorite hack from my childhood, and I'm thrilled by the philosophy of a middle ground between indulgent and healthy foods. The book is laid out beautifully, with lots of colorful captions and hints adorning the pages, and nice photographs of everything. The organization of the book is fantastic, including the index sorted by vegetable, and the extra index tagging the freezer-friendly meals. I clicked Buy on a physical copy before I even finished reading this. My one qualm is that some of these recipes are labor-intensive, and not as many recipes have shortcut tips as I'd like. My favorite recipes are along the lines of "mix a bunch of stuff together, pour it in a casserole dish, and stick it in the oven" but the incentives to make something delicious and yet vegetable-y should be motivating.

PS The very last recipe, Willa's Lemon Bars, brought tears to my eyes--who knew cookbooks could be so emotional?