Sometimes failure is spelled, "CAULIFLOWER"

One of my latest allies in the fight to nutitionalize my kids food (yeah, I know it's not a word) is Jessica Seinfeld, wife of Jerry, and author of "Deceptively Delicious".

Some of the recipes are BRILLIANT and work exactly how they are supposed to.
Examples:

Chocolate chip cookies (with chickpeas) {five thumbs up}
Blueberry (or blackberry in my case) oatmeal bars (with spinach puree...yes, really spinach!) a super rare 7 thumbs up, owing to the in-laws loving them too!


However, we have consistent failure in every single one of her recipes that call for cauliflower.  Mexican? Fail.  Fried?  Fail.  Dessert?  Fail. Soup? Fail. Macaroni and cheese?  Fail.  Seriously, how many kids don't like mac n'cheese??? Answer: at least four.  Granted, my kids also refuse to eat the orange powdered stuff, and only one of them likes the slightly less fake Annie's Shells and White Cheddar, so maybe that one isn't all cauliflower's fault.

Still, how could one vegetable so consistently ruin what SHOULD be healthy, tasty, recipes?

The latest example: Carrot Cake Muffins, with cauliflower and carrot puree.  Jessica Seinfeld's description:  "My friends are always begging me to make these.  and when I do, none of us want to share them with our children!"

Hmph.

My house?

#1: "I like the frosting?"  (Keeping in mind that I cheated and used frosting from a can instead of the cream cheese/orange juice concentrate the recipe suggested, so not really a win.)  "They're ok, but there's something weird about them..."(yep, she could taste the cauliflower.)

#2: Thumbs up all the way!  (but I think she would eat anything I said was dessert, dessert-like, or contained sugar.)

#3: Left a mostly uneaten muffin on her plate...with the frosting licked off.

#4: Similar to #3, but she smashed the muffin after licking the frosting off.

Oh, and husband, tried one bite, made a funny face and spit it in the trash.  "What is IN these?"  Answer: it's cauliflower.  Sigh.

I knew the moment I put them in the oven and the smell started wafting out...I was toast.  I could smell the cauliflower.

To be 100% fair to Jessica, I did not follow her recipe exactly.  She called for dried apricots and prunes, neither of which I had, so I substituted raisins.  Ha HA ha.  I also was completely out of (aka: never have) frozen orange juice concentrate, so I substituted molasses.  Possibly not my most inspired substitution ever, but hey, that's what happens when you decide to make muffins for a post-dinner snack at 5:00pm.  (Yes, that is very typical for me.  Have I mentioned I'm not the most organized/plan-ahead kinda mom?)

So, what to conclude?  Did I substitute the yummy out of the recipe?  Is cauliflower truly that repellent to my children? Or, do you like my excuse:  west coast cauliflower is more pungent and the flavor is more cauliflowery (yep, making up my own words again, blame it on Colbert) than the tame cauliflowers Jessica Seinfeld uses in her MUCH more successful recipes.

Official tally: Cauliflowered Carrot "cake" muffins: