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Rachel May
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| Posted: Nov 22 2005 at 1:19pm | IP Logged
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I guess I think of cooking as a math class which is why I'm asking this here....
One of my 6 year olds has a strong desire to cook. He has learned to make pizza dough, cookies, quick breads and fruit smoothies among other things. I want to help him explore more in this area (espicially with main courses), and I wonder if anyone has a kid's cookbook suggestion?
I eschewed the DK cookbooks we saw since the chapters were "meat, meat and more meat" (we're vegetarians), "cookies", "cakes", "snacks", and "sweet things." We did find one kids' veg book which we are starting to use, but I'm curious if anyone has a book they've used and liked. (I'm not against having a cookbook with meat recipes in it if there were other recipes we could use). One drawback with regular veg cookbooks is they tend to used about 100 ingredients and suggest foods he won't like. 
Also, he loves tea. I like the afternoon tea idea, and I think he would get really into organizing it if I could find a book that weren't "girly." I can tell him what to do, of course, but I find that when we read about a topic together, what catches his interest is different than what catches mine.
Lastly, for those of you who use cooking to teach math, any tips?
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Erica Sanchez
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We have The Everything Kids' Cookbook and my kids really like it. There are sections for breakfast, lunches, snacks, soups, dinner, desserts, and drinks. I see lots of non-meat recipes. It is a fun book with lots of extras like tips, trivia, jokes, games, and a mini-cooking course in the introduction. In the back of the book are fun "recipes" for playdough, edible finger paint, and such. I think it would be perfect for your 6 year old.
I don't specifically use cooking to teach math, but my girls just had to double a recipe and so received a short lesson on adding fractions.
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Leonie
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We like the Math Chef book - lots of healthy yummy recipes ( for the most part) and lots of related maths explanations and activities.
I used to borrow it from the library when we lived in Adelaide.
The website above also has other ideas for cooking with kids.
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Mary G
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Leonie -- this looks good but my library doesn't have it  -- they do have her Science Math, so I've requested that to check out.
I love all these fun subject books!
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Leonie
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Ooh, I haven't seen Science Math - I'm off to do a search!
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Leonie in Sydney
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MaryM
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| Posted: Nov 23 2005 at 5:22pm | IP Logged
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Rachel May wrote:
| I want to help him explore more in this area (espicially with main courses), and I wonder if anyone has a kid's cookbook suggestion? |
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I've seen a couple we've liked. As far as recommendations, it depends, too, on whether you are looking for one with lots of recipes or one that is heavier on the teaching of cooking with techniques and tips. A lot of the ones that focus on teaching don't have a ton of recipes.
The Good Housekeeping Children's Cookbook is a pretty good teaching cookbook which also contains a good number of recipes. They have quite a few main and side dish with a good mix of meat and vegetarian.
The Usborne Children's Cookbook is visually very appealing as well as informational. The illustrations that go with each recipe are step-by-step. It does include several vegetarian dishes and isn't loaded with the sweets/desserts (only a couple).
A book that approaches recipes as "projects" is Cooking Wizardry for Kids. It's experimentation and creativity oriented. It is a lot of fun - I like the books in this series. Anyway, could be particularly appealing to boys.
I love the old-fashioned approach and visuals of Look and Cook. It has fun visuals and teaches basic techniques as well as kitchen equipment, safety, measurement, and table setting. Main dishes are mostly meat though (trying to be vintage 1940-50's - go figure  )
I also like the Kids Cook from Williamson Publishing.
One that is loaded with recipes, but doesn't have much teaching is Kid's Holiday Baking Book. It has recipes from around the world for different holidays. It does include things that could fit in well with the liturgical year. Most are breads or dessert type foods but not overly sweet things. Fun addition to a recipe collection.
While we are talking international -International Cookbook for Kids falls in the good teaching cookbook category. Since it is international it includes quite a few ethnic vegetarian dishes although I was surprised at the amount of meat ones considering it is international. It's very strong on main dish and soups/salads.
Leonie wrote:
| Ooh, I haven't seen Science Math - I'm off to do a search! |
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In addition to the Math Chef and Science Chef I've seen her Healthy Body Cookbook. Each recipe section starts with a discussion about some aspect of the body and what is needed (specific vitamins, minerals, etc.) to keep healthy. Then the recipes include ingredients high in those things. Doesn't have many main dishes, but is vegetarian friendly.
You mentioned having a kid's vegetarian cookbook. Is it one of the Mollie Katzen ones? Since she is the author of the Moosewood cookbooks, definitely vegetarian friendly books. I've seen Salad People and like it. It doesn't have a ton of recipes but I like the step-by-step illustations. Really good for emerging cooks. I haven't seen the others, but I think the Pretend Soup and Honest Pretzels books look good also. The Honest Pretzels one appears to have the largest number of recipes where as the other two must be the ones that focus more on teaching.
For just plain fun The Secret Life of Food. It is full of just plain entertaining food creations (like burrito presents, birds nests, handwiches, cherry roses, tarantula cookies, meringue mushrooms, gingerbread skeletons to name a few). It is very entertaining even if you don't make the recipes. We just got it so haven't made anything yet, but looking forward to it. Another one for fun stuff is Family Fun Super Snacks.
Speaking of Family Fun - I don't think this is specifically a kid's cookbook (it's marketed to Mom), but Family Fun Fast Friendly Dinners sounds good. I haven't seen it, but have gotten the magazine for years. All the recipes they include in the magazine (which is where these came from) are pretty simple so would be good for young chefs and usually are pretty wholesome. Since I haven't seen it don't know how it stacks up with amount of vegetarian meals.
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Jen L.
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I must confess that I haven't used it much but Pretend Soup (by Molly Katzen) is a great PICTURE cook book. I love just to look at the pictures and read it. It is geared for preschool - grade 2. Honest Pretzels' subtitle specifies it's for age 8 and up but I'm sure it would be fine for your son. (It has a five star review on Amazon). They are both at my library. Let us know what recipes you try!
Jen
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Rachel May
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Thank you for the plethora of ideas!
I think what I'll do is get one at a time from the library, and then we'll harvest recipes into a personal cookbook for Thomas. Math Chef looks like a good place to start since it has the math connection I'm wanting. Hopefully I can then keep the math connection as we work through other books. I love that Healthy Kids website and some of the other cookbooks are there too. Can't wait to get started!
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Rachel May
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I waiting for ILL on the cooks you all suggested, so tonight Thomas is making Tostadas for dinner. He already started cooking 4 lbs of pinto beans which is where we'll do the math. 4lbs=5 cups dry beans. 1 cup dry beans= 2.5cups cooked. How many beans did we make?
I'll fry the tortillas; he can grate cheese and shred lettuce and tomatoes and cut the avocado to practice knife skills. Serve up sour cream and yummy! We may also do some estimating of measurements, like does this look like 2 cups of lettuce, more or less?
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Leonie
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That sounds great!
from the Math Chef book, one of our favourite recipes is the Mexican Jumping Bean Soup - Thomas and Anthony liked the maths activities, too.
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Leonie in Sydney
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Rachel May
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We started Math Chef this week with the Jumpin' Bean Soup--YUM! The best part though was me asking the kids if they wanted to do Math Chef, and the older 4 started chanting, "I want to learn! I want to learn!"  That's what it's all about.
Thomas is starting his own cookbook where we are copying the recipes he likes. Anthony is asking for one too, now.  Boy, I love homeschooling.
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Rachel
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Leonie
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Ooh- yum!
I must see if the kids want to re-start with adding to their recipe books.
Thanks for the update.
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Tina P.
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OK. Here's the scoop. There's a United States, US History, Science Chef Travels Around the World, and the Coming to America Cookbooks as well as the Science and Math Chef and Healthy Body cookbooks.
What to choose? What to choose?!?!
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Tina P.
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How about the Usborne Beginner's Cookbook? It's got wonderfully simple recipes. You can buy it in this format with four books included into one (beginnner's, vegetarian, pizzas, and sweets) or you can buy just the ones you want. All of them have a variety of measurements at the back. PM me about this, I have some extra brand new copies.
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folklaur
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Wow -- thanks so much for the "Pretend Soup" & "Honest Pretzels" book links! I love Katzens's cookbooks (Enchanted Broccoli Forest is a favorite) and am excited to see these choices for kids!
Thanks again,
~Laura in AZ
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Mary G
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THANKS for the suggestion of the Mollie Katzen books -- my library has them so I can try em out before buying (I love when that happens!)
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MaryG
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Leonie
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Tina P. wrote:
OK. Here's the scoop. There's a United States, US History, Science Chef Travels Around the World, and the Coming to America Cookbooks as well as the Science and Math Chef and Healthy Body cookbooks.
What to choose? What to choose?!?! |
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Oh, the Science Chef Ttravels Around the World sounds like fun - let's see - Science and Geography and fun together!
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Leonie in Sydney
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4Real Forums : Living and Loving Numbers
Topic: Kid’s cooking
