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DeAnn M
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I would love to do some more formal cooking/baking instruction with my kids. It's so easy to fit in a recipe with our unit, a book, or the liturgical season, but it's also easy for me to, "skip that because we need to move on with our studies." I really want to do a special cooking unit. (Until now, I pretty much just growl at them to get out of the kitchen) While I'm pretty sure I could either make my own lessons or teach them as we go through a recipe together, I would rather have a resource helping us out a bit.
My dream is to someday write a Real Foods/ Real Cooking unit that goes from farm to table and discusses nutrition along with teaching the basics of cooking. I don't think that will be happening within the next 20 years or so, but if it ever does, I'll be sure to share it!
For now, does anyone have any favorite cookbooks that are geared toward teaching kids the basics of cooking/baking? Or are there any, "Teaching Kids to Cook" unit studies already out there?
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MaryM
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DeAnn M wrote:
My dream is to someday write a Real Foods/ Real Cooking unit that goes from farm to table and discusses nutrition along with teaching the basics of cooking. I don't think that will be happening within the next 20 years or so, but if it ever does, I'll be sure to share it!
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That sounds like a great unit - would love to see it when you do write it! 
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| For now, does anyone have any favorite cookbooks that are geared toward teaching kids the basics of cooking/baking? Or are there any, "Teaching Kids to Cook" unit studies already out there? |
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I'm not aware of a cooking unit, but I'm betting there is one somewhere. We did brainstorm a general "home economics" thread a few summers ago which has cooking/baking included. Jen has some great plans at her blog and they are linked in that thread.
We also had this thread - Kid's Cooking - from the early days of the forum. I reviewed several kid's cookbooks in that thread. I really enjoy kid's cookbooks and teaching cooking.
From that old thread:
MaryM wrote:
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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guitarnan
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I'd love to see that unit, too!
We've found that our daughter can work with many adult-level cookbooks now that she knows how to decipher a recipe. My parents gave her How to Boil Water (Food Network) and she really likes it.
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JodieLyn
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What age kids are you talking about?
A good basic cookbook like Good Housekeeping or Betty Crocker would have a nice section.. probably in front with a decent glossary.
And then I like using recipes that we would use anyway.. just starting with simpler ones and working up to more complex.
The kids seem to do better with things they're particularly interested in.. like the boys have loved making pancakes and french toast.. because they get to flip them
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MaryM
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guitarnan wrote:
| We've found that our daughter can work with many adult-level cookbooks now that she knows how to decipher a recipe. My parents gave her How to Boil Water (Food Network) and she really likes it. |
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That is what I was thinking too about beginner adult cookbooks. I was just looking at some of the options at our library website and requested How to Boil Water before seeing your suggestion, Nancy. It does look like it would be a good beginner's cookbook.
I found that Homeschool Share has a cooking unit and lapbook.
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guitarnan
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When I was a young bride, my go-to cookbook was the Sunset Easy Basics Cookbook.. It's excellent, but I don't know if it is still in print.
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MaryM
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guitarnan wrote:
| Sunset Easy Basics Cookbook. |
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Ah, Sunset...probably only us "westerners" now that resource...  I love Sunset.
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guitarnan
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Well, as a California native, I grew up on the magazine. Our libraries here used to subscribe to it, until budget cuts hit the library system. 
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CrunchyMom
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I really like Tina Davis's Look and Cook. The illustrations are charming and the recipes are simple but good. *I* use it sometimes.
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Lisbet
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Sunset!! I've lived in Ohio my entire life, but was blessed with hundreds of back issues of this!! We love pulling them out and looking at them.
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SuzanneG
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I was just coming to link that thread, Mary!!! I used it last year to get a couple good cookbooks for my oldest dd.
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Molly Katzen (of Moosewood fame) has several children's cookbooks out. Two I've seen (but not used)for cooking with really young kids are Salad People and Pretend Soup, both of which are for preschoolers on up.
My favorite is Honest Pretzels , which is for slightly older child to do on their own. I am getting this one for my dd for her 9th birthday this month as she has asked to do more of the cooking here.( I have gotten it from the library before so we already know we love it.)
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DeAnn M
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Thanks ladies! Making a list for the library!
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MaryM
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DeAnn M wrote:
My dream is to someday write a Real Foods/ Real Cooking unit that goes from farm to table and discusses nutrition along with teaching the basics of cooking. |
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After this discussion I went looking for more recent children's cookbooks and I found this one - Grow It, Cook It - which might fit a bit of what you want here. It covers a variety of foods you can grow in a garden. Lots of great info and pictures about planting and growing that food. Followed by a recipe for a dish that includes that food. Great step by step instructions for cooking with lots of illustrations. The gardening info and tips are top-notch as well. Would be fun to use in the spring to plant a garden and harvest and prepare the foods.
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JennGM
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My son (almost 7) suddenly has interest in recipes and helping with cooking.
I'd love to find a cookbook or two that he could call his own. These suggestions are wonderful, but I have small question. For those that own any of these books, would you be able to tell me if the cookbooks are heavy in recipes that include ingredients of:
eggs
bread or wheat flour
milk
butter
cheese
Things like cream of ___ soup is also not on our list. Now I can substitue for small amounts of flour (like breading or thickening) and small amounts of butter (margarine or olive oil).
I just don't want to buy something he can't use for the majority of points and get him discouraged.
Thanks!
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CrunchyMom
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I just flipped through Look and Cook. The soups, main dishes, and veggies a are pretty good. Only one cream of soup and a couple of things like mac and cheese. I was envisioning a couple of easy substitutions as I read (like oatmeal for breadcrumbs in meatballs or meatloaf OR gluten free pasta).
Desserts are trickier. There are a few that would be fine if you can get gluten free pie crusts or alternatives to ice cream. There's and entire chapter for Bread, Biscuits, Muffins to skip as well as all but the pies of Cakes, Cookies, and Pies.
The Desserts include Baked Apples and Fruit Salad, and in Snacks there are Popcorn Balls and I thought maybe even Cinnamon Toast would be okay if you have a gluten free bread you use.
And in beverages, you could do lemonade for sure, but maybe the ice cream soda and milk shake if you ate Soy Dream or whatever.
I'm thinking that there are a lot of fun recipes he could use. One of the ideas we use from the book often is keeping hotdogs in a thermos for a packed lunch. There is also a recipe for "baked potatoes" and also "pig in a poke" which is a hotdog baked in a potato.
These seem fun and with simple enough ingredients, you could make it work much of the time.
Hope that helps. I just really think this cookbook is darling.
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Cay Gibson
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Our favorite, kid-friendly cookbook came from Silver Dollar near Branson, MO. It's called "The Just for Kids Cookbook".
We went there when my oldest son was 2 yrs old. He's turning 23 next month.  Good times!
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Topic: Favorite Cookbook for Kids
