Confidence in the Kitchen: Sharing Cooking Experiences with Your Preschool Child

Karmel, Annabel. Mom and Me Cookbook: Have Fun in the Kitchen.  New York: DK Publishing, 2005.  ISBN: 0-7566-1006

Overall rating schema here is on a scale of 1-10.  (1 too “cutesy:” seems to insult intelligence of adult and child – 10 imaginative and forward-thinking towards building actual cooking skills).

Overall ratings:  Culinary Interest-Building:  7   Recipe Quality: 6

Annabel Karmel is well-known for her myriad of titles on cooking for children.   In her Mom and Me Cookbook, she shifts her focus to cooking with children. The book is colorful and directions are straightforward. Children can get an idea what’s needed equipment and ingredient-wise as the recipe is presented pictorially and in words, two pages per recipe.  Each spread features pictures of kids actually doing the cooking.  This might entice your young one to want to try the process themselves.

She presents a wide range of recipes from breakfast to desserts.  Pasta, pizza, chicken and baking are featured. Five recipes qualify under my “cutesy” category: avocado frog dip, fishy fruit dip, cupcake farm, animal cookies, 2-in-1 pizzas and potato mice.  These are fun and involve decorating foods which involve cooking instead of just assembling.

Her baking recipes call for superfine (castor) sugar.  I have not tried any of her recipes substituting granulated sugar, but Ochef states that you can substitute granulated sugar without problems, or make your own by running granulated sugar through the food processor.

Recipes included in the book are:

Sunny Scrambled Eggs

My Favorite Crêpes

Slurpy Spaghetti

Perfect Pasta

2-in-1 Pizza Dough

2-in-1 Pizzas

Potato Mice

Sweet-and-Sour Chicken

Avocado Frog Dip

Fishy Fruit Dip

Quick and Easy Cupcakes

Cupcake Farm

3-in-1 Cookie Dough

Animal Cookies

Jam Sweetharts

Rolled Cookies

Chocolate Fridge Cake

Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake

Smoothies

Freezer Pops

Ice Cream Sundaes