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

Brennan, Georgeanne. Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook: Recipes Inspired by Dr. Seuss! New York: Random House, 2006.

ISBN: 0-679-88440-8

 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: 8   Recipe Quality: 7

From the introduction, “It was important to us that the recipes in the Green Eggs and Ham Cookbook be not only Seussian, zany, and fun, but also deliciously good and healthy, too. . . Every recipe has components for children to do- stirring pancake batter, cutting out cookies, rolling fish and croquettes in bread crumbs, painting ham with apple jelly glaze, and assembling s’mores. Many of the recipes in the book require no chopping, cooking, or electric appliances, so children can do these with just a little supervision.”

The look of this cookbook is straight out of a Dr. Seuss book, literally. Illustrations from Seuss’ books are throughout the book and will jog your memory even if it’s been a while since you’ve read his creative mix of nonsense and rhyme. Brief quotes bring forth the literary inspiration for each recipe. The book is divided into sections titled Breakfast, Beverages, Lunch, Snacks, Dinner, and Desserts. All the recipes are fanciful and what better inspiration for getting in the kitchen than making something you’ve read about and wondered, “What is that?!”

The title recipe was my first destination to quench my desire to know how does one make green eggs and ham? The eggs are made green by putting homemade guacamole over the yolks of what I’d call sunny side up cooked hard eggs. As you can see on the cover recipe above, they’re cool looking! The ham is made green with apple jelly to adhere a mixture of tomatillos and cilantro. In my mind’s eye I have difficulty tasting that combination, but would be interested to taste it in reality. Brennan suggests preparing a small amount for a few slices of ham if you don’t want to prepare eight to ten pounds of green ham to serve twelve people.

The beverages all have great names. My favorite is for Moose Juice and Goose Juice. Moose Juice is essentially an orange and banana shake, Goose Juice is a kiwi and lime concoction. For either one you’ll be using the blender, requiring button pushing time, yahoo! Beverages are also a quick project with immediate gratification- perfect for an extra warm day coming your way.

Nook Hook Cook Book Dogs would make a fun weekend lunch activity. Brennan suggests roasting hot dogs over a wood or charcoal fire and serving them with Boston baked beans. Of course you’ll need to get the ingredients to make Sneetch Treats (s’mores) to go along with your dogs.

For a novel approach to a popular snack, give River of Nobsk Corn-off-the-Cobsk a try. The translation from the Seussian would read something like popcorn with spiced Parmesan cheese. When dinnertime rolls around, you might entice your protégé to try red beans and rice if you apply the Seussian name, “Remarkable Foon’s Sizzling Hot Pebbles.”

The desserts have less zest than the rest of the recipes, but look passable. Perhaps Dr. Seuss didn’t have much of a sweet tooth for Brennan to work from. There are three recipes for cake, s’mores, doughnuts, cookies, chocolate candy and pudding. If your protégé is like mine, I don’t particularly need to inspire her to eat dessert.

Brennan’s book allows you to enter into the Seussian world by wrapping your mouth around one of her creations instead of doing those tongue twisters just one more time!