“Cooking: How to Make Food for Your Friends, Your Family and Yourself.”
By Patrice Daniels and Darcie Johnston. $12.99
“You’re the Chef: a Cookbook Companion for ‘A Smart Girl’s Guide: Cooking.’ ”
By Lisa Cherkasky. American Girl. $9.99
Cooking with my 9-year-old is always a hoot. She’s old enough to be genuinely interested in cooking, but too young to work solo around boiling water and too-tall oven racks.
If my son’s eyes are too big for his stomach when it comes to dessert, Vivian’s cooking ambitions are too big for her skill sets. Just this morning she went through 8 eggs trying to make me breakfast, before giving up and waking me at 5:45 to confess.
I blame “MasterChef Junior.”
All of which brings me to a great pair of kid cookbooks, “Cooking: How to Make Food for Your Friends, Your Family and Yourself,” and its companion cookbook, “You’re the Chef,” by American Girl Publishing.
The “Cooking” book is where your child starts – it’s loaded with tips, like how to whisk, what a “flexitarian” is, pictures of various cooking utensils and the do’s and don’ts of handling raw meat. It has some recipes, but mostly we used it for descriptions of cooking terms, how to use a knife, and how fat and salt and seasonings affect taste.
One amusing section on a “safe kitchen” has a picture of two girls – one “don’t” example of a girl wearing loose dangling sleeves, long necklace, flip-flops and loose hair, while the squared-away girl next to her has an apron, tied-back hair, sleeves rolled up and bare wrists and hands.
“You’re the Chef” appealed to my daughter because it’s not a “baby” cookbook, with PB&J recipes and a condescending tone. I like it because it strikes a middle ground, emphasizing that the kid is the cook – but each recipe has an “ask an adult to help” line for some things, like using a grater or handling boiling soup.
The recipes spell out the steps – not just wash the vegetables, but pull off the tough strings and brown leaves. Not just remove vegetables from the stove, but “drain them in a colander in the sink.” The quesadilla recipe notes “if anything falls out, just tuck it back in later.”
The clear instructions in made it easier for Viv to feel confident in knowing exactly what to do – and what to expect – without having to ask. That’s a big plus in my book.
The cookbook, which can work as a stand-alone purchase, also has great common-sense new-to-cooking tips on safety, the value of prepping ingredients, reading the whole recipe before you start, measuring carefully and a section on cooking terms and tools.
Viv devoured both books before picking out her favorite recipes from “You’re the Chef” to try. The 80-page cookbook also has a smart, functional design. Its narrow, tall format and sturdy ring binder make it easy for small fingers to manipulate, and it stays open when propped up on the counter.
The recipes are solid comfort food favorites that appeal to the younger set, but adults won’t turn down the results when they include homemade granola, coconut curry shrimp, a homemade marinara sauce and Italian minestrone. We decided an apple-blueberry crisp would be the perfect dish to warm us on still-cool Maine spring nights. My girl loved mixing up the topping and carefully coring and peeling the apples as she fine-tuned her knife skills.
The final result, she said, was “a little sweet … four out of five stars.”
Just like her.
APPLE-BLUEBERRY CRISP
Makes 6 to 8 servings
½ cup old-fashioned rolled oats (not quick-cooking or instant)
½ cup brown sugar, packed
¼ cup (plus 1 tablespoon for the apples) all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, cold
5 to 8 Granny Smith apples, enough for 6 cups when sliced
2 cups blueberries
¼ cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
Vegetable-oil spray
Vanilla ice cream (optional)
Ask an adult to help with the knives, peeler and oven.
Turn on the oven. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
Make the topping. Put the uncooked oats, brown sugar, ¼ cup flour and salt into a medium-size mixing bowl and stir. Cut very cold butter into small pieces, and add it to the oatmeal mixture. With clean fingers, rub the oatmeal mixture and butter together, pressing hard enough to mash the butter into small pieces but not enough to melt it or blend it in. Set aside.
Prep the apples. Peel the apples, cut them into quarters and use a paring knife to cut out the core from each piece. Thinly slice the apples and place them in a separate, large mixing bowl.
Mix and bake. Add the blueberries, sugar, 1 tablespoon of flour and cinnamon to the apples and stir. Lightly coat an 8-inch-by-8-inch baking dish with vegetable-oil spray, and spoon in the fruit. Sprinkle the topping over the fruit, set the timer for 55 minutes, and bake. Perfect crisp has a browned top and bubbling edges. Remove the crisp from the oven, let it cool and serve with ice cream, if you like.
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