Cookbook for Young Chefs with Classic and Fun Recipes

Do you have a young chef at your house? Kids love to cook and a cookbook that is written especially for them is a great way to get them into the kitchen. Esme Washburn's 20 Recipes Kids Should Know is a compilation of easy recipes that kids will find to be delicious and simple to prepare. The cookbook is divided into dishes for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. The recipe book contains simple recipes for appetizers, main dishes, side dishes, and everyone's favorite desserts. Each recipe is written in easy to follow steps and the large photographs complete the recipe page. Kids will be excited to prepare their favorite dish to look like the photograph.

Cage writes that she created this cookbook to teach kids how to prepare a complete meal. She writes in her introduction that as a child who likes to cook, she has noticed that most cookbooks for kids only include snacks and desserts. She provides instructions for measuring and weighing ingredients. She also provides some important safety tips for young chefs in the kitchen that are included in the introduction. The introduction includes tips for Before and After preparation. She also includes a basic glossary of cooking vocabulary that young chefs should learn. Calista Washburn contributed large and beautiful photographs for each dish along with the complete recipe. This delightful cookbook is written by kids for other kids who enjoy cooking or would like to learn to cook. Esme is 12 years old and Calista is 17 years old. They hope that other young chefs will enjoy their creative cookbook.

20 Recipes Kids Should Know was published by Prestel Publishing and has an ISBN of 978-3-7913-8507-5. Get cooking with your young chef!

I often added cooking as an extra activity in my classrooms. Cooking was a favorite activity in my kindergarten and pre-kindergarten classrooms. I also learned that some of the best little chefs were boys. I found this to be very interesting because it is difficult to find an activity that boys will participate in. Cooking is definitely for both boys and girls.

20 Recipes Kids Should Know is well done with each recipe written in orderly steps. Kids learn that it is important to follow each step for each recipe in the order that it is listed. Math skills are learned when kids must measure, weigh, and arrange the ingredients in the order in which they are added to the recipe. Esme includes some tips for accurate measuring and weighing ingredients in her introduction. The vocabulary for measuring and weighing ingredients includes the basic cups, ounces, teaspoons, tablespoons, pints, and quarts. Esme also includes the vocabulary words of grams, milliliters, liters, and gallons with conversion measurements. The glossary of cooking vocabulary techniques includes terms such as "puree", "dice", "mince", and "whisk". Vocabulary mastery is a skill to correlate with other reading skills. Young chefs will also learn science skills when they combine flavors and ingredients to create each dish. Mixing ingredients teaches the science skill that combinations of liquids and solids creates a mixture.

Young chefs will also enjoy choosing a dish from all sections of the cookbook to create an entire meal. The cookbook creates a meal starting with an appetizer all the way to dessert. Get cooking with your young chef!

Example:

Appetizer: Green Salad with Dijon Dressing

Main Dish: Perfect Pizza

Side Dish: Crispy Roasted Vegetables

Dessert: Chewy Chocolate Chip Cookies

Esme concludes her cookbook with one of her favorite recipes that she learned from her dad. Back to Basics Bread is one that she prepared with her dad every weekend.