With all of the uncertainty around school this year, we thought we’d share our kids’ favorite cookbooks – a great, practical learning at home opportunity!
I want to say that right off the bat that none of this is sponsored, and, yes, most of these cookbooks are geared towards girls. Men are, of course, leading chefs in restaurants around the world, but, in this case, the gender conversation aside, young girls seem to be generally more drawn to baking and cooking than boys, judging by what’s been published and what sells! While I have three daughters and one son, I will say that he loves to flip through these cookbooks himself and drool over the food pictures and even picks out recipes for our family to make. He can’t wait to step up to the stove when he’s ready, and he certainly sees my husband in the kitchen constantly! The truth remains, though, in this particular post, four out of the six cookbooks are for girls. Great for moms and dads of girls, but don’t be afraid to check them out, moms and dads of boys!
I was originally inspired by this topic just this last weekend. One of my sisters has recently decided that with everything going on with COVID-19 and some of the changes the schools are making, homeschooling makes sense for them, at least until they see where things are going to land. For anyone who has ever looked into homeschooling or even for those currently in it, looking at curriculum or even trying to figure out what your school year is going to look like and the subjects you want to focus on can be daunting!
One of the things I’ve noticed through the years, just as a kid who came up in public schools, is that cooking classes (as part of “Home Ec” as it used to be called) are not taught in many schools. There seem to be a lot of thoughts about why Home Ec has all but vanished, ranging from those who blame the rise of modern feminism, a hypothesis around the advent of fast food, a lack of available teachers for the subject…and many more.
Today, it feels to me like some of these basic domestic responsibilities are lost on our current and upcoming generations, and one of those responsibilities is to create a basic meal without relying on fast food or someone always making the food for you, but taking ownership of understanding basic ingredients, flavors, and nutrition, and turning out something that brings people together. And this goes for boys and girls, certainly! They all need to eat, so they should all know how to cook!
Now that you know the why behind this post, I hope you’ll be interested to see what the resources are that I’m sharing with you. I have several “kids” cookbooks in my bookshelf – not all of them are in print anymore and some are hard to find, so I’m sharing the ones that we have used and loved the most.
The Cookbook for Girls
This was the very first book in our kids’ cookbook collection and it is well loved. If you happen to peek through the book, you’ll notice that we have a few recipes from this cookbook here on the blog, the Herb & Cheese Burgers and the Apple Crumble Sundae to name a few. It’s a great starter for little cooks.
The Disney Princess Cookbook
My daughters LOVE this cookbook! Out of all the things in Disneyland it was the one memento they wanted and now it’s available on Amazon! A few recipes we love in this cookbook are “The Beast’s Quiche” and “Miner’s Mini Muffins.” It’s also a really great beginner cookbook, especially if he/she is a fan of all things Disney.
Best 100 Smoothies for Kids
My friend Deborah Harroun from Taste and Tell blog wrote this cookbook and our whole family loves it. We drink smoothies a lot around here! Eden especially has recently taken a liking to this book and has been making smoothies for her and her siblings for breakfast and snacks. The Cherry Banana and Blackberry Cinnamon smoothies are really simple and delicious!
Food Network Magazine The Big, Fun Kids Cookbook
This is our most recent cookbook for the kids and I cannot even begin to tell you how much we ALL love it! Eden and Christian spend hours pouring over the pages of this book and then run to Josh and I with recipe suggestions. One of the recipes this book features is the Chinese Meatball Sliders – which are a hit with my kids. This is a book that both young boys and girls will enjoy!
American Girl Cooking
Eden (my almost 12 yr old daughter) has been cooking (with a bit of assistance from me) from this book almost every week for the last several weeks. She’s been choosing recipes and I’ve been adding them to our menu and let me tell you, these are some really tasty recipes that I think the whole family will love.
American Girl Baking
This is another cookbook Eden enjoys, specifically the cupcake section. Beautiful pictures decorate the pages with easy instructions on the recipes. If you’ve got a daughter who loves to bake, she will really enjoy baking from this cookbook.
These are, of course, just a sampling. If you’ve got boys who you want to teach how to cook, and you need something a little more up their alley, Amazon has a ton of great cookbooks that I think any boy would enjoy learning from. Another cooking resource I recommend are food magazine – we get the Food Network Magazine, Taste of Home Magazine and AllRecipes Magazine, and our kids eagerly await each issue! I want to also mention that if you have a daughter who enjoys reading, Eden is a big fan of the Cupcake Diaries series.
I hope these recommendations were helpful and inspire you to try something a little different than maybe what you’re used to when it comes to schooling!