Kid Chef: The Foodie Kids Cookbook: Healthy Recipes and Culinary Skills for the New Cook in the Kitchen

I received a sample of this cookbook in PDF format to try out and leave an unbiased review in exchange. I've been reading through it for the past several days.This cookbook is designed for kids who have a very "adult" palate who take their culinary skills very seriously. Overall, it just made me feel like an unrefined backwoods hillbilly or something. My kids do not eat the stuff in there. I don't eat the stuff in there. I don't even know what half the ingredients are or where I'd find them. We don't have a "mortar and pestle" in our kitchen.When I was first flipping through the cookbook, the lesson I saw was "how to make a fried egg". Bingo. That's exactly the cookbook I've been looking for for my teenagers, who are just looking to learn basic food preparation skills for basic foods with basic ingredients. But then I continued on to see recipes such as:-bacon herb frittata sandwich-ginger-lemon green juice-potato-gruyere tart-gazpacho gulps-crispy sesame seaweed-minty lamb burgers-strawberry-rhubarb mini tartsWhen I was a kid I had a kid's cookbook that I absolutely loved. I used that thing to death. I would come home from school, open my kid's cookbook, and whip up a batch of lemon bars or chocolate chip cookies. It was all basic, easy to follow directions that used ingredients we already had in the house. I could make all of it myself without any help from my mother. I was hoping for a cookbook like that for my own kids, but this just isn't the right one for us. We aren't fancy enough people and I don't have the time/money to buy all the special ingredients these recipes call for.I would not recommend this book for kids. I would recommend it for adults who are not picky eaters and want to learn advanced techniques for making healthy dishes.I do have to give some credit where it's due though. The photography in this book is gorgeous. The text is easy to read and nicely laid out. Whoever put it together had a nice eye for photography and graphic design. The directions are also thorough. It's almost like a culinary textbook. I am sure if you went through the whole thing start to finish you would come out a better cook. But I'm speaking to adults here. This is advertised as a kid's cookbook and I just can't see it as really being that.

First the positive. For critique, see pulled pork and coconut-lime popsicles, below.This book is what I hoped it would be; for special cooking. I gave it to my son for his 9th birthday. He is very independent in the kitchen for someone his age. However, many of the recipes still involve a lot of adult guidance. My son spent the first couple days just reading through the recipes, bookmarking the ones he wanted to try first. We planned a grocery trip and bought the ingredients. Many ingredients are not on-hand in your pantry. (I'm fairly adventurous, but we still live on a budget). So, for example, I have cumin and coriander, but not in seed form. I don't have a mortar and pestle, though I'd like to get one now. I don't know what Maldon flake salt is, so we used table salt instead. I love the use of fresh ingredients throughout.Recipes we've made:Salsa - delicious! Tomatoes, cilantro, lime, jalapeno, red onion, cumin, pepper. Alot of chopping, so this is mostly an adult-recipe.**I wish the reason to wear gloves was given. We found out the hard way when my son rubbed his eyes while handling jalapeno. It sounds obvious now, but I had no experience with hot peppers. and this is a child's book.Fruit smoothiesPulled Pork - Here's my negative critique. Recipe calls for cooking it at 325 degrees, uncovered, no liquid. I would think to cook much lower, with liquid and covered. but maybe dry-roasting is good, I don't know, so the only change I made was to cook it at 300, but otherwise, I followed the recipe. It was okay, but it could be better. Next time, I'm going to cook at 225, cover, and add liquid. The dry rub was good. We toasted and ground cumin seed and coriander seed. The aroma of toasted coriander is amazing! My son kept saying it smelled like tea. My 6 yo rubbed it onto the raw pork shoulder.Ricotta cheese & jam toast - The magic ingredient was lemon zest. My son made this recipe by himself right away. He was very proud.Roasted rosemary carrotsCoconut-lime popsicles - An inedible, curdled disaster. I have no idea how to avoid the curdling.Banana 'Ice Cream' - This is why I love this book. My kids were excited about frozen, mushed up bananas.

Not enough pictures. VERY disappointed with how few pictures are in the book. One picture for every three recipes. For a children's cookbook that is not a good ratio. One would want at least one photo for every recipe. How is the child supposed to know how a "dutch baby" is supposed to look like? What color is golden brown? How much confectioners sugar is a little? A picture speaks a thousand words.What I DO like is that the recipes are more nutritious and diverse than one normally finds in children's cookbooks. It has encouraged my children to try foods they may not normally eat because they had been part of the process of choosing and making the meal.

This is a very nice children's cookbook, however for children that are visual learners the lack of photos does not help them learn.

I bought this for our 10-year old son as part of his cooking themed Easter basket. He loves it. The book is so much more than your traditional kids cookbooks that feature PB&J or pizza bagels. This teaches kids to cook...adults can learn from this too. It teaches about tools, techniques, measurements. The recipes are healthy and interesting. There were many I actually was excited to make. Our son now goes through the book on his own and chooses a recipe he wants to make for dinner every week. He made us the most amazing lamb burgers. He was interested in cooking before but now it is becoming a great love and hobby for him partly because of this book.

Purchased for my 10 year old son as he's decided he wants to learn to cook more. I read a lot of reviews before buying this one as I didn't want anything to babyish. The receipes are brilliant, there's a hugh selection and they've been written very well. Unfortunately as one other reviewer pointed out, it has very few pictures. I'm a cook book collector and this has fewer pictures than books directed at adults, bit of a shame really as everything else is great. One other point (didn't bother me but I could see that it would annoy others) is that the ingredients are in American. Obviously they're are a lot that are the same as British but I could see this could be confusing if you're not used to reading US receipes.

For a author that boasts in the advertising ” Hello! I am a professional photographer, food stylist,“. !I was so disappointed to see the paper if flimsy, and a total lack of pictures to inspire a child to cook. Or even to compare how it should look.For a person to boast that they like to take pictures. Sadly not what I was expecting. I a, lucky my grandsons are very good readers. But some children under 10 will struggle. Not suitable for under that age.

My daughter wanted her own cookbook (as my son got the Usborne Boys Cookbook at a similar age -no idea why that one has to say boys on the front as good for either!). This book is very poor by comparison.The instructions are not well laid out, there aren’t pictures to inspire or guide them and frankly the recipes just aren’t very good (my kids are foodie and they don’t think this is great “hairy bikers pulled pork is easier and much better”. And if you’re in the UK be prepared to have to buy some cup measures and spend ages writing temperature and measurement conversions in and sourcing alternative ingredients.

It's not aimed at Children - and not a very user friendly cookbook - very few photos which i think is important in a cook book - so you can see what you're aiming for.... the recipes are not great for children either. Not Recommended.

Recipes are good, in my opinion it is for children with more experience in the kitchen, some more pictures and simple step by step guides would have been helpful.