Master meals with a trip to your local (cook)book store

Marketers know a niche when they see one and they’ve found it in kitchens across Canada. They’re counting on exhausted parents, with picky eaters and little time to put together a healthy meal, to bite into a cornucopia of cookbooks all aimed at young eaters.

Just visit your local bookstore to see how much ink has been spilled developing recipes that, let’s face it, many children probably won’t like anyway. Fortunately, there are a few out there worth keeping on your kitchen shelf.
Here are the highlights from our Durham Parent test staff, a.k.a. my three sons.

Healthy Food for Kids: Quick recipes for busy parents
Rachael Anne Hill
Ryland Peters & Small, 2005
$27.95 (hardcover)
A great starter book for any family getting a little more adventurous without foraying into really foreign territory. Healthy Food for Kids covers everything from breakfast to party foods, with a section just for lunch boxes and snacks – a blessing for parents like my friend, Kelly, who says she’s devoid of ideas after packing the 18-millionth ham sandwich.
There are lots of excellent nutrition tips, including less well-known facts such as “the average child eats over 80 food additives a day,” which is a little alarming. The book even gives the low-down on unappetizing topics such as mechanically separated meat and cheap fillers.
The recipes are a little long for a parent who wants in and out of the kitchen but they are packed with nutrition – which is why you’re not eating out of a box in the first place, right?

Kids Healthy Lunchbox
Cara Hobday
Whitecap, 2007
$12.95 (softcover)

An excellent little gem packed with lunch recipes that are not only portable, they stand a chance of being eaten. The Chinese-style Turkey Wraps are a nice twist on an old favourite, as is the Turkey, Bacon and Bean Salad.
The cookbook is small but full of information and tips. There are even colourful circles on each page, identifying the nutritional benefits of each recipe, i.e. protein, fiber, iron – a great help if you’re packing lunches while simultaneously signing agendas and checking for missing homework.
The best feature, in my opinion, is the monthly lunch plan. Four weeks of someone else telling you what to buy and on what day to pack it – complete with grocery and pantry lists.
he author has to be a mom herself to understand the need for a cookbook devoted to a single topic – lunches.

Cook for Kids
Jean Pare
Company’s Coming
$15.99 (softcover)

I’ll admit. I’m not usually a fan of the Company’s Coming series, mostly because I’m not big on using canned soup as an ingredient, which Pare often does. However, as the famous Chef Gusteau of “Ratatouille” fame says, “Anyone can cook.” Cook for Kids is a book for anyone who wants to cook but may not know a dice from a chop.
The recipes range from beverages and breakfast to “funny food” and snacks and treats. The table of contents mentions veggies but with seven recipes it’s not exactly a section. It does, however, contain three recipes containing broccoli and one with cauliflower, so a chef’s hat off to the author.
There are fun ideas, such as Apple Sandwiches with apples, sprouts, raisins, cinnamon and cream cheese. While cream cheese is slightly over-used in this cookbook, along with bottled salad dressings, at least they’re being used as an HFDDs – healthy food delivery devices.
There are slightly more dubious recipes – Plain Pizza with process cheese spread and ketchup – but most cookbooks have a dud or two. While Cook for Kids is a good start, parents will have to be the ones who are picky as they look for new dinner ideas.

Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food
Jessica Seinfeld
Melcher Media, 2007
$25.95 (hardcover)

Okay, I’m a sucker for a nice cover. With it’s retro styling, Deceptively Delicious just looks like it must be every parent’s answer to finding peace at the supper table.
It is, especially when it comes to my three-year-old. Our two older sons will eat anything from tofu to teriyaki. The “baby” is our punishment for bragging about the first two. Pete will find even the smallest speck of red pepper or teeny-tiniest piece of spinach.
Like me, Jessica Seinfeld was sick of fighting over leafy greens and cooked carrots. So, while making homemade mac ‘n cheese (for her three children and her comedian husband, Jerry), she snuck in a bit of pureed butternut squash meant for the baby. No one noticed.
Deceptively Delicious is a compendium of healthy meals made even more nutritious by the addition of pre-made purees of everything from cauliflower to beets. Don’t think it will work? Try the Chicken Nuggets with spinach puree or the Chicken Salad sandwich with cauliflower puree. They won’t know what hit their plate!
Yes, the purees take time to prepare but with Seinfeld’s excellent advice you’ll have a freezer full of individually frozen baggies in just a few hours.
It may not be the conventional way of cooking but it works: for Jessica and me.