Salad People and More Real Recipes: A New Cookbook for Preschoolers and Up

by Mollie Katzen

A kids' cookbook with easy recipes for healthy, wholesome, and fun dishes to inspire cooking adventures, kitchen confidence, and food appreciation.

In this sequel to her classic Pretend Soup —considered by many to be the gold standard of children’s cookbooks—award-winning author/illustrator Mollie Katzen works her magic with 20 new, child-tested recipes including such delicacies as Counting Soup, Chewy Energy Circles, and Polka Dot Rice. Each illustrated recipe offers the child chef the opportunity to count, measure, mix, assemble, and most important, have fun. Designed as do-together projects—with the child as chef and the adult as assistant—these kitchen adventures will give children confidence in their cooking skills and inspire a life-long healthy relationship with food. With Salad People and a little time in the kitchen, budding chefs will “I like it because I made it myself!”

Genres: Cookbooks, Cooking, Childrens, Food, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Parenting

96 pages, Hardcover

First published September 1, 2005

About the author

Educated at the Eastman School of Music, Cornell University, and the San Francisco Art Institute. Although her formal training was as an artist and musician, she exhibited natural cooking inclinations from a very early age, and cooked professionally - in restaurants and as a caterer - for ten years. In 1973 she was one of the founders of the Moosewood Restaurant in Ithaca, New York, and during her five years of cooking there, she compiled, illustrated and handlettered the Moosewood Cookbook.
In addition to her writing and illustrating, Mollie is a committed student of classical piano.

Reviews

[Peacegal · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even though I am an adult, I often feel as if I have the cooking skills of a preschooler. That's why I appreciated this cookbook, with its step-by-step illustrated directions. Actual children will enjoy it as well, as it couldn't make preparing foods any simpler.

Salad People isn't just for vegetarian families, but also those wishing to incorporate more healthy plant-based foods into their routine. It should be noted that the recipes in this book are primarily lacto-ovo vegetarian, with no exchanges in the recipes for vegan ingredients. That's unfortunate.

[Putrianaps · Rating 4 out of 5]

Buku yang kereeen... cocok banget utk pegangan ibu ibu yang punya anak balita. Buku ini mengajak kita utk memperkenalkan dunia dapur ke anak dengan cara yang asik dan menyenangkan. Ada tips and trik, resep yang beneran + simple dan cocok untuk si anak. Buku ini juga menjelaskan apa aja ragam manfaat dari mengajak anak masak.

I will save this book for my future child, haha.

[Molly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved this! I had a cherished cookbook as a young child, so I got this (and Pretend Soup) for my son, and he was thrilled. He loves to cook, and the pictures are a big help. He's only 3.5, so he can't read, but he'll say "Ok Mommy, now we throw in the strawberries'- so, ok, they are supposed to be cherry tomatoes, who cares! The best part is that they are 100% vegetarian, so all the fun, without the stress of eliminating ingredients that we don't eat.

[Kjersti · Rating 2 out of 5]

Eh, this book disappointed me - especially after reading such rave reviews on parenting nutrition sites. My kids were not engaged with the illustrations (instead of photos used in most cookbooks). And some of the recipes were even too much for me (coleslaw with raisins? No thanks) or trying too hard (“chewy energy circles” ...you mean cookies?? Sigh). There also seemed no rhyme or reason as to how it was organized and no appendix for reference. Do not recommend.

[Checkthebook · Rating 5 out of 5]

I put this one in the school library and the boys love it.

[Suzy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great for preschoolers, parents, and teachers. There are easy step by step instructions in pictures to make the recipes. As a preschool teacher, I have made copies of each picture in a recipe before, and made them into individual cards to hand to each child. Then we look at the recipe together, and sequence the cards and children. This is developmentally appropriate for this age group because sequencing is involved, and each child knows when it is their turn to help. This makes the impossible task of waiting easier for preschoolers. They know it's their turn when their card is next in line.
The illustrations are brightly colored, and the recipes are delightful. Cooking is very developmentally appropriate for preschoolers to learn small motor coordination, sequencing, science, as well as social skills. I highly recommend this book to anyone working with, or enjoying children. I have yet to see a children's cookbook as well designed as this one, except for the other Molly Katzen Children 's Cookbook that I'm going to go look for right now....

[Marlee · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a lot of fun, as there are instructions that first help the parent know what to prepare, and then picture instructions for the children to follow. I did really love the picture instructions. It made it so fast and easy for my kids to make the recipes. However, I did find that for a book that was supposed to be healthy, a lot of the recipes weren't as healthy as what I would normally make. A few of them we skipped because they called for things that I don't consider healthy and would never buy. The granola we didn't do because my regular granola recipe is much healthier, doesn't require any sugar, and is still loved by my children. I was able to make some of the recipes healthier by just making my own of what it said to used store-bought, or by substituting in different items. Overall, it was a fun book. The picture directions were what really made it great. My kids loved the Focaccia bread, the counting soup, the tomato soup, the crispy cheese crackers, and the tiny tacos.

[Mary Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mollie Katzen has three wonderful cookbooks that parents, kids and teachers have loved using. Her first two are for preschoolers and young children: Pretend soup and other real recipes (Tricycle; 96 pp.; $17.99; ages 3 - 8) and Salad people and more real recipes (Tricycle; 96 pp.; $17.99; ages 3 - 8). And her most recent children’s cookbook, Honest Pretzels (Tricycle; 192 pp.; $17.99; ages 8 - 12), is for older children, ages 8 and up. Katzen serves up vegetarian, kid-friendly recipes with clear instructions. Each recipe is introduced for adults or older children, and then the following two-page spread lays out easy to follow instructions illustrated by simple step-by-step drawings. Katzen has boiled down each recipe to its essential steps, and so the instructions are easy for children to follow on their own. Katzen’s cheerful tone encourages children and parents to explore cooking together, creating these healthy recipes or experimenting on their own.

[Samantha · Rating 4 out of 5]

This cookbook for preschoolers is the best I've read to date. Instructions are given in adult and kid versions (the kid versions are highly visual which is a plus for pre-readers), helpful safety tips are included as well as suggestions for child-friendly utensils.

I loved that each recipe was tested using real kids so the feedback presented was accurate.

All of the information included before the recipes is valuable and makes a strong case for including children in the preparation of meals if you've never considered it before.

Highly recommended for parents and teachers!

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great recipes for 3-5 year olds to make "for themselves" with only a little help from mom or dad. Features pictoral recipes for your child to "read" on their own. My daughter loves looking at them and has a wish list of ones she wants to try. A great variety of recipes too - some that require very little cooking (just assemblage) and others that are more involved.

[Alison Gonzalez · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very cool preschool cookbook. The recipes are grown up style and then in pictures for pre-readers. Erin made a broccoli quiche and it was very good. She wouldn't eat it but everybody else in the family liked it. Next she wants to try to make a mango lassi - I think because the picture is orange but hey - it's really cool that she is making anything at all!

[Debbie · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very thought-out format for recipes for kids - the written instructions, the pictures for pre-readers, and the praise/quotes for taste testers really helped to convince my kids at several ages that cooking is easy. I'm so glad I found these recipes while they were young, to expand their palettes and get them involved in the kitchen, at least sometimes.

[Courtney]

This book is my non fiction twin the Thunder Cake. Its target audience is preschoolers and elementary students. I paired the two because both are about recipes and children preparing something with little help from an adult. This book has recipes that younger children can prepare on their own and Thunder Cake is about a young girl that makes her grandmas recipe for cake on her own.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

The recipes are good and the seperate instructions for adults and children are great. The kid recipes are illustrated and the adult recipes are printed on the page. It helped get us thinking about fun foods for the kids.

[missy jean · Rating 5 out of 5]

My favorite kids' cookbook. Each recipe is accompanied by step-by-step pictures so your kid(s) can follow along as you cook. And the food is actually really good (we've already made the granola three times).

[Jackie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vegetable and fruit cookbook that actually might get kids to start eating healthy. Salad People and More Real Recipes is full of kid-friendly, colorful pages with very simple-to-understand directions.

Used for "It's Green and Leafy: Not Trees...Vegetables!"storytime-April, 2010.

[Emily]

The recipes are followed with step-by-step drawings for the kids to follow. Each recipe is preceded by a handful of quotes by very young children that seem to have been made during the cooking process or after tasting the result. These are quite amusing.

[Marcus]

Salads are the fruit vein of life.

[Ann · Rating 4 out of 5]

We've made several recipes from this book - it's a hit with my 5yr old. He's a picky eater & actually ate what he made. I'll be buying this for my collection.

[Mamafeelgood · Rating 2 out of 5]

The little one and I are enjoyed looking through this book. I will be checking this out again once he is older.

[Nelly Paulina · Rating 5 out of 5]

chewy energy circles, broccoli quiche, rasberry swirl. yum.

[KidsNonFiction Teton County Library · Rating 4 out of 5]

J 641.5 KATZEN
This is a great book for parents, teachers, and children. Directions are conveniently illustrated for children. (Suzy)

[Mckinley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another very good cookbook for kids with easy to follow directions. I read somewhere that kids who make their food are more likely to eat it!

[Abraham Ray · Rating 3 out of 5]

good cookbook for young children!

[Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

GREAT resource for children because of the pairing of written and illustrated instructions.

[Maren Prestegaard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Would totally get for Little M if she embraces cooking but thinking regular old cookbooks would probably serve the same purpose.

[Julia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not great for allergy sufferers or vegans who are avoiding dairy, but otherwise it's a cute book that would be great fun to use!

[Polly · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is so creative and easy to follow that my preschooler can follow and make these recipes.

[Danette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely one of the best kid's cookbooks. Super easy instructions with cute illustrations.

[Carrie Hill · Rating 4 out of 5]

Healthy choices that boost kitchen confidence.