Celebrating 25 years of vegetarian recipes and called "the gold standard for chidren's cookbooks" by the New York Times, Pretend Soup, by celebrated Moosewood chef Mollie Katzen, offers children and families easy recipes for healthy, fun, and delicious food.
 
Mollie Katzen, renowned author of The Moosewood Cookbook, and educator Ann Henderson bring the grown-up world of real cooking to a child’s level. Children as young as three years old and as old as eight become head chef while an adult serves as guide and helper. Extensively classroom- and home-tested, these recipes are designed to inspire an early appreciation for creative, wholesome food. Whimsical watercolor critters and pictorial versions of each recipe will help the young cook understand and delight in the process. Just consider all that can be explored in the kitchen: counting, reading readiness, science awareness, self-confidence, patience, and, importantly, food literacy. Pizza, after all, does not come “from a telephone.”
 
You and your child can have great fun finding this out!

Reviews

"Mollie Katzen’s cookbooks for preschoolers, Pretend Soup and Salad People, are works of child-friendly genius. . ."
--Slate.com

“Play Points: 5 (out of 5). ­­A delectable starter!”
--Nick Jr. Magazine

“This is the best book to date on cooking with preschoolers.”
--Scholastic Parent & Child

“A winner!”
--School Library Journal

“You can toss a coin whether to give this charming cookbook, for preschoolers and up, to your favorite kid or to a food-loving adult who deals with children.”
--San Francisco Chronicle

Excerpt

SALAD PEOPLE

The Critics Rave:
We’re gonna make people out of food! --jack
I’m gonna make my sister. --theo
Maybe I should make a carrot zipper. --simone
Strawberry hair! --serafina

To the Grown-ups:
Children will get deeply involved with this concept, which is all about creating a miniature person out of cheese, fruit, vegetables, and perhaps even pasta. In addition to being a cross between an art project and a great snack or lunch, this recipe presents a wonderful opportunity to introduce new foods--or at least new food combinations--to young children.
There is no right or wrong way to make a Salad Person. In fact, if your child doesn’t feel like making something representational, it’s fine to make a food design instead. In either case, let your youngster guide the experience as inspiration occurs.

Cooking Hints and Safety Tips

Children can help with some of the preparations, such as slicing strawberries and bananas, grating carrots, or spreading peanut butter into celery. They also enjoy helping place all the various components in small bowls and setting everything up.

The Salad Person’s face can be made with cottage cheese or yogurt. Children of color might prefer to use coffee or chocolate yogurt so the Salad Person can look like family.

You can firm up any flavor of yogurt by placing it in a paper-lined cone coffee filter over a bowl for a few hours--or even overnight. The whey will drip out of the yogurt, leaving behind a firmer curd, often referred to as “yogurt cheese.” Keep in mind that you’ll end up with only about 60 percent of the original volume.

The amounts are quite flexible, so just estimate the quantities.
Children’s Tools: Cutting boards and child-appropriate knives (if the children are going to help with the cutting); spoons for scooping; a plate and fork for each person

Salad People Recipe
Cored pear halves, peel optional (fresh and ripe, or canned and drained)
Cottage cheese or very firm yogurt
Strips of cheese (cut wide and thin, to be limbs)
Sliced bananas (cut into vertical spears as well as rounds)
Cantaloupe or honeydew
(cut into 4-inch slices)
Celery sticks (plain or stuffed
with nut butter)
Shredded carrots
(in long strands, if possible)
Sliced strawberries

1) Place a pear half in the center of each plate, flat side down.

2) Arrange a round scoop of cottage cheese or very firm yogurt above the narrow top of the pear, so that the cheese or yogurt looks like a head and the pear looks like a torso.

3) Create arms and legs from strips of cheese, banana spears, melon slices, or celery sticks (stuffed or plain).

4) Create hair, facial features, hands, feet, buttons, zippers, hats, and so forth from any combination of the remaining ingredients.

5) Name it and eat!

yield: Flexible! Just put out a lot of food. Store the leftovers for next time, which will likely be soon.

About the Author

ANN HENDERSON is a credentialed early childhood education specialist and is co-director of the Child Education Center in Berkeley, California.

MOLLIE KATZEN is a cookbook author and artist who has profoundly shaped the way America eats. Mollie is a consultant and cocreator of Harvard's groundbreaking Food Literacy Project. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area.