Best cookbook for children?

[slev]

DS is 4 and loves "helping" in the kitchen but so far we've generally done either cakes or just a bit of stirring - not proper cooking. So I'd like him to start doing a bit more of the savoury stuff and wondered if it's worth getting something like the "I Can Cook" books.

Anyone tried them - or something similar? Are they worth it or am I better off just working out ways he can help with our normal meals? I think he'd like looking at the step by step pictures etc as he does that with the children's cake book we've got, just not sure how edible the end result will be!

Can't advise from experience but a friend has gave me a copy of the Ella's kitchen book when I had DS and the recipes there look good (and join-in-able). My DS is too young but I'll be using it with him in time - it looks good.

We really like this one Usborne First Cookbook, my DCs are 8 and 10. At 4 you'd still be doing most of it, obviously. but they are nice and easy to follow together so you can explain as you go along, get them to help with weighing, measuring, pouring. Also, food shopping together is good, get a recipe, maybe make a list with pictures drawn next to the words and get the DCs to help find them in a shop. I find food shopping with the DCs is one of the easiest ways of practising all sorts of useful every day skills in a short space of time, weighing, reading labels, looking at expiry dates, healthy eating, countries of origin, counting money, comparing advantages of two products.

Our DS has this one and we all enjoy the food.

These knifes are very good too

The I Can Cook one is fine - lots of variety. Lakeland sell some I Can Cook branded safety scissors, which are good for cutting/chopping (I've been known to use them in preference to my own kitchen scissors).

DH found My Daddy Cooks which has some tasty recipes, designed to be assisted by a small child.

Forgot to say - you can find many of the I Can Cook recipes on the CBeebies website, so maybe just try from there first?

That's an idea, maybe I'll have a look online first - don't know why I didn't think of it - thanks.

Will also see if I can get any of the others from the library before I invest in one - thanks for the recommendations!

DS is 5.5 and we've been gradually working our way through "I Can Cook" for about a year, he gets to choose and we shop together, cook, if it's something that needs to go in the oven he watches a past ICC episode on YouTube then we eat and rate it!