Chef Junior by Will Bartlett, Katie Dessinger, Paul Kimball, Abigail Langford & Anthony Spears

Chef Junior 100 Super Delicious Recipes by Kids for Kids! is a fabulous first cookery book which is written by children from the US and Canada. But the book doesn’t just include recipes, there’s also advice about shopping, kitchen equipment and cooking for people with allergies. We spent a lot of time in the kitchen during lockdown and this book has definitely widened our daughter’s culinary repertoire.

Chef Junior 100 Super Delicious Recipes by Kids for Kids! is split into several sections. The authors are introduced first, five boys and girls between the ages of twelve and fifteen. They live in the US and Canada and are passionate about spending time in the kitchen. In their biographies they talk about where they live, their hobbies and how they were inspired to learn to cook.

The next section includes general information. First Anthony introduces us to real food and how to buy quality food – he also talks about organic food, we found it particularly fascinating to read the Clean Fifteen List. This is a list of fruit and vegetables that are safest to eat, even when not organic. Then comes the dirty dozen, fruit and vegetables that should only be bought organically. He also explains what labels on meat and dairy produce really mean.

Abigail explains how different kitchen equipment is used and Paul gives tips on how to use knives safely. Katie’s information is specifically aimed at readers with food allergies which we found really interesting and useful. She talks about ingredients that you can use as dairy, egg, nut, soy, corn or wheat flour substitutes.

Then we come to the main section with 100 recipes under five different categories! Breakfast includes chia pudding, flourless banana split pancakes and breakfast casserole. We tried several recipes in the lunch section including macaroni cheese (we made ours with penne!), lentil soup and strawberry-pecan salad which got the thumbs up for having a vinegar free dressing!

The snack section includes plantain chips, white hot chocolate and banana bread – we’ve been trying different banana bread recipes this year and this is definitely our favourite! Desserts include strawberry crumble (dairy, wheat and egg free), peach cobbler and yummy chocolate chip cookies (pictured below).

Drinks include homemade hot cocoa, funky monkey smoothie and the really delicious strawberry-mint smoothie – isn’t it a beautiful colour?! Each recipe is easy to follow, accompanied by a full page colour photo and is graded according to skill – easy, moderate or advanced. Some also include extra tips.

At the end of the book Will explains how you can meal plan using the recipes in the book. There’s a useful conversion chart (especially useful for European readers who don’t measure in cups!) which helps you convert the weights of wet and dry ingredients and also a temperature conversion chart. A well laid out index completes the book.

Chef Junior 100 Super Delicious Recipes by Kids for Kids! really does give a great introduction to cooking and we love the fact that it is written by children for children. A big plus for us is the number of recipes that cater for people with food allergies, it’s not often that these are interspersed throughout a general recipe books with tips for how to substitute using different ingredients.

A really inspiring recipe book!

Age Range: 8 +

Authors: Will Bartlett / Katie Dessinger / Paul Kimball / Abigail Langford / Anthony Spears

Thank you to GMC Publishing for sending a copy of this fabulous book. There are still lots of delicious sounding recipes that we want to try 🙂