Kids Cooking: A Very Slightly Messy Manual by the editors of Klutz Press, 1987.

This book is part of the classic children’s hobby and activity series from Klutz Press. Originally, this book came with a set of plastic measuring spoons, which was attached to the book at the hole in the upper left corner.

The recipes in the cookbook are listed in categories by the type of meal: breakfasts, lunches and snacks, dinners and salads, and desserts. There is also a section of recipes for non-edible things, like play dough and finger paint.

The food recipes are fairly simple, but not the overly-simple, boring recipes that I’ve seen in some children’s books, like how to make a peanut butter sandwich.

Kids can make these recipes, but they’re not for little kids who are still at the level of learning to make their own basic sandwiches. They do involve things like using stoves and ovens and chopping ingredients with a sharp knife. It’s common in the book to include “grown-up assistant with knife” under the list of ingredients and tools needed for recipes.

Some of the recipes in the book include multiple ways to cook something, variations on popular foods or different ways of seasoning a dish. For example, the breakfast section explains different ways to cook eggs, including scrambled eggs, fried eggs, soft or hard boiled eggs, and eggs in a frame.

There are different ways of cooking potatoes in the dinner section, and I also like the popcorn variations in the snack section, which include different ways to flavor popcorn with cheese or peanut butter.

The dessert section includes brownies (“Disgustingly Rich”), chocolate chip cookies, and some more unusual desserts, like frozen bananoids, which are pieces of banana covered in chocolate and frozen.

The section of non-edible recipes also includes a recipe for dog biscuits, Fido’s Fabulous People Crackers. They’re edible for dogs, just not something people would enjoy.

The book is available to borrow and read for free online through Internet Archive.