Customer Reviews

Petit Appetit: Eat, Drink, and Be Merry: Easy, Organic Snacks, Beverages, and Party Foods for Kids of All Ages

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What a wealth of information! I highly recommend this book to any parent who wants ideas of healthy (but also delicious) foods to prepare for their family...or for reinforcement of what you may be doing "right". Snap it up at Amazon's bargain price!!

I purchased this book, after searching for books on children's nutrition and kid-pleasing healthy cookbooks this fall. It sounded like Lisa's first book was well received so I preordered this one. When it arrived this week I wanted to read it cover to cover! It has so much information, but is also presented in an attainable, simple way. Lisa is a mom and she clearly "gets it". The book is realistic, not preachy. It covers the seasonal/local/organic issues...gives good ideas for involving your children in the planning/cooking process...and is chock full of interesting recipes.

So far, I have prepared her Mango Chicken Quesadillas (per Lisa's recipe for my kids, then added some spicy mango chutney and made a side of chili spiked sour cream to the second batch for my book club coming over later that night). They were great on both fronts.

Tonight I whipped up "Ellery's Minestrone Soup" in an effort to give my kids a warm, veggie filled entrée. It is colorful, our kitchen smells wonderful, and my two mini taste testers approved. Another hit from her book. It took just a half hour to prepare. I substituted Trader Joe's Alphabet pasta for the macaroni, and added some "excitement" to the meal (if you're six years old!).

Nutrition information is provided on the side bar of each recipe, as are pictorial keys ("perfect for packing"..."gluten free"..."vegetarian", etc.) The only thing that I feel is maybe missing from Lisa's book is an index of the recipes by each recipe by these categorizations. It would have been nice to quickly skim the "perfect for packing" recipes as I'm planning lunches. Still, if that's all that's missing then this is a really fabulous resource.

Tomorrow we look forward to making Lisa's "Oatcake" recipe which sounds like a healthful oatmeal cookie. Something I can whip up on the weekend, and feel good about handing to the backseat on those mornings when we're running a little late!

Lisa has come up with such a great book, one that I look forward to recommending to friends, and that is sure to become one of my go-to baby gifts!! Now I want to check out her first cookbook too, but right now we need to sit down to our delish Minestrone soup!

This book is full of great snack ideas, which is what I needed as I ran out of ideas after a year of family child care. Contains basic information regarding buying organics vs. conventional. Great, user friendly format. She provides nice storage tips for the recipes and nice pointers on how to include children in the kitchen as well. I really like this book and will definitely pursue her other cookbooks to add to my collection.

This book is a great follow up to The Petit Appetit Cookbook (one of my favorites)! It has a great layout and plenty of information about storage and variations (two things I consider must-haves in a good cookbook.) Two great recipes so far: French Toast fingers and Curry Chickpeas. The chickpeas are something SO simple, but I NEVER would have thought to do it. Now they've become a staple in our afternoon arsenal. Another thing I love is Lisa's writing style - her intros to the recipes make the book fun to page through even when you're not in a rush to get something on the table.

My family has enjoyed using the Salad People cookbook because of its healthful, easy-to-follow recipes. My oldest child is outgrowing the format of Salad People, so I thought this would be a great resource to help her become more involved in food procurement and meal preparation. I have my own versions of many of these recipes, but it is wonderful having a compendium of healthful, tasty food that our children and their friends will enjoy.

While this is not a book designed for children, my second-grader enjoys reading the recipes, planning meals, and coming up with a shopping list. The recipes are all easy to follow and do not call for difficult-to-find ingredients (some of the ingredients can only be found at the health-food store, but can be substituted with more common (often non-organic) ingredients from the regular grocery store.

Nutritional information on the sidebar is also a plus. The author also provides notations to let the reader know which meals can be packed easily for lunch, are dairy free, etc.

There was plenty of great information and ideas in this book, and some parts were quite user-friendly. I most appreciated the use of clearly understandable icons at the top corner of each page designating a recipe as nut free, gluten free, vegan, etc. It made for quick searching/ referencing for anyone with particular needs.

I was rather disappointed that none of the recipes came with pictures. I also have my doubts that most children will eat some of these recipes. White and black bean spreads or sesame crisps, for example, are unlikely to be popular with those new to a healthy/clean living diet.

Many of these recipes are simple, and not uncommonly found in similar books. That said, for someone new to clean eating or just browsing for something different, this isn't a bad option. I would recommend flipping through a copy before buying if possible to gauge how well it will actually meet your particular needs.

You want to eat right. You want your family to eat right. And maybe you'd like to eat with more organic ingredients too. But you also have picky eater and you're just trying to get by with anything your child will eat! And all of those things can seem so overwhelming that you just fall back on to your old standbys. And imagine trying to do all that and celebrate a special occasion too!

Enter this book! The author focuses on the special celebrations in a child's life AND keeping them healthy and delicious.

The first several chapters provide a basic introduction to learning more about what's in our foods with Do You Know What They're Eating? or Choosing Organic: Why, When and How. Also included are chapters on Instilling Good Eating Habits at Home and Away and Having Fun with Food and Family. The author provides practical tips for making these goals a reality in a realistic way that makes it really do-able.

The recipe section is divided into three main categories--Eat, Drink & Be Merry, you can find recipes for Chicken-Mango Quesadillas, Baked "Zuke" Sticks or Cheese and Egg Roll as things to "Eat". Or Mango-Carrot Smoothie, Almond Milk or Pear White Tea are sure to quench anyone's thirst in the "Drink" section! "Be Merry" offers not only recipes but party ideas for birthdays like Baby Bundt Cakes, Pizza Parties with Pesto Pizza Dough, and Holidays like an early New Year's Eve or St. Patrick's Day with Spinach Hummus or even "any day" celebrations like a Picnic in the Park or First Day of Snow Chocolatey Cookies

But what makes this book especially good is that the recipes are really do-able! You don't have to spend a lot of time in the kitchen to provide healthy and tasty treats for those special celebrations (or just whenever!) The author makes choosing a recipe extra easy too with the symbols for each recipe--things like Egg-Free, Gluten-Free, Sugar-Free, Vegetarian, Wheat-Free, Group Pleasers, Perfect for Packing and more will tell you at a glance if the recipe that sounds good to you is just right.

If you have little ones in your life and you're looking for ways to make healthy meals that taste good, Petit Appetit is a great place to start!

I bought this as a gift for a friend who has a 2 year old. She only eats organic and she LOVED this cookbook. She started using it within a few days and says it's easy to use and has a lot of helpful tips in it as well. Great buy!

This is a really great follow up to the first book, Le Petit Appetit cookbook. As your children get older their tastes change and the way you cook and prepare food for them changes too. This cookbook makes it easy to transition your child to try new foods and get them involved in the process. The first 6 chapters go into detail about buying Organic,instilling good eating habits, and what foods could potentially be harmful to you child. It also has these really useful icons for each recipe that quickly lets you know if it's egg free, nut free, good to cook with your kids and so on. It's easy to use, has many tasty recipes and gets your kids involved in the kitchen. If only it would teach them to clean up after themselves too, then it would have everything!

Also, this book and her first book, The Petite Appetit cookbook: Easy, organic recipes to nurture your baby and toddler are perfect new mom or baby shower gifts.

I have to say that I haven't tried the recipes yet but I don't think I will be doing that any time soon. First, I have a 4 year old and I don't think she would eat many foods from the book. There are many ingrediants to most recipes that seem to be easier to buy. Such as recipes for pretzels, breadsticks, pizza dough,granola bars etc, rice milk. don't people usually just buy those ingrediants??? as it is very time consuming to bake all this first before even starting the rest? I mean, these are also made with flour, and the only reason i could see making these would be to maybe avoid gluten. Also, what is lavosh? She says to use it to make roll up sandwhiches so I can assume it's some kind of tortilla maybe. What is that... is she foreign or something? I just don't see the sense in making a lot of this when you could buy them easily it's kind of a waste of my time. The other things use alot of ingrediants and the outcome I just don't think my daughter would even enjoy. Also, a recipe for strawberry milk? Come on! I don't know about this ... if I made everything from scratch then I don't have time to spend with my girl and it usually tastes the same to me!