Weelicious: 140 Fast, Fresh, and Easy Recipes [Hardcover]

Catherine McCord (Author)

Book Description

Release date: September 18, 2012

Every parent knows how difficult it is to get to get kids eating happily and healthily. Catherine McCord has the answer: Weelicious! Creator of the wildly popular blog Weelicious.com, Catherine, who honed her cooking skills at Manhattan’s Institute of Culinary Education, strongly believes in the “one family/one meal” idea—preparing a single, scrumptious meal the entire family can sit down and enjoy together rather than having to act as “short order cook” for kids who each want something different. In Weelicious, she offers dozens of recipes and tips for creating quick, easy, healthy, and fun food that moms, dads, and young children of any age will absolutely adore—from the most persnickety infants to the pickiest grade-schoolers.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Catherine presents her delicious kid-friendly recipes in such a straightforward, fun, and friendly way, and Weelicious really is a one-stop shop for anyone who has little mouths to feed. Parents will love every page!" -Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman

"I can't get enough of Catherine McCord's new book, 'Weelicious.' It has great, healthy recipes that your kids will love!"- Heidi Klum

"Catherine McCord, food blogger and author of Weelicious: One Family, One Meal, wants to make kids great eaters from an early age - and make life in the kitchen easier for parents. Her book gives parents advice on how to give kids the necessary balance in their diet."- Dr. Manny, FOX News

"Turns out you don't have to be cooking for little kiddos to enjoy this lovely book. Catherine McCord did such a lovely job.  It transcends kid food..." -Joy Wilson, Joy the Baker

"Creamy, crunchy, sweet, or savory, these healthy munchies from food blogger Catherine McCord's new cookbook, Weelicious: 140 Fast, Fresh, and Easy Recipes, will match any kid's mood." -Parents Magazine

“Nothing makes my kids happier than Catherine’s Weelicious creations brought to life, and I’m so grateful to have the question ‘What do I cook for . . .?’ answered in such delicious style. Weelicious is a godsend—every mom needs this book!” -Jennifer Garner

From the Back Cover

Our kids can be great eaters!

After her son was born in 2007, Catherine McCord sought out resources to teach her how to prepare fresh, healthy, appealing meals for young kids—but she came up empty. With culinary school under her belt and a hungry baby to feed, Catherine started Weelicious.com, a website that has since grown into a comprehensive offering of kid-friendly family meals.

Complete with beautiful color photos, tips and tools, lists of pantry staples, feeding plans, and more than seventy new recipes never before seen on Weelicious .com, Weelicious makes it easy to get kids eating healthy foods from their first bite. Catherine teaches parents how to turn their kids into great eaters who appreciate food and are open to exciting new flavors. With Weelicious you will:

• Stop being a short-order cook—whip up unique, delicious, and healthy recipes that everyone in your family, no matter what their age, will love.
• Inspire your kids to eat healthfully without resorting to sneaking or trickery—discover a wealth of great tips for getting kids to eat just by paying attention to how their food is prepared and presented.
• Get kids in the kitchen from day one—introduce kids to a variety of foods and include them in the cooking process to set them up for years of positive eating habits.
• Shop effectively (and make it fun)—bring your kids to the farmers’ market or grocery store for a hands-on learning experience when it comes to meal planning.
• Give kids some choice—strategically allow them to have more input and control over what goes into their bodies so they can “own” their choices.

From first-food favorites such as Sweet Potato-Coconut Puree and The Teething Cookie to family-friendly Veggie Nuggets, Rice Cooker Mac and Cheese, Chicken on a Stick, Shrimp Tacos, and Cheesy Chicken Taquitos to treats like Banana Bread Cake, Raspberry-Cream Cheese Heart Tarts, and Chocolate Velvet Beet Cupcakes, these recipes are perfect for little taste buds and sophisticated adult palates alike—and best of all, every single recipe has been created with health and wholesomeness in mind.

More than just a cookbook, Weelicious is the ultimate cooking bible for families—a resource that will stand the test of time as the family grows!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: William Morrow Cookbooks (September 18, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0062078445
• ISBN-13: 978-0062078445
• Product Dimensions: 9.4 x 8.3 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (117 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,272 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #10 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Quick & Easy
  • #38 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Special Diet > Healthy
  • #54 in Books > Cookbooks, Food & Wine > Vegetables & Vegetarian

More About the Author

Catherine McCord is the founder of the popular website Weelicious.com, a 2010 Babble Blog of the Year. She attended the Institute of Culinary Education in New York City, has worked in several high-end restaurants, and has appeared on Today, Good Morning America, and The Doctors, and in People, Parents, Lucky, and Every Day with Rachael Ray. A former model and television host, she lives in Los Angeles with her husband and two children.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Must-Have Cookbook for Busy Families! September 18, 2012

By Lori Lange

Format:Hardcover

Love this cookbook! I've been a follower of the Weelicious website for a long time- it's a great resource for quick and easy family recipes that appeal to both kids and adults. The cookbook is a lot more of the same kinds of goodies- fun, healthy, simple recipes. I love that Catherine's recipes don't have a long list of ingredients and she doesn't have anything too complicated to prepare. My 11 year old went through the book with a stack of sticky notes and tagged a whole bunch of pages of things he wants to try. We've already enjoyed the Breakfast Quesadillas, Turkey- Pesto Meatballs, Cheesy Chicken Taquitos and Chocolate- Peanut Butter Pudding- all big hits! I recommend this cookbook 100% for busy families who need some new meal ideas.

13 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Weelicious Video Review October 4, 2012

By Megan

Format:Hardcover

Length: 1:43 Mins

Here's a peek inside the pages of the Weelicious cookbook. I am loving this cookbook because the recipes are simple and easy to prepare, while being healthy and delicious at the same time. It's filled with great recipe ideas that are guaranteed to get kids more excited about meal time.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Some great recipes but with one observation... December 22, 2012

By Jada Lemont

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

I'm a fan of the Weelicious blog and decided to purchase the cookbook. There are some excellent recipes here that I rely on heavily when cooking for my toddler. I can't remember if these recipes came from her blog or her book (or both), but the sweet potatoes with lime and maple syrup, cottage cheese pancakes, stuffed French toast, (sweet pea risotto - blog only) to name a few - are huge hits with my family. My goal is to try a couple new recipes a week. I am so grateful for Catherine's blog and now, book. I have found that figuring out what to feed my little one (beyond the same old peanut butter and jelly toast) has been overwhelming, frustrating, even stressful, at times. (There is so much pressure to be a perfect mother.) I appreciate the easy, encouraging, helpful tone of the book and blog. This is starting to sound cheesy, but it really has empowered me as a new mom to see that I can cook a fresh and healthy meal for my daughter without feeling burned out and exhausted. Catherine makes it attainable, without the guilt if you take a shortcut. (Catherine, if you are reading this, thank you so much.)

I do have an observation that a previous reviewer mentioned as well: there are less recipes for the in-between toddler who has moved on from purées but is not quite ready to chomp down on thicker slices of meat, thick panini bread, etc. Every child is different, but from 13 months to now (18 months and counting), I have had to pass over numerous recipes that look delicious but won't work from my daughter right now. She is particular about texture and still likes her foods to be easy to chomp on. A number of the meat dishes, sandwiches, etc., that would involve a lot of chewing probably won't work.... I am looking forward to being able to try more dishes as she gets older and becomes a "more determined chewer." There are still great recipes that will work for us, but I wish there were more for this stage. I do think this cookbook will be used for a long time, as the non-purée recipes are meant to be eaten by the whole family.

Overall, it is a great book and blog! Read more ›

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars just OK March 26, 2013

By Rachel Richard

Format:Hardcover

I've made a sampling of recipes out of Weelicious now. I've mainly tried the breakfast recipes and some of the snack/dessert recipes.

I went ahead and bought this book blog-unread after making the chocolate rice crisp-wee treats, which I found about via the Goop newsletter. These are a rice krispie treat with some nut butter. They are good. But all the other recipes I've tried I haven't cared for that much, or had to tweak to make edible, in my opinion. Also I get annoyed at the author's tone after a while. It's that mom blog tone with too many adjectives and making too much of a deal out of a freakin' recipe (like that it will change your life).

One thing I find is the recipes seem a bit too low in fat. This morning I made the breakfast cupcakes, which you can also make as pancakes (what I did). Basically it is a standard pancake recipe but with a nut butter instead of butter. I was about to add melted butter but decided to make a test pancake before altering the recipe. The pancake was just ok. I went ahead and added 4 TB of melted butter and then they became tasty pancakes with better texture (btw, I think 2 TB would probably be enough to fix them). I find this is true of most of her baked or breakfast recipes -- she tends to omit the standard melted butter or oil that most recipes would include. Maybe she is trying to substitute nut butters for butter, which isn't lower fat, but just messes up the texture.

I also tried the beet heart cookies. More like a slightly sweet beet soft cracker or something. I think part of the problem was in how much beet to add. Her instructions are pretty good (1/2 cup of grated beet) but I guess a weight would be useful here.... I think I packed the beets tightly when they should have been loosely packed, because my beet cookies were super dark red, not pink like her photo. My two-year-old daughter thought it was meat! (raw meat I guess!) Anyway the cookies were something my husband and I ate but my daughter had no interest in them. They need more fat to be a real cookie I think. I like the concept but the execution is lacking.

Another recipe I tried was the oatmeal on-the-go bars. These seem to be a flagship recipe for Weelicious and the recipe was accompanied by rave reviews from moms. I made them strictly following the recipe the first time. I thought they were pretty blah. My friend's kids seemed to enjoy them quite a bit, and she thought they were good (but they eat pretty much everything I've ever offered them! they are not picky at all). The next time I made them, I decided to mix it up. You will think I love butter (I'm pro butter for my little kid) -- I added some melted butter again. I used a little bit more than a pinch of salt this time. And I reserved some of the nuts & dried fruit to sprinkle on top of the batter to achieve a look like in the recipe photo. They were better, but still my daughter wouldn't try them. I ate them as a snack while skiing.

Cottage cheese pancakes: by this time I didn't trust McCord's recipes much. She will eat stuff I won't. The cottage cheese pancakes sounded good, though. But I went ahead and found a recipe elsewhere (I think this one at food52: [...]). They were good, and had some oil in them unlike the Weelicious version.

And finally, I did try one dinner recipe, "mac chicken and cheese bites". Which is mac & cheese baked in mini-muffin pans. This sounded like it might be good for my daughter for lunch. The homemade mac & cheese is tasty using a standard cheddar/white sauce recipe. But cooking the mac & cheese for 20 minutes in the oven dried it out a bit and resulted in more pans to clean up afterwards. But they would travel a lot better than regular mac & cheese.

There has been a lot of research recently indicating that kids who drink whole milk are leaner than kids who drink reduced-fat milk. There is other research showing that fat helps keep us feeling full for longer.

If you are looking for low-fat recipes for kids, this book may be for you. I strongly suggest sampling multiple recipes at the Weelicious blog before buying the book. I'll probably try a few more from the other chapters, then give it away. Read more ›

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Worth its weight in gold. February 6, 2013

By V. R. Albright

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase

The first chunk of this cookbook is dedicated to our kiddos and understanding them more - how to engage them in the kitchen and how sharing the whole process of picking, buying, making and eating our food will naturally entice them to try new things. No tricks or hiding beets in their muffins, just an honest approach to food and our little ones. The rest of the cookbook is FULL of recipes for everyone including baby. So far we've made the Sunflower Seed Brittle (crunchy, sweet, and fun to make), Fruit and Seed Granola (I used cranberries instead of cherries and wow, I didn't think I could like something so full of oats and seeds!) Chicken Tacquitos (everyone including the inlaws went to town on these - they're amazing), Hot Dog Bites (our little guy had a blast making these) and Fruit Parfait (admittedly a leap of faith for me - I'm not a huge fan of seedy fruits but the crunchy cereal completely overwhelms the tiny seeds! Yes!) As someone who's spent a good deal of her life LOVING the flavors of processed food (salty sweet for the win!), I can honestly say that these recipes don't scream, "I'm a health nut. And a flavorless, boring one at that." Our three year old has had a hand in the choosing and prepping of each of these, and without a wink has dug in each time. And if the absence of the ubiquitous, "but I don't want to taste it..." wasn't enough, I'm getting in some precious time with my little guy in the kitchen. Win win? Most definitely. Definitely a cookbook worth having on hand, if only for the gold mine of encouragement at the beginning. After all, what do we as parents ultimately desire? A happy, healthy home. The pursuit of that may be an ever-changing task, but a great place to start is in the kitchen.... Respect your kiddos, earn their respect, make memories, and teach them about this wide and wonderful world when you fill their tummies. (Yes, I gleaned all that from the beginning pages of a COOKBOOK!) :) I'm tellin' ya, it's worth buying. Read more ›