Vintage Children's Cookbooks #2: Fun To Cook Book

Good morning. Tina posting again today. This little book was one of my very favorite cookbooks when I was little. It was first published in 1951 by the Carnation Company, so it is actually an advertising vehicle which uses several Carnation products in the recipes given. I remember it for the darling little red-haired girl and her cute petal pushers. This little book which I am showing you today is a copy from 1971. This book definitely makes cooking look like fun. Especially if you get to wear those Capri's!

Helpful and colorful instructions.

The first page, which I failed to photograph, introduces the little girl as Margie Blake. She is the daughter of Mary Blake (the author) who apparently wrote other cookbooks for Carnation. Margie says in the introduction "When I teased Mother to let me cook, she looked in book stores for a cook book for me. Some books had too many long words. Some books were too babyish and just had play recipes... So Mother decided to write a cook book especially for me and other girls my age... I thought up the name "Fun to Cook Book". I know you'll have fun cooking too." The illustrator is not credited.

This page had 8 important rules to follow "So that I could cook again... I had to learn about cleaning up the kitchen". I could use her in my kitchen, looks like she does a good job.

Safety first!

Fudge Sauce. Yummy! I think I might make this again soon. Nothing like a hot fudge sundae using peppermint ice cream.

The little brother's face abovereminds me of a story about my son when he was three. We lived in an old home on Myrtle Street in Placerville, which had "shotgun" bedrooms. You had to go through his room (directly off the den area) to get to the adult's room. One morning Josh rose early, and exited his bedroom into the rest of the house. He went into the kitchen and decided to do some baking, perhaps to surprise us with breakfast in bed. He went into the cupboard over the kitchen table and found two boxes of chocolate pudding. Then he discovered a carton of eggs in the fridge. Sometime later we sleepyhead parents rose from our bed and tracked him down. There was nicely hardened chocolate pudding cemented by eggs all over everything, including his cheeks, hands, chest... That was definitely a hard cleanup. After that we put a latch high on his bedroom door, so the only way he could leave his room was by going into ours. Soups on, come in out from the cold and warm up!

This sandwich "recipe" tells you to spread your sandwich with butter. I must not have listened, because in our house, sandwiches did not contain butter as an ingredient.

Always a good idea to get your kids making a salad or veggies so that they will be proud and want to eat them. I always have liked salad, and most veggies, so I guessed it worked.

Here are those cute pants again!

Here we go, meatloaf. A man-pleasing favorite, at least at my house. My husband always requests meatloaf for his birthday dinner. I have never used Carnation Evaporated Milk as an ingredient though. I might try it someday.

When I get done here, I am going to make some scrambled eggs with fresh eggs from our neighbors' chickens. They have just started laying, and they proudly gave us a carton of eggs just the other day. I usually just use butter, eggs, and salt and pepper.

My Dad was the champion breakfast maker at our house. However, he liked his eggs sunny side up and the whites still a bit runny. We daughters hated them that way. I developed a lifetime habit of mixing up my eggs with my hash browns so that the runny part was all mixed up with the other parts of my breakfast and I didn't notice it. I now eat my eggs over easy or scrambled to avoid any problem with the whites. Daddy also like hominy... but that is another story.

I love the sound of this frosting. It would be good with some chocolate added.

Whipped Carnation. Now we could just buy some Cool Whip.

My very favorite dessert is pie, so I was happy to see recipes for pie crust.

I would love to try this orange pie. It would be perfect to finish off an Easter dinner.

I've seen some big strawberries, but this is ridiculous!

Cooking is fun, it makes you blurry, and causes you to run around with your Mother!

When I was young, and Lori and Heidi were even younger, I used to play "Restaurant" with them. I would make up a menu for lunch of things I could make, such as tuna or grilled cheese sandwiches, soup, etc., with a few choices, and then they would order their lunch from me. I thought it was fun to cook for them, they got to eat what they wanted, we were all happy.

Shopping manners. I meet people in the store these days who need some. Nothing in here about cell phones or blocking the isle...

Of course there is a page with some advertising. Do they still make Carnation Instant Breakfast? Heidi would know.

Oh boy, I can send for some more Carnation booklets! I will share "Teen Time Cooking" with you on another post.