Stirring up fun with food Over 115 simple, delicious ways to be creative in the kitchen

She may be best known for her role as Buffy in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but actress Gellar proves that she can also slay in the kitchen with her debut cookbook. Gellar and coauthor Russo offer more than 100 recipes that will not only get parents excited about cooking but the kids, too. Gellar and Russo knew that if they were going to get their kids to eat food that was good for them, they would need to get their kids involved in the cooking process. But, as they say, why cook when you can craft? So together, they came up with recipes such as Apple Pie Pops, Tortellini Batons, Snowflake Pizzas, and S'mores Parfait. These recipes and 100-plus more offer fresh ingredients and a fresh take on traditional cooking. With carefully curated recipes for every month of the year, as well as different holidays, parents and kids alike will enjoy seeing what kind of fun they can cook up in the kitchen all year long.--Wathen, LynnDee Copyright 2017 Booklist

Buffy the Vampire Slayer star Gellar's path from teenager to young mom is a trajectory undoubtedly mirrored by many of her fans, and they have a treat in store with this book, which goes beyond the merely aspirational and Pinteresty with blueprints for natural foods made from scratch that also manage to be cute and clever. Vegetables are allowed to be their own delicious selves, as in baked crunchy green bean "fries." For each month, the proverbial busy mom gets a meal's-or a party's-worth of simple recipes that hang together. Some have show biz links, such as July's Shark Week menu or May's Star Wars menu (Gellar and husband Freddie Prinze Jr. voiced characters in an animated version of the franchise). Recipes are solid, thanks to coauthor Russo's Martha Stewart Living background, and are as tempting for adults as for children-if a little weighted toward muffin-size versions of staples such as macaroni and cheese and shrimp lo mein, and a cheerful variety of food-on-a-stick that includes Caesar salad and latkes. Agent: Dan Strone, Trident Media Group. (Apr.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.