The search is on for new sites.  Please send me your suggestions.

Recommended

Recommended with Reservations

I have a love affair with the Cook’s Illustrated site, but quite simply they love their white bread, their white sugar and their whole milk.  Don’t get me wrong: when you’ve been raised on that stuff, nothing else is going to taste quite right (and I speak from experience).  But if you’re trying to avoid all of those addictive white powders, then the recipes at this site will trip you up.  Most often they don’t recommend substitutions because then the food won’t taste the ‘best’.  And although there are excellent instructional videos and the recipes are well written there is no way to search for food that is particularly kid-friendly.  This is a great site for adult meals and for adults recipes where you already know what substitutions you plan on making. (Reviewed 8/26/09)

On the plus side, CookingLight.com has an excellent recipe finder.  Note that the recipe finder for this site is also the same for Sunset magazine, among others, and can be accessed by going to MyRecipes.com.  If you have a special diet, then this site is for you.  It is also extremely easy to use, and, by the very nature of the magazine, you are likely to find healthy dishes.  There is also the ability to check a little box indicating that you are looking for kid-friendly meals.  What I don’t love is that when you search, the first thing you see is a list of suggested sites to click on (note to Cooking Light web manager – do you really want people to leave your site?)  and also there is a list of their sponsors to select when using the recipe finder.  It seems to me that CL spends more time promoting their advertisers than reaching out to their readers – and needless to say, it gets in the way of cooking.  I used to subscribe to this magazine, but I didn’t like all of the ads.  (Fair is fair, though.  I’ll give them another chance since it has been awhile.  I will be starting a trial subscription over the next few months to see if the recipes are a hit with Monkey.) (Updated 8/27/09)

Not Recommended

Reviewed the Better Homes & Garden ‘kid food’ site today and was disappointed (disclosure: I am a loyal subscriber to the magazine).  The recipes were buried in a slide show that quite frankly was boring and included directions on how to make a well in flour and how to wrap a burrito.  The recipes were also very standard – breakfast burrito, muffins, popcorn balls – and failed me on two accounts: 1) they were not particularly healthful (lots of fatty cheeses, milk, meats) and 2) the recipes were boring.  On the second charge, it’s not that I was looking for pretty pictures or food that had been placed in the shape of Disney characters, but rather food that resulted in colorful and exciting dishes.  Wraps again?  I think that part of what is wrong with the dietary approach to kids these days is that meals contain all of these same old boring foods.  The New York Times has better recipes for kids than this site.  Why not give your kids food that is a little spicy?  Why not try some iced green tea with a bit of agave syrup?  Why are we holding back on the development of our children’s palette? (Reviewed 8/26/09)