Bluey and Bingo's Fancy Restaurant Cookbook: Yummy Recipes, for Real Life Hardcover – Picture Book, July 11, 2023

Gave this to my grandson and daughter-in-law. He's still too young for the kitchen, other than putting sprinkles onto cookies (or everywhere but the cookies!), so he'll have to grow into this; but the book itself is very well done and includes recipes from several of the episodes. The omelet that Bingo helped make for Dad's birthday. The cupcakes from Shadowlands. Nana's ice blocks. And even the most well-known food item from the entire series, pavlova. Plus more. It's a shame the pages are going to be splattered upon, it's almost a work of art how they did it.

This Bluey cookbook is such a hit! It’s filled with fun, simple, and easy recipes that use basic ingredients, making it perfect for little hands. The recipes are designed in a way that gets kids excited about being in the kitchen and learning how to cook. It’s a great bonding activity to do together, and my child loves picking out recipes to try. The colorful, kid-friendly layout adds to the fun. Overall, it would make an excellent gift for any child who loves Bluey or just enjoys cooking. Highly recommend!

If there's a child out there that doesn't like Bluey, I have yet to meet them. Our LO loves to help mommy in the kitchen and loves Bluey. This was kind of a no-brainer. Decent and well done recipes plus Bluey = fun. Get it and have some quality time with your LO in the kitchen.

The media could not be loaded. This cookbook is adorable. Well written in full sentences a kid will understand with lots of fun show references! The pages are laminated enough that it’s wipeable. See the greasy butter mess I wiped off Muffin. We had a GREAT time tonight making fairy bread.The only complaint I have about the content is that Aunty Mary’s dressing recipe is lackluster. Just olive oil and balsamic vinegar. But that’s minor. I love that the recipes are doable for the show’s target audience.(I don’t know what other reviewers are on about: there’s 13 simple recipes. My kids can do them, with adult guidance. Yes, it looks like Bingo is cooking, not Gordon Ramsay. But really, this is the beauty of *learning* to cook!)Once we got past the fish and chips, the pages are all out of order. See two other pages between the Pavlova recipe. Hm. I’m hoping this is a one-off and that the whole production isn’t botched. Will update once I receive a replacement.

Daughter loves this book. Feels like a big girl when she helps cooking the recipes.

First off: I'm not the first to mention that this doesn't have the Duck Cake recipe. However, I didn't expect it to. The reason why, in those recipe blogs, you'll see people detail their life story amidst the recipe is because it helps them copyright the recipe. And Duck Cake is a famous Australian recipe from a Women's Weekly book titled "Children's Birthday Cake Book". Fans have found the page about the Duck Cake and posted it online, and I'm not surprised the Bluey team couldn't swing getting that recipe, undoubtedly due to legal reasons.The other recipe's are pretty clever. In total, there's: an omelet (after the Chilli and Bingo omelet episode), "Shadowlands Cupcakes" (after the game of Shadowlands episode), poffertjes (as mentioned from the Tooth Fairy episode), "Nana's Ice Blocks" (that they get at least once in one episode, maybe on more than one episode, in the episodes visiting Nana), "Bingo's Fairy Bread" (which, in this case, is bread with sprinkles; though the title is after the fairy episode, the page is dedicated to Bingo's birthday party handstand), "BBQ Sausages & Capsicum Salad with Aunty Mary's Salad Dressing" (I don't know where "Aunty May" came from, but the rest is obviously after the Bingo episode about "Is anyone going to mention the salads?!"), fish & chips (after the Bluey school episode where she opened a pretend fish-and-chips shop), prawn kebabs (I don't recall what this is from, and the page is mostly dedicated to the magic statue episode), "Pizza Night" (after the pizza oven-buying episode with the gnomes, and it's a recipe with pre-made crust), "Curry Quest" (after the titluar episode of the same name), "Takeaway Spring Rolls" (after the first episode about "not leaving without spring rolls"), ice cream (after the episode where Bingo, Bluey, and Bandit get ice cream after hanging out with Muffin, Socks, and Stripes; it is ice cream-machine optional though that does mean you'll have to convince your kids to let it be for 6 hours in the freezer with no machine), and pavola (after the Bluey's café episode where Bandit speaks random French words). That's it. The rest of the book has a "Safety & Hygeine Tip" page (where one of the safety tips is to have a "grown-up helper" which I liked), a "Fancy Resteraunt" page where you create a menu (aka: starter, main, dessert, and specials), a "Create Your Own Recipe" page, and a "Weekly Menu" page. That's the whole book. Also, every page has a "trifficulty" meter.A lot of these recipes are a bit hard to do with kids, but I think cooking with children is hard regardless. And I think it's sad that people care so much more about the convenience of getting the cooking done over teaching their kids how to cook; I'm in college and a lot of my friends don't know how to cook because it was just easier on their parents to not include them. They just eat pre-processed food. Nonetheless, I do wish there was more recipes in this book (which then could include more Level 1 Trifficulty recipes). I understand why not, because it costs a lot of money to ensure these recipes aren't copies/are commonplace that no-one could copyright them, and then the Bluey team did go above and beyond in drawing assets of the recipe's results inside the book. Personally, I would have preferred photographs of what the end result would look like, but I do like the consistent theming and I think the art is nice. Overall, I wouldn't mind doing any of these recipes with a child more or less than the ones I already do with the kids I've helped babysit and/or are in my family. They're fine enough.Personally, I bought this cookbook because I'm getting sicker as I grow older (I won't derail you with what exactly I have got disabling me, but it is chronic and not terminal, and it is something where I went to bed fine after a mundane day and then woke up sick and never got better) and I have less and less energy as a result. So I was expecting some more Level 1 Trifficulty pages for that reason; just low-effort things for me to make myself, hopefully with minimal dishes as dish-washing is another task that drains me like nothing else with my already decimated energy-level bar, and since I trust Bluey to be fairly healthy, I was like "Why not?". Looking at these pages, it does fail me in that regard as the healthier recipes are not low-effort (it wants an electric mixer for the salad, for example), though some of the less healthy recipes are low-effort and the meals are about as complicated as meals typically go. But this book wasn't made for me, wasn't made for disabled people who need low-effort meal-planning. It was made for kids, and it has a variety of effort-needs for a variety of kids' skill-levels and to help little Bluey fans get excited about cooking. And that's totally fine. I made assumptions, and this book never advertised itself with "Easy Recipes" or "Low-Effort Cooking" anywhere in its branding. I think I probably will do some of these recipes, and I think holding up "Want to make a Bluey omelet with me?" may work as an incentive to teach some low-energy kids a much-needed life-skill; and, like how it happened in the tv show, Abbot Elementary, the Bluey theming may work at helping a kid keep focused and have less outbursts thanks to the special-interest inclusion.Some additional one-note elements about the book I noticed:* It has thick pages, very plastic-y and hard to rip. I've accidentally ripped the tissue-paper-thin pages of cookbooks, as a little kid and even now, and I think this was some cute forward-thinking towards children's clumsiness.* It has a spiral binding! I rarely see that. I had one book growing up that had spiral binding, and I would have to show friends it often to get them to believe me that it does exist. so this was a nice surprise for me specifically, very nostaglic. I think this happened to better support the pages, so they couldn't be easily torn out by a frustrated or experimental child, as traditional book binding is done with glue and thread. (I've never tried it, but I wonder if you could add your own pages to the spiral binding? Maybe that's how you could include a copy of the Duck Cake recipe. Don't blame me if you can't add in another page afterall though. Instead, I'd probably just tape the recipe over the Weekly Menu page. I think it is 1.5 pages with no pictures, and the Weekly Menu page is the last page in the book, so you get that page plus the white-inside-cover of the back-cover. Alternatively, the Fancy Resteraunt/Create Your Own Recipe page is a double-spread in the middle of the book, and could also work as a place to put in the Duck Cake recipe or any other Bluey recipe you might want that is not included here.)* The cookbok does come with a couple jokes, like in its listing for toppings regarding the pavlova, it says not to include ketchup or edamame beans. But for a comedic children's show, the book doesn't have a lot of jokes. I know, in addition to recipe blogs as stated above, cookbooks often personalize their recipes for copyright reasons; and I wish the Bluey team had included more comedy in this book. Instead, it's very focalized on the recipe, which is easier for children I assume. So I'm fine with it, there's a good reason why it isn't a very funny book. I can see a kid just learning to read having an easier time helping call out the next step in the recipe, and I like how the language is mostly simple and then includes bigger words like "edamame" every so often.As the title of my review reads: it's a pretty "meh" cookbook. It's fine. I think it'd make a great first cookbook for a kid, I like that it doesn't talk down to them and that it is easy for them to read and durable for any motor-clumsiness or moments of not knowing one's own strength. It fulfills its purpose well in being kid-friendly that way. What's really the shame is that a lot of parents want cooking with kids to be convenient, even Bluey fan parents and despite Chilli and Bingo having a whole omelet-episode about why that element is rather unreasonable to expect (a) a child to do, period, and (b) an ignorant novice at cooking to be capable of to boot. This cookbook is not going to be an easy manual to help kids cook. They definitely need their "grown-up helpers". But, it does offer a gateway to a variety of levels of difficulty depending on skill-level, it is structured to be within new readers' wheelhouse, and it offers to be catered towards a Bluey kid's already-significant interest. I also wish there was more low-effort recipes here, for my own personal reasons, but that's not what this book is about. I'm sure Chilli would have made something easier than an omelet with Bingo if that had ever been the Bluey team's prerogative. If you want a book with more recipes or more low-effort meals that are idiot-proof, you'll have to look elsewhere unfortunately. I know I will be. But, I also won't be returning this book either. I liked it well enough. It's cute. And I do love showing kids how to cook when I'm around them. I can see my nieces/nephews enjoying me bringing this out. They normally only like cooking with me if it's something they enjoy or something adjacent, like when I showed them how to make "pizza quesadillas" (otherwise they're only around because they like my company and like to be helpful, which is nice, until they want me to be done already so we can play because preparing a chicken doesn't interest them). They're all big Bluey fans, and it'll be cool to show them things that are new to their palettes or takes longer to make yet that they'll be interested in due to it being Bluey-related. I don't think they'll care how many recipes there are in this book or how difficult/easy any one of them is rated. And I think that that's maybe all that matters ♡

Granddaughter loves Bluey! She is only 2 but what a great way to introduce her to recipes and cooking. Nicely made, Easy to read and great recipes.

Cute cookbook. When it came in she and her mom were excited. Recipes are simple and funny. A must for Bluey fans.