The Heart of my "Head Start" cooking are good mix cookbooks. I was blessed to receive Make a Mix and Mix a Meal as gifts when I was a young wife. I Learned how to "tweak" the recipes by swapping healthier ingredients like whole wheat pastry flour for all purpose.

My boys loved to help mix the mixes, so it was time well spent for getting ahead! They learned how to properly measure and at the same etime learned about fractions. "Let's double it today." Let's only make half."