The first thing that jumps out at you about the Peanuts Lunchtime Cookbook is that all three words of the title are compound words, made my combining two shorter words. Oh, okay, it may not be the first thing to jump out at you, but I’m a nerd boy.

This is a cute little book in a format that would seem familiar to folks who have the older Peanuts cookbooks put out by Determined Productions (or more preceisely the paperback editions issued by the Scholastic Book Club). Some of the spreads have a reprinted Peanuts strip about lunch on one side and a simple lunch recipe on the other. Others have a strip facing either another strip or a Peanuts illustration. The book is printed in color, but the strips are in black and white — which makes sense, since most of the strips are dailies, and the books 5.5 inch square size means that the one Sunday is so small it would be obscured by color.

The 18 recipes, mostly culled from the Allrecipes.com website or the Pillsbury Complete Cookbook, cover such things as Egg Salad Spread, Grilled PB&J, Easy Chili, and Minibagel Pizzas. The last two, Overnight Salad and Tuna Noodle Casserole, were favorites of Schulz’s and were provided by Jeannie Schulz.

If you’re expecting everything to be angled for your kids to make their own bagged lunches, you’ll be disappointed. I don’t think kids need the 60 servings of Easy Snack Wraps that the recipe comes to (although it is easy enough that kids could help make it to prepare for a party). The book is aimed at kids, with caution instructions at the beginning. $8.95 for 18 recipes and 34 strips isn’t a bargain on either front, but this is a nice little book nonetheless. And you can order it now for immediate shipping.

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