I've been looking for stuff like this after reading "Cooking Comics" (by Lauren Thompson (Author) and Tsukuru Anderson (Illustrator)). It's a graphic novel/comic book but what's nice about it (beyond being aimed at beginners) is that they have this nice, systematic approach.

Start with stock, talk about why it's important and how it's done, move on to soups, demonstrate two types of soups, etc, etc. Each one has a simple recipe (and the ones I used worked well)

After reading it I'm totally jazzed about a 'cooking school textbook' sort of approach :)