Recipes for 12-yr-old boy to make?

[JanH]

DS2 (not quite 12) is Very Keen on cooking - he learned to make spag bol, fruit salad, apple crumble, incredibly complicated burgers (with bacon, cheese, lettuce, fried onion etc) and a few other things in Food Tech this year.

Now he would like to make other meals and we are struggling to find appropriate recipes. He's not interested in casseroles, he wants to make and then eat; pref things with quite a lot of chopped veg (eg onion/pepper/garlic) and/or tomato sauce in, and mince if poss, he seems to think mince is imperative.

During the Easter hols he wants to make us a complete 3-course meal - puddings can be hot or cold - recipe or cookbook suggestions, please! (I am not at all inventive, I only have a small repertoire (ahem) and make the same things in rotation so no use at all.)

[SenoraPostrophe]

Fajitas!

will find a recipe.

Or cornish pasties (pastry, onion, mince, potato, swede and salt and pepper)

[wheresmyfroggy]

Lasagne is an intersting step up from spag bol and can be made with all sorts of veg as well

[SenoraPostrophe]

this one sounds nice

[wheresmyfroggy]

What about soups for starters, so simple as well

[SenoraPostrophe]

Also you can't beat the Good Housekeeping cookbook for a really good selection of recipes with easy instructions.

Does he want to come and stay with us?

[wheresmyfroggy]

Hmmm lasagna

[WideWebWitch]

What about looking at Delia or Nigella?

[JanH]

Thanks, you two!

Lasagne and tortillas great idea - he's not so keen on pasties - soup good too, although he doesn't like my watercress one or potage bonne femme, will try to find a tomatoey one for him (I have a Cranks cookbook which is good for soup).

I will look for the GH cookbook SP, and put him on a plane to Granada in the next day or so, OK? (Wish we could have a hol there again this year but can't afford )

[wheresmyfroggy]

ha ha show him the nigella website and he may really get into cooking

[SenoraPostrophe]

cornish pasty recipe

or Spanish meatballs ? (highly recommend these - the key thing is to use pork and beef mince - not just beef. You get all the juiciness of pork with the flavour of beef)

[WideWebWitch]

WEll I did think that wheresmyfroggy!

[JanH]

Oooh, www, hi (you weren't there just now) - will check out Delia and Nigella, I don't own any of theirs; I have a couple of Jamies and a Nigel, which we have looked through but not really found anything suitable, and sundry random M&S, Octopus and Aus Women's Weekly ditto.

[JanH]

Meatball recipe looks lovely, SP, apart from "Place the mince in a large bowel."!!!

[wheresmyfroggy]

Meatballs!!! thats inspired senorapostrophe

I used to do them with spaghetti and a tomato based sauce with carrots, onion, garlic, courgette and peppers

[roisin]

What a fab thread, and great to hear that school is inspiring him!
Send him on the train here, he can cook for me
Dh does most of our cooking, and he's on sabbatical from Thursday, and is going to be away quite a bit

[WideWebWitch]

Hi Jan! Can you get him to do all the household cooking?! Maybe not. Mediterranean roasted veg

[WideWebWitch]

ha ha at 'bowel'!

[wheresmyfroggy]

stuffed peppers always go down a treat

[JanH]

Bad luck about DH, roisin - do you have a chippie handy?

Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I have printed off the links and DS2 may be cooking more than one meal while he's off school!

[tigermoth]

racking my brains, here, Janh, as my nearly 11 year old is cooking mad.

At the moment he's with his grandparents in Devon, by all accounts revelling in the River Cottage-ness of life there - picking veg from their garden, gathering eggs, helping MIL with the cooking of said produce.

He likes cooking for us at home, but has never yet attempted a 3 course meal. I know what you mean about instant gratifiction - he will help with casseroles but preferss something he can cook and eat more quickly.

Would your son consider a grand 3 course breakfast/ brunch a possible compromise? my son likes cooking a big breakfast for us all. Or what about pies? he could use already cooked meat like cold roast chicken and add chopped veg, or make a fruit pie. Puddings - bread and butter pudding perhaps (my son really wants to make one of these) Or something rice based, a risotto sort of thing, adding lots of veg and cooked meat and fish. Or grilled lamb chops (ds coats them in a mixture of honey and mustard and herbs) and home made potato wedges (ds loves making these, adds lots of seasoning) and I see someone has already mentioned roast vegetables. I will think on - it's so nice to have a young cook in the family, isnt it? useful too if, like me, you don't exactly adore cooking yourself.

[JanH]

I was thinking about your DS when I started the thread, tigermoth - I remember you saying he loves cooking! I bet he is having a wonderful time in Devon, lucky boy - your MIL sounds like the perfect grandma for a future chef. (Is DS2 there too?)

DS2 has assembled a menu for tomorrow - he wants to do stuffed peppers, followed by fajitas with med roast veg, but I have a feeling that will be too much, even without a pud. I think we may leave the roast veg for another time and have them with Spanish meatballs.

Bread and butter pudding and risotto both sound promising - not lamb chops though (he's really not that keen on meat, hence the love of mince I think) and probably not pie either, unless it has apples in.

He probably would like to do a big breakfast too, I just worry about him and umpteen hot frying pans!

[tigermoth]

....is DS2 there too, you say janh, Ha ha, chance would be a fine thing - that's opening a real can of worms!

roast peppers and fatijas sound promising. Good luck to your son. My son can't wait to start food tech next year.

All the frying pan activity needed for breakfast worries me too. I make sure the floor is dry and unslippery, get ds to wear a huge apron to cover himself up and hover around a bit. So far, no accidents, but I would never let ds do any deep frying. Shudder at the thought of it.

[moondog]

Tjhose Aussie Women's Weekly books are great for ambitious but inexperienced cooks because of the pictures and are not too expensive. I embarked on my cooking odyssey with them, living as we did in close proximity to Oz. (God I was ambitious-had a tantrum at 14 because my phyllo pastry didn't work out, then returned to boarding school where we started cooking lessons with how to make toast ffs!)

Libraries usually have a great selection of cookery books these days, if you don't want to commit to buying. I love Nigel, but think you need a really good feel for cooking to use them effectively. the more didactic Delia approach might do it.
How about meatballs, or kofte, to put a more adventerous Middle Eastern slant on it? Meatloaf as well?
Respect to your ds!!!

[pindy]

Jan H - great to here - my dd is 12 - and sounds just the same as your ds. Certainly gives me a break from the cooking and more importantly - thinking what to cook!!

Good luck to him - my dd has been getting good ideas from this thread aswell - I think she gets a few ideas from other threads to - but that is another story!!!