To be ashamed of my family's eating habits and to ask for help in how I can learn to cook

[MrsSeanBean1]

I am married with a 2 year old DD and a 4 week old DS. I have always hated cooking and been absolutely hopeless at it. Ever since I left home in my mid 20s I have lived on ready meals and eating out (I am now 37). Now that I have finished my family I really want us all to get fit and healthy, particularly as I am suffering from health anxiety due to many of my family members being diagnosed with cancer over the last few years.

Both my husband and I are overweight, I am actually very obese. When I had my much longed for DD I vowed that she would never suffer with weight problems like I have all of my life (I was always rewarded with food and now have a very unhealthy relationship with it). I have done my very best to stick to that and my DD eats very healthily. She loves fruit and veg, and I cook her a very basic organic meal every evening. Usually this is pasta, veg and a cheese sauce or potatoes, veg and meat. These meals are very plain and boring (no salt, seasoning etc.) so my husband and I don't fancy it. This means that we end up with a quick ready meal after my DD has gone to bed. I can see how ridiculous this is as I am 'cooking' for my daughter so could easily cook for everyone.

I never learnt to cook at school. I went to a very academic girls grammar school who did their best to keep girls out of the kitchen so home economics lessons were very few and far between. I would love to learn now and have looked into cooking courses at local colleges but cannot find anything suitable. Most basic cooking courses are aimed at people with special needs or are more specialised. I just want one to teach me everyday healthy family recipes.

I have enrolled on my local Why Weight? programme for new mums to lose weight and have been trying to draw up a weekly menu as a starting point. However, I am finding it so hard. At the moment, over 7 days of evening meals, I have 1 red meat dish, 2 chicken dishes, 1 salmon dish, 1 white fish dish and 2 vegetarian dishes. I think this would be balanced but I really have no idea. I now need to find a recipe for each day and learn to cook it! I really don't know where to start.

I have also looked online for any online cooking courses but can't find any. They all seem too complicated. The only time I've ever cooked successfully is when I followed Gordon Ramsey's Cook Along Live. I found that really good.

Can anyone suggest a way forward for me or am I beyond help?

Try Jamie's Home Cooking Skills website - my son used it for life skills at school and it's really good. Good recipes that you'd want to eat, made fairly simple and with lots of instructions/pictures too. Here's the link: www.jamieshomecookingskills.com

The website cheap family recipe's good as it gives you the shopping list, planner and recipes:
www.cheap-family-recipes.org.uk/
There's a meat and a vegetarian option

Home made chicken satay skewers are easy, chop up some chicken and marinade for at least 30 minutes before putting on the sticks and grilling until cooked. I use 2 tablespoons of crunchy peanut butter, 1 clove crushed garlic, 2 tablespoons dark soy sauce, 1 tablespoon tomato purée, 100 ml pineapple juice and dried crushed chilli flakes to taste, they are easy and delicious!

I really recommend Amanda Grant's "The Toddler Healthy Eating Planner"

You can ignore most of the 'planner' stuff, but it has some really good, VERY simple recipes that are good for the whole family - while giving you some reassurance that everything is appropriate for your daughter.

Thanks for all the ideas everyone. I am going to try doing an easy chicken korma next week definitely. All of my recipe books have arrived today so I am going to go through them tonight and identify some easy recipes for next week.. I am then going to create a menu and list all the ingredients I need before doing an online shop. I am quite excited, if very nervous about it!

Good luck, I'm glad you are excited about it.

Mumsnet HQ

Thank you so much for offering to send me a copy of the new Mumsnet recipe book. It is so so kind of you and I really appreciate it. Mumsnet has been absolutely brilliant and so supportive of the life changes that I am trying to make for my family - I couldn't do it without the support I have received on here.

Thanks again xx

PM me and I'll send you a free copy of my Austerity Housekeeping eBook if you promise not to pass it on. It's got menu plans and simple classic family recipes in there, and it's been checked over by MNetters. If you are impatient the website's here with lots of the material for free:

Austerity Housekeeping

BTW grow fresh herbs and add then to your food, to educate your palate. Ready meals will have deadened it.

Boffin

Glad you mentioned your book, I've been meaning To ask you if it will be made available in iTunes? I can't seem To download it on my ancient iPad. I'm not even trying To Get it free!

AdoraBell I don't know, I put it on with Amazon as that meant I could do MN free offers every month or two if I kept it exclusive, but I suppose I could put it in multiple platforms. I will have to work out the pros and cons of that. But I do know if you download the Kindle app to your iPad you should be able to download it from Amazon easily (I got people to test that). Why not give that a go?

Thanks Boffin I'll try that.

Whenever I want to cook something new, I always google the recipe from Delia Smith.

They're normally quite simple good old fashioned recipes.

Good luck OP. Don't worry about making mistakes...it's all trial and error and it can take many attempts to tweak a recipe to your liking.

Oh, and don't be afraid of a bit of salt and pepper. There's nothing wrong with it in moderation and food imo mostly tastes shit without it.

Update for AdoraBell, yes you can definitely read any Kindle book on any device if you use the Kindle app, I just checked. I have decided not to put it on other publishing platforms just at the minute as it means I will be prevented from giving it away to MNetters from time to time.

BTW I have just been fiddling with a slightly updated edition, so wait for the cover with the image of a chair on it to go live, rather than the blackberry image, and you'll have an ever so slightly better version. It takes them 12-24 hours to process the changes.

A very easy recipe for soup, which is healthy and involve very little preparation:

Roast veg

Big bag of the cheapest tomatoes you can find.
2 red peppers
2 large or 4 small onions
About a litre of vegetable stock.

Wash the tomatoes and cut each one in half. Cut each pepper in half, remove the stalk and the seeds. Peel the onions and cut in half. Put the oven on and heat to 220 degrees (gas mark 8).

Next take a large roasting tin, put about a tablespoon of sunflower or olive oil on the baking sheet, put all the tom, peppers and onion on the tray, then use a pastry brush (if you have one or just use a piece or scrumpled kitchen roll) spread the oil over the veg.

Put in the oven and roast for about an hour, until everything is really soft (poke with a fork, if the onions and pepper are soft then it's done). If it goes brown too quickly turn the oven temperature down by 20 degrees or so.

Next, (if you have a stick blender use that, or any blender, or even a potato masher) put the vegetable mush into a large saucepan and either mash or blend till smooth (ish) or blend in a blender. Slowly add the stock stirring until it looks soup like. Reheat and serve with bread and cheese (this is now making my mouth water!).

I hope this is a clear enough explanation?

Hope this helps.

Let me know if you need any help.

Meant to add, the stock is usually quite salty, so there isn't any need to add more, but some black pepper and about a teaspoon of dried herbs should be added with the stock.

Thank you Boffin

Here, good on you, it sounds like you have got a lot of difficult things going on and so well done for getting on the healthy eating wagon. I am a crap cook and am married to the fussiest eater in the world. We've both joined Slimming World, and it has been very good. As far as cook books, someone suggested the Hairy Bikers weight loss books - they are very good indeed. One-pot things are great, and I find it easier to make a big pot of something after we've had our dinner, then that does us the next two nights. I hate cooking dinner when I'm hungry, and also tend to snack more when cooking if I'm starving. Mashed potatoes heat up well, or it doesn't take long to boil pasta or rice when reheating dinner. Jar of Dolmio (or similar) is a quick and not-to-calorific way to make bol or lasagne. I portion out mash with an icecream scoop (stop, I know, school dinners) and then you can freeze the scoops and thaw a couple when required. Big pot of soup, whizzed up, scoop of mash in each bowl makes it lovely and thick.
Good luck and all the best with everything.

Peanut chicken recipe that is reall easy www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipe/cheeky-chicken-satay

Three dishes out of one bolognaise recipe here. You can freeze the other two if you like, defrost them overnight in the fridge or heat them up in a pan before use.

Weekend Cook Fest

BBC Good Food has a series called "Maisie Cooks" - she's the daughter of one of the contributors. It's online. It's aimed at kids, but offers step by step guides to complete meals, introducing new kitchen skills each months

Week's menu plan

Week 1 Shopping List

Fish Stew recipe

Week 1 dessert recipes

Week 1 fruit torte recipes

Those posts will start you off for the first week, if you have a bit of time to put by for cooking. If you need any more specific instructions let me known, but the BBC Good Food website has fantastic recipes and is my first port of call when I am feeling uninspired or need ideas how to use new ingredients.