AIBU to want to teach my sons to cook

[sparkly72]

Mum of 3 boys- eldest 2 (15,10) will do as little as humanly possible in the kitchen, even if they are starving. Youngest (8) is a star, likes to chop, stir, toast etc - I could ask him to do a cold tea for the family and he'd just get on with it.
So I know it's very very unreasonable to let this continue with the older 2, I want to send them off with great skills in the kitchen... so I've decided this year is the year they will learn.

I want to teach them some basics and a few easy meals they can do for themselves... but I don't know where to start!!! Ideas please for meals,but also for motivating them and for how to not make it a chore...

I taught all four of mine the basics before they went to Uni.

I started with stirfries, spag bol, curries, mainly the things they loved to eat.

I doubt they did anything but buy ready meals, but now most of them are on the other side of Uni they're quite good cooks.

Good for you for wanting to teach them this very critical life skill! Have you considered cooking classes for them? Could be fun! At home, you could start with simple things like chopping and roasting vegetables and grilling chicken breasts. Don't give up!

All my children have been/are being taught to cook (20,18,13 and 6). It's a life skill isn't it really. Teach them the basics. How long roughly things take to cook as well as recipes (boiling potatoes roughly 20 mins and test with a knife etc). Encouraging them to help me from very young got them watching and interested. My kids do dinner on a Friday or Saturday night. Make burgers with home cut chips and salsa or spag Bol etc.

I would start with teaching them how to cook something they really love eating.
Does your dh cook?

All four of my boys cook, but I started when they were about 3. It's a basic life skill and allowing them to leave home without the basic ability to feed themselves is surprisingly common but not helping them at all.
You have time though, and I'd suggest starting with pizza. The dough and sauce freeze really well, it's cheap and easy and they can each customise their own part.

Maybe you could have one meal a week where they can have whatever they want, but they have to make it? That's how my boys learnt to bake (scones and basic cakes are easy and they soon move on to fancier stuff). One is now about to start his apprenticeship as a baker.

I started mine with making simple snacks, then helping cook, and now they can cook a meal from scratch and follow a recipe.
The only problem now is they love chilli and I hate the stuff

Mine were 14,11 and 9 when we started a rota - everyone cooks at least one evening meal a week. On the day I did my 'shop' , I'd put a list on the fridge with what "meats" I'd bought, the 'best before' date, and then the days of the week. Whoever got there first with the volunteering / signing up, got first choice (so dc 2 might put their name on Thursday, and put 'mince'). The slower you were to volunteer, the less choice you had, both of days (so if you were getting in late from an after school club, or going out early to a hobby) and of ingredients. So if you wanted the 'bung it on a tray in the oven' option (say pizza night or kievs or something) then you got in first. If you were feeling creative, then you might opt for another main ingredient. I said if they wanted to look up recipes in cookery books (I suppose it would be on line now) and write the ingredients down on the shopping list, then I would buy stuff in, to order.
It made it the easiest job around the house, to get them to do, and I've only ever had to nag since we stopped doing the rota.

I cook with my 7 year old nephew and have done for a couple of years. We started with pizza, including rolling/ stretching the dough and choosing the toppings, then in the last year we have started cooking 'proper' food. It's not that often, but we have made fish pie together (with mashed potato), a chicken and ham pie with flaky pastry (bought pastry) and a very delicious quiche (bought pastry again, I am a terrible pastry maker....) as well as cakes, flapjacks etc. I have him for 2 days every half term and it is his job to cook tea for us all on the first day ( with my help of course).

Agree with BackForGood about a rota, each to cook one night a week.

It doesn't have to be complicated and you can advise from the side lines. Jacket potatoes are a good one and there are a number of possible fillings. Pasta dishes. Cauliflower cheese. Shepherds pie.

My student experience was that those of us that could cook a decent meal on a tight budget we're never short of friends / company!

Try the tesco recipe cards in store. My 8yr old find these easy to follow. Her favourite:
m.tesco.com/mt/legacy.realfood.tesco.com/recipes/elenas-cheeky-tortilla-quiche.html

I taught both my sons to cook. Ds2 is a chef now. Ds1 has his own apartment, doesnt have much money but eats like a king cos I taught him how to stretch a food buck as far as it would go. They are both fabulous cooks.

My Dd1 on the other hand has ZERO interest in learning and is proud she cant boil water. I did try though

Both my older 2 dc have been fairly flabbergasted at the ignorance of some of their flatmates in their first years at University.
Not only in terms of knowledge of cooking a few basic dishes, but things like 'terminology' you might get in a recipe, or what you can add or leave out of a recipe if you havn't got that ingredient, or what you can keep for later, and how to store it, and even whether to store stuff in the dirge or freezer or cupboard, etc. When it matters if you follow a recipe closely or not. I think you need to cook fairly regularly to pick up some of these things, not just learn a couple of recipes before you leave home'.

Both of mine learned to cook -my husband is clueless in this kitchen and I was determined they wouldn’t be! The elder one (getting married later this year) is able to have dinner ready on the evenings that his fiancée works later and he’s home before her, which is as it should be in this day and age. The younger lad is currently studying abroad and cooks proper meals for himself. So no, you are not being unreasonable teaching your sons to cook!

No, it'll be great for them to learn how to cook. Wish I had when I was a teenager - I'm a dab hand now but lived off junk food at uni. If they are reluctant, the teenager in particular may be swayed by the idea that girls like a man who can cook! I learnt from Jamie Oliver's book (Ministry of Food or similar), which is tailored to people who can't cook and written in an accessible way for boys / men.

Teach them everything they can do with chicken and other cheap meats and veggie meals, slow cookers. Best thing my mum ever taught me was being thrifty!

Oldest of 4 boys, we could all cook by the time we were 12. And by cook I mean produce Sunday lunch from scratch, bake our own bread, make meringues, chocolate mousse, mix and fill our own sausages. I can make butter using a 4 pint milk jug, and DB4 is renowned for his hummus. DSIL can shoot, joint and marinade venison, while his home made cheddar filled burgers are a heart stopping wonder. DF, God rest him, went to his grave without giving me his Madras recipe.

I started mine with watching and 'helping' me cook when they were small enough to need a chair to stand on, just like my mum started me. Then they graduated to really helping; chopping, cutting, measuring, and then learning the various cooking methods. By the time they left home they both knew how to cook from a recipe as well as from 'memory'. And they had a repertoire of a few dishes for each meal.

They're both good cooks now and luckily for me, very good gluten free cooks!

Brilliant suggestions thank you!! I forgot I used to make pizza dough with them when they were younger, since dd (4) came along I've been busier and so doing lots more frozen pizza... must get back to making our own.
I cook everything else from scratch, and tbh my kitchen is my peaceful space... I don't like invaders slowing me down... so it's partly my fault that they aren't in there more often helping. I'm going to make a list of things, start building their confidence up and then come winter I might try the rota!

Good for you.

I bloody hate cooking it’s the men in our family who cook so Dh and all my 4 sons are fantastic. My and the teen dds are bloody hopeless. We can burn pasta

Honestly I think it’s great if you like to cook but it’s not a life skill. If the men arnt around we either eat out/order in or buy ready salad, chicken, fish etc.

Life is too short to stuff a mushroom as once said.

Dons hard hat!

Each gets a night, they get some say in the meal. Initially you have to be there helping but not after a while. If they are out / have something on they can agree a swap or cook something freezable beforehsnd as that thinking is good learning too. They should also be involved in clearing up although not on their cooking nights ( to be revisited if one chef uses every pan in the kitchen).

Not cooking classes though unless the parent can’t cook to save themselves in which case they should go too. Just cooking meals at home with parents is learning basic life skills.

I loved cooking as a child & when I left home one of the things I missed was access to my parents recipe books as they lived hundreds of miles away.
Before I could get copies of the ones I wanted, they downsized & got rid of most of their recipe books.
So, I taught my eldest to cook & as we went along made a recipe book which he took with him when he moved out.
It had all the meals he liked through the years although in our case meals sizes are for 2 portions in his book but he knows how to scale them up if need be & we always included information on what could be pre-prepped or frozen on each recipe so when he was at uni he could batch cook curry/chilli/bolognaise etc...
He can cure bacon, make bread, cheeses or jam.
If we made batches of fudge or cakes for school fetes & of course Christmas/birthday cakes, those recipes ended up in there too so he has a basic range of tried & tested recipes for all the normal occasions.

He also got involved with growing plants like fruit/veg when he saw that the seed he planted one month could end up as part of the relish in his BLT a few months later.

I'm starting to do the same with my younger son now so picked up a blank recipe file in the sales.
My older one loved deciding whether a meal went in 'his' recipe book & it got him really engaged with the process of making food.

YANBU to want to teach your sons to cook, I've met adult men who genuinely don't know how to make mashed potato which I still find somewhat unbelievable & you don't want your boys to be like that.

I had to sit my husband down very early on and say I expect you to be able to make tasty healthy meals for us. This means using mainly recipes to get the hang of cooking methods and flavours. It is not enough to throw some food together, make some blah shit and consider it pulling your weight.

I agree with giving them an evening each. Why not let them choose a recipe book each as well.