if a parents feeds their child a microwave macaroni/curry/lasagne ready meal every night...

[MummikinsOopNorth]

...because she dislikes cooking and is terrible at it, is it bad parenting?

Thanks again Poledra and getorf, you have been very kind.

Flight - I didn't mean to make you feel bad, so apologies if I have hit a nerve but it isn't hard to do basic things and what is stopping you probably isn't anything to do with you not being able to do it, just lacking confidence in yourself to do it. Don't be so hard on yourself, decide you are going to do something nice for tea and choose an easy meal to do to start off with and build up from there. Once you have got more confidence you may find you really enjoy it!
How about simple things like a piece of breaded fish, cooked in oven for 30 mins at 220 degrees C served with some vegetables? It doesn't have to be complicated to be tasty and children often prefer much more simple things anyway!

Please excuse my crap typing in all my posts. Some of my posts are positively cod like.

Display - sometimes those basics are very hard if you genuinely don't have a clue. And if you try to cook scrambled egg, get it all wrong, have the pan on a high heat and destroy the saucepan with stuck on egg, then cry at the disgusting mess you have just cooked (you may recognise the voice of experience in this!) you then think yourself a failure, think ffs I can't even cook scramble egg, I am an idiot, and then you are put off trying anything else - then I can genuinely see why you would be scared of cooking and go for a ready meal.

Flight - it would be a good idea I think to start easy and build up a repertoire of 5 simple meals which you could cook, and then rotate those with ready meals, frozen fishfingers whatever. It is worth giving that Jamie cookbook a look, the language is patronising and I think it is a bit annoying with the stereotype working class thickos who can't cook, however it does explain things from scratch in an easy to follow manner.

Also, the feed your family for a fiver leaflet thingies from Sainsbos are good, they use few ingredients and are easy to follow.

Thanks display.
You're right, it isn't about the actual physical tasks so much as mentally not being able to understand or manage it somehow.

no matter how much practical advice is offered, getting myself to stand in the kitchen and do it is very very difficult...I did have a fairly serious eating disorder in the past, I think it has not quite gone iyswim. I find food and cooking very scary tbh.

Anyway maybe this isn't what the thread is really about. And I don't feed the kids microwave meals very often as they are fairly disgusting...but outside term time, when ds1 has school dinners, I do find it hard to make him anything much, so we do rely on shop bought things such as sandwiches, the odd sausage roll, frozen pizza etc etc
He refuses to eat the things I do make the effort to cook, anyway! Especially if they involve vegetables. It's so intractably constant, having to face the battle every single day...makes me want to walk under a bus sometimes.

Maybe they are busy, maybe they are lazy. At least the child gets fed

GOML - re. the colmans packets - I did exactly the same. I used to buy all the different ones, with the knowledge that at least I was adding my own ingredients so it was home-cooked (IMO!). Now I am more confidant I try to do them completely from scratch if possible. But I think I have benefitted a lot from the realisation that its not necessary to try and cook a complex meal EVERY night. There's nothing wrong with chucking a potato in the oven for a few hours, and grating a bit of cheese over it. Job done. More time for MN!

Thankyou very much Getorf...oh the burnt saucepan!!! (who, me? never!)

I am trying to think what exactly he does eat!
We do fish fingers, with either frozen chips or I make 'chips' by chopping a potato up, and bunging some olive oil over it, then sticking it in the oven in a tray together with something from the freezer...maybe those chicken in breadcrumb things or the fish equivalent or whatever.

There is always pizza, then we have those rice packets you cook in the microwave for 2 minutes...just plain rice...or beans on toast, or a cheese toastie done in the sandiwch press.
Frozen waffles, or garlic bread, etc
Noodles from a packet, with sweetcorn and cheese mixed in

Those are all fairly easy for me. Not great but better than nothing.

Flight, I have cooked from scratch for my children since they were born, and DD2 will refuse any vegetable other than peas, whilst DD1 prefers vegetables to meat. And they've been given the same diet. So sometimes it's nothing to do with the cooking and everything to do with the child being a little bugger.

BTW, did I post on your last thread too? Should I be asking Good Food for a free subscription for pushing their website?

Really sorry you find it so hard FA. Hope you manage to crack it - one small step at a time. I know it doesn't help when the DCs won't eat what you've cooked!!! Many a night I have slaved to make a nutritious tea and DD hasn't eaten a bite .

Flight, that's how I make chips! Now, instead of taking chicken nuggets out the freezer, maybe try this instead? My DDs love getting to shake the bag with the chicken and breadcrumbs in.

X posts with everyone - not only is my tyoing crap it is slow!

Flight - I don;t think you should beat yourself up, and don;t feel that this is your downfall as a mother

Just a couple of meals which I do which are easy:

-chicken thighs, red onion, potatoes, oil, paprika

Peel and chop the onion into quarters, chop potatoes (don't bother peeling the things). Put in a dish with the chicken thighs. Put a glug of olive oil over the top and then a good sprinkling of paprika. Put in overn 180degs for half an hour.

-sausages, ready made mash potato, one of those gravy mix packets

put the sausages in the oven for 40 mins on 160degs. 10 mins in put the mash in the oven according to instructions. 10 mins before end make gravy.

-bacon and mushroom tagliatelle. 6 rashers bacon, punnet mushroom, bottle of tomato and basil sauce, pack tagliatelle.

-fry or grill the bacon for 4 mins each side until crispy. Put some butter in pan, slice mushrooms and cook in butter for 10 mins until golden. Add bacon and tomato sauce. Boil a big pan of water, add a load of salt. Put 3 balls of tag per person. Cook for 10 mins and then drain, add to the tomato and bacon mix.

It is a good idea to break the back of your fear of cooking with some ready made ingredients, like i say have a look on colmans or schwartz packets for ideas as they will (if you are like me) give you confidence.

the key to scrambled eggs is to heat the pan egently with some butter and once it starts to sizzle then tip in the eggs and then watch it while stirring. You can't leave them to do themselves or they will stick. As soon as they start to firm up, keep on stirring until they look the consistency you like to eat them.
It's always a pain cleaning the pan after scrambled eggs however well you watch and stir them, just the nature of the beast!
If in doubt,have the hob on lower than you think rather than hotter than you think!

Alternatively do stuff in the oven - casseroles are only a matter of chucking chopped veg and meat into a pot and cooking for a couple of hours or so at a heat of around 180 degrees. No worries about undercooking meat with a stew that's been in the oven for that long and as long as they have enough liquid to stop them drying out, you are not bound by specific timings either.

Find a way of cooking that you don't mind and just vary the ingredients!

Flight - that's how I make chips too. Sounds like you're doing ok really, also agree with Poledra in that many many children reject vegetables! I find salad gets eaten more than veggies so always keep cucumber, pepper, cherry tomatoes in the house. Plus, a meal doesn't have to be some steaming shepherd's pie fresh from the oven. My DCs love what they call party tea - chopped up bits of all sorts (ham, cheese, salad, bread) for them to help themselves from.

Not sure how old your children are but also maybe they can help you, then it is just another activity rather than "you preparing nurturingly nutritionally important meal for children". I have a friend who has given all her children jobs. So they learnt together how to make say, rice. Then Fred always has the job of making rice. Gives them a role in the kitchen and again, makes it less about you.

I get my DD (7) to make our chicken nuggets as I don't like the gunkiness on my fingers (I have finger/mess issues!). Get 3 plates - 1 with flour, 1 with mixed up raw egg, 1 with breadcrumbs. Get chicken breast, put cling film/foil over top and wallop a bit to make it a bit thinner, cut into strips then get child to dip first into flour, then egg, then breadcrumbs. Fry in a little bit of oil on lowish heat so the outside doesn't burn before middle is cooked. Check middle isn't pink by chopping one in half. Lovely. (she makes them but I fry them).

To be honest flight, don't beat yourself up. I think what the OP refers to makes me think of those plastic pots which you stick in the mic for 5 mins.

But what you are cooking for your dc is cooking, you have just been helped on your way with the ingredients. Nowt wrong woth noodles, sweetcorn and cheese. Plus fishfingers are lovely, as are waffles and garlic bread.

Perhaps because it is an everyday battle it may be a good idea to have a menu, say every Monday you have jacket potato with cehese and beans or whatever and don't differ from it. That way your dc gets used to what's coming, and you can perfect it.

And, just because you're a mother it doesn't mean you have to be a good cook a la Nigella, or even enjoy it. You are doing the best you can, and just because you are not restling up chicken cacciatore for 6 every night withiut thinking about it, it doesn't matter. Even by doing what you are doing you are feeding your dc and he is loved, to be honest notwithstanding all food prejudices any of us may have that is all that matters anyway.

I've found this thread interesting as our first dc is due in 6 weeks and I'm worried about providing nutritious meals every day (obviously a little way down the line...)

My mum was a terrible cook but did try her best to give us a varied diet, even if it was a variation on suasages/alphabites/faggots/oven chips/pizza every night...she still does a roast dinner for her and my dad every Sunday but it's a pretty grim affair with dried out chicken and overboiled veg. I think my lack of interest in cooking must stem from this.

I hate cooking, because, well, I hate eating, food is a necessity to me, not something to enjoy. I barely go in the kitchen, dp does all the cooking (fortunately he is wonderful at it) while I do all other housework...so the ideas here have helped me think about the kinds of things even I could possibly manage.

Slow Cooker!!! That is perfect, especially in conjunction with Coleman's packet. In morning, put in raw ingredients, mix in contents of packet, add whatever liquid packet says (water, tin of tomatoes, etc), then put on 'low' or 'auto' and when evening comes around, you have hassle free delicious food. Serve with either the microwave rice or jacket potato or whatever makes life easiest.

Remember reading something about Nigella and how she said that in her experience, 'crap' cooks often had 'normal' upbringings. It was the girls who had lived through divorce/bereavement/general upset (like herself) that later when they became mothers, overcompensated in the food-nurture-family happiness link. In short, food issues run deep in everyone ...

Thanks Poledra

I'm a crap cook and had a normal upbringing on findus crispy pancakes, faggots, boiled potatoes and over boiled vegetables.

I'm still a crap cook, but my mum thinks I'm a great cook because I can make spaghetti bolognese and lasagna from scratch, and I knew how to cook a courgette (that's about all I can do btw)

i personally would start from scratch witha basic book as suggested: something like Mary Berry's Complete cookery course (now called How To Cook ISBN: 9781405320771)
it has a basic set of recipes that it teaches you to cook, then as you get better you can alter them to suit.

I would also not worry about things like what garlic or herbs do: you can buy a jar of "Very Lazy Garlic" from sainsbury's and use a spoon of it as a bulb of garlic.
herbs: generally i use mixed herbs for almost everything i cook! (it's also cheaper that way)
and you only need a good-sized pan and a wooden spoon for most basic recipes.
and most cooking equipment you can pick up very very cheap in charity shops.

and you can buy frozen chopped onions too.

my favourite food is pizza: i buy those plain bases from Sainsbury's, spread on tomato puree from a tube, scatter grated cheese (which you can buy pre-grated if you want to), and chopped veg on top (again, you can buy that ready chopped in the frozen veg section)

I know cookin gis daunting for someone who doesn't know what they're doing, but it does get easier and quite fun, really.

(ps: i lived on cheese toasties when I was re-doing my kitchen!)

I can't follow a recipe very well, even one from a simple book, I always find i don't have quite the right ingredients and forget to turn on the oven or something first.

and I just cannot make cheese sauce - even if i use special non-lump flour it still ends up lumpy.

And thanks wishingchair!

yes, I remember that. I think read interview with Julie Burchill, who said that in discussion with Nigella, Nigella asked her if she could cook. Julie B said she couldn;t cook for toffee. Nige then asked if Julie had had a happy childhood, Julie was as happy as a sandboy when growing up. Then Nige said to her that in her experience, people who had unhappy upbringings often tried to overcompensating as adults and to create the perfect domestic surroundings, so to be a perfect cook, hostess, etc. Julie grew up to be a crap cook as she was essentially happy and confident and didn;t feel the need to put that pressure on herself.

I know exactly what she is on about. I always go mad at christmas for instance, wanting my house to look like something out of women and home magazine.

or just crap cooks as mothers, getorf....

btw: i love to cook, but i'm actually quite crap at it! i can't actually follow a recipe unless it's got pictures next to each stage, cos i always miss something out.
only the other day, OH and i were cooking something new and it all got burned to the bottom of the pan. I'm very good at getting burnt food from the bottom of the pan (although the food always has a charred taste....)
however, i can do a fantastic Victoria sandwich.
i think everyone can find one thing that they can cook well, and it doesn't seem to matter then if everything else is crap!