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?

I was wondering that too Lynette. What a strange way of describing a pizza. I couldn't decide if I was reading it right or not.

No it does not make someone a bad parent.

DH has always been daunted by the idea of cooking from scratch so I am teaching him - chopping veg, which bits are which, how long things take to cook - he is really enjoying it. He finds casseroles and soups very easy because they are forgiving - you can always add a bit more stock/wine/water if it is getting too condensed, and strain and boil the sauce before putting it back if too runny. Also hard to over cook a casserole and almost anything can be bunged in so very cheap and good use-it-up store cupboard cookery. Plus you can use the cheaper cuts of meat like beef shin or lamb neck which are about half the price of chicken breasts.

So to those of you intimidated by cooking from scratch I commend to you a hearty casserole.

It's Dominos pizza. I was struggling to remember it from a thread a while ago but DH did, bless him for listening to my MN chatter!

The anti-abortionist Dominos owner got bought out in 1998.

Ready meals every night is I feel a bit much, they are handy though for those occasions when it is a rush to get children home from school, then off to an activity.

Mil - Cook book wise, I like some others would recommend the Delia Complete Cookery Course... you can pick up the 1980's version via e-bay quite often.
I also find old cook books are good for learning basics... did you know you can steam fish between two plates on top of a pan of boiling water? Learnt that from a 1929 book.
Online resources are good these days, there are many videos you can follow, including some now featuring a 2 year old child helping which makes it fun to watch - see here. I also use the recipes section on here... I made choc chip biscuits today.

I have a love hate relationship with rice... I love eating it, hate cooking it. Whatever I do it always ends up wrong somehow. These days I don't burn it so often but it can be a bit watery instead. Sometimes I cheat and use boil in the bag, or microwave rice.

Yes GOML - (just checked back in after putting kids to bed) - that was exactly the interview ... with Julie Birchill. Couldn't remember her name, knew she used to be married to that bloke ... whatever his name is ... clearly name recollection is not my thing

I got a Ladybird cookery book when I was about 8. It's fab, still on my bookcase and referred to often. I bought the newer version from the BookPeople recently. It tells you everything step-by-step so you don't need any intrinsic abilities. There is a know-how section and glossary too which explains what boiling... simmering...etc actually mean. Definitely a good buy for any cooking novice, and the best pancake mix recipe I know.

I am not a great cook, but I now know most cooking techniques. To me it is a bit like learning to count - there are only 10 numbers - 0-9 - but they make up all of the others. If you can learn a few basic recipes, you can really do almost anything! Good luck FA and others.

I don't think it is bad parenting AT ALL. But even a poor and uninterested cook can alternate a microwave meal with:
boiled egg and toast
cheese on toast
plain old pasta with (daring) pesto from a jar or just grated cheese and butter
baked potato with grated cheese and baked beans
tin of soup, ham sandwich and cucumber sticks.
I did this for years.
You could go mad and get Jamie Oliver's really easy cook book, too - can't go wrong.

Getting a handle on basic techniques - preparing and cooking veg, making a white sauce, boiling/roasting potatoes, making a simple tomato sauce, cooking pasta etc equip you with the means to make an awful lot of different dishes. And really, how many different dishes do you need? I've got a steady repetoire of maybe 12 dishes that I can cook from scratch without referring to a recipe book (not that there's anything wrong with referring to a recipe book). That's plenty.

Not bad but lazy. There are many tv programmes that tell you how to eat/cook well and there's been a push to get kids eating healthily lately so parents should try more IMO.

I have a friend who is the mum that goes to iceland. She can cook though just can't be bothered. I've eaten some lovely meals from her. She thinks nothing of giving her dd cuppa soup for tea though and thinks packets of noodles are a godsend!

I was brought up with homemade food and cook 90% or should I say dp and I do. Exdh doesn't cook much but he's not a bad parent and he is trying more now. Keeps texting me to tell me what he's made His cooking is usually fresh chicken or meat with a jar and some pasta or rice. Better than prick and ping as I call it though.

Weird. I read the OP as if she thought SHE was maybe the 'bad' parent who couldn't cook. Then she gets attacked for her grammar and user name! MN not a place to come if you are suffering low self-esteem!

I go to Iceland. It's the only place you can get frozen casserole mix veg all year round.

Georgimama that may have read wrong, I mean she buys nearly everything frozen and convenience. I go there too sometimes but shop at morrison's usually...and buy frozen veg it can be healthier than fresh a lot of the time.

No I knew what you meant and there is a lot of crap in Iceland (as with any shop) but it's just the word "Iceland" has become synonymous with crap food. Their frozen veg is really good, and as you say better than fresh a lot of the time (plus it doesn't go off so no waste).

That's good then I think my post did sound a bit patronising but I am funny when it comes to food. Dp is a better cook than me so he's encouraged me to cook even more which is good. Dss are learning too. Ds1 came home from school with his veg and dips he'd done there and ate all that I hadn't managed to pinch off him. Was telling his gran how easy hoummus is to make...bless him he'd taken a pot and mixed in natural yoghurt and chives but it was still good he eats it. A lot of his friends wasted it after the parents had bought the ingredients.
His cooking at school entails tinned apple to make a crumble but still better than nothing and it was nice.

hocuspontas I've found the few times I've come to MN for a bit of advice or just a place to offload, full of MNers just waiting in the wings to attack you for the slightest thing. Tis not unusual unfortunately. It does seem to be ruled by a clique and anyone new here is in danger of 'getting it wrong'.

Kind of puts you off.

Belgo - no not cheese and potato pie but she loves making cornbeef and mash potato [gag]!

Mongolia - you may be right about that. Lots of health conditions don't arise in the first generation of poor nutrition, because they were nurtured well in the womb and because the parental egg/sperm were well nurtured as well. But a lifetime of poor nutrition will inevitably lead to low levels of some essential nutrients, and this could well affect the next generation.

Like some forms of cancer - the first person to get it in a family might have required two strikes at the same gene to cause the cancer; however, if they had the first strike early, they could pass that single strike on to their DC, who would then only need a single strike themselves to contract cancer, hence the familial tendency with some forms.

I learnt a lot from Ready Steady Cook with Fern Britton.

And Can't Cook Won't Cook showed me there were worse cooks than I could ever hope to be.

Hocuspontas, I apologise for making that remark about the OP's sentence.

I wanted the OP to clarify, as the title suggested she was talking about parents feeding their child, but the post suggested it was just a Mother. The answer I would then give would vary. If it was a Mother on her own then she wants ideas about things she can cook quickly and simply as she is not feeding lots of people - there is less incentive not to bung in a ready meal if you're cooking for more people. A remedy might then be batch cooking and freezing (make your own ready meals for 1 plus child). If it was a couple, then they are perhaps in ready meal territory because they cannot cook.

So I did genuinely want her to clarify who she was talking about by rewording the sentence.

But I appreciate that my response was very rude, and I apologise to you and the OP for that.

I'm a single mum and I love cooking meals from scratch. I made beef brisket hot pot today and it was fab.

I occasionally give dd a pizza or chips but hardly ever.

I don't like microwaved food but if mum is busy working then I can see why she resorts to it. Parenting is sooo time consuming.

From what I have read on here, slow cookers are just as easy as microwaves but take planning and hours of cooking. You have to be quite organised and/or a stay at home mum.

I would say pasta, salads, fruit and sandwiches are better than microwaved meals.

It takes barely two minutes to chuck some cubed stewing beef, some stock and a packet of frozen casserole veg in a slow cooker though. Anyone has time to do that.

Should be two sentences: full stop not comma before 'Is it bad parenting?'

OP, you sound like you'd like to be able to dole out the 'ping and fling' sometimes also. It is not a crime, children usually survive.

Apologies if this has already been said, I'm too lazy to read it all.

antiabortionists pizza?? WTF??

flightattendant, you come across as a very loving and concerned parent. Please don't feel bad. I think what you describe is something very different to lazy parenting.

Pasta is your friend - pasta with tomato sauce, add meatballs, chicken if you want. Thats one meal. Pasta with a teaspoon of pesto in with it, maybe some fried mushrooms.

Boil up some pasta, use plenty of water - stick a little bit of oil in the water, leave it to boil for ten minutes or whatever it says on the packet.

Meanwhile, chop an onion, doesn't have to be finely chopped or anything. Heat up about a teblespoon of oil in a pan Fry the onion for about five minutes til its gone a bit soft. Add a tin of tomatos, a couple of pinches of mixed herbs, salt and pepper, you can add some mushrooms too, some sweetcorn and a a tin of tuna.

Mix it up with the pasta, stick it in a dish - grate some cheese on top or buy a packet cheese sauce mix, stick it in a hot oven for about half an hour, or bung it under the grill - tuna pasta bake. Yum yum

I know what you mean about recipe books, talk about making a short story long!! they could be honed down to a few simple instructions. That is why i like the recipes on here, as they are pretty much taken from memory on the whole so they are simple and you don't have to read through loads of waffle to get to what to do.

Also, with the recipes, read them through a couple of times, make sure you have everything to hand - ive lost count of the times ive done the headless chicken dance around my kitchen because ive not read the recipe through first and im trying to do twenty things whilst trying to find a measuring jug