What can your 10 year old cook?

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Right - ds is 10. I want him to start cooking dinner one night a week or so.

He's a bit cack handed dyspraxic , which scares me (knives! kettles! heat!), but I need to get over my fear

So, do we have any suggestions for dishes that aren't too complicated or faffy but will give him a sense of satisfaction? What can/do/did your 10 yos cook?

My 8y does cooking lessons at school. One afternoon a fortnight for a term in years 4-6. But we mainly cook at home.

She'd love to do a proper course though.

When I was young my mum involved me in cooking and taught me some basics like making a tomato sauce which then was the base for other things...pizza topping, bolognese, shepherds pie etc etc. Another basic was a cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese, fish pie, cheesy pasta... I learnt how to make bread, cakes and biscuits so by the time i moved away from home I was pretty self sufficient. I see her now doing the same things with my 5 year old and I love to see the pleasure that she and my daughter get out of sharing the making of good food together.

That's lovely Mamahotfoot

Well done to Dolanette's dcs. Bet you had a proud mummy moment? :)

why not get some plain pizza bases from the supermarket, and let him do the sauce and toppings? to make it easy, he could just smear tomato puree on the base, grate cheese, tear ham, sprinle dried herbs etc

After reading this thread I decided to let dd (10 and dyspraxic) more loose in the kitchen. I asked her what she wanted to cook tonight, she said veggie stew and dumplings. I found a recipe for her and she did it all apart from getting it out of the oven. Very proud and will definitely be giving her more opportunity. She was completely made up about it, and needs a confidence boost at the moment so it was great timing. Was yummy too :)

Oh that's fab, mad :)

Ds made tomato sauce last night (based roughly on Sam Stern - I know how to make it of course but Sam's the man at the moment) - I chopped the onion but he cut the carrot, celery and garlic and blitzed it in the whizzer. He insisted on opening the tinned toms (which was painful to watch, but I'm a little bit proud of myself for not taking over - babysteps!).

Utterly know what you mean about finding things to give them a confidence boost, mad. Ds's friend popped over briefly whilst he was cooking and ds was very proud of the fact that he was making dinner.

DS aged 10 made lamb and veg kebabs on a bed of rice today.
I supervised but he did all the cutting and stabbing and turning the kebabs. They were lovely. :)

Good stuff :)

Well, ds made spag bol (Sam Stern again - I know how to make a bolognese but as before, Sam's a bit of a hit and ds likes to follow a recipe rather than listen to his mother) on Saturday. It was huge, so he's turning the rest into lasagne tomorrow.

He also made the chocolate biscuit cakes in the Usborne book, which arrived on Saturday. It's a nice enough book - more conventionally a children's cook book iyswim but it goes well with Cooking Up a Storm imo (although this is for a 10yo - I can't see a 12 or 13 yo being terribly impressed with it).

I can't get over how enthusiastic ds is about cooking now - fingers crossed he'll be at least a bit as keen in a month or so