need to inspire our nanny

[thewomanwhothoughtshewasahat]

has anyone got any ideas / recommended cookbooks or websites to inspire home cooking? Our nanny is not from the UK and whilst I think she can cook some dishes from her own country I think she lacks confidence and some basic skills that are really useful for cooking for kids. I have a feeling, for example, that she doesn't know how to make a white sauce - I asked her once and she said she did, bit I think she was too embarrassed to say she didn't. And, I think, for example, that she has not really had much exposure to, for example, things like fish pie, shepherds pie, basic beef stew, lasagne etc. So, any ideas? Any good books that teach basic skills, rather than just recipes. I got Annabel Karmel's favourite family recipes and it's not really what I was after.

Delia? Her big cookbook is very clear although she doesn't always take the cheap and cheerful route. I also swear by the Australian Women's Weekly - they have a couple of fairly cheap paperbacks covering range of different topics. I have the Basic one which is good for, e.g. scones and sponges. Lindsey Bareham has a student cookbook, and I think she is a very good cookery writer, tasty but quick.

sam sterns teenage cokbook
you will not be disappointed

also edmonds NZ cookbook

The dinner lady is the book she needs...

Loads of yummy recipes for food that i would describe as 'normal' and typically english.... aimed at kids!

Its such a great book!

What about Delia's "How to Cook" books - she even outlines how to boil an egg

thanks everyone. I think I need to get myself to a bookshop and have a flick through these. I tend not to bother and to buy everything off Amazon - hence the Annabel Karmel, which is nice enough, but not what I was after. I do wonder if it might also be productive for me to take some time off work and show her some basics myself. I'm not a weighing and measuring type cook and I kind of want to give her the confidence to use cookbooks for inspiration rather than close recipe following iykwim. She's confident doing cakes but main meals tend to be sausages and fishfingers.

TheJoy of Cooking. While it has an American slant to it, it offers basic cooking skills in everything from roasting to sauces. Covers all the basics.

Now, getting her to read these books may be a completely different kettle of fish. Good luck!!!!!!!!!

Aside techniques, to get to grips with home cooking she'll also need to learn to think ahead as to menus/ingredients/timing etc. - hence the sausages and fishfingers, perhaps: they're there and they're obvious and you know what to do with them, whereas cauliflower cheese (say) needs planning.

So if I were you, I'd put together a list of suggested dishes for her to work with.

Bink's idea is good. I would also establish guidelines, such as they are to eat at least on fruit (not juice) and one veg (potato is not a veg) per day, one serving of fish (not fish fingers) per week, no cookies before lunch, etc.

I got fed up with my last nanny "forgetting" to include vegetables in meals so I now menu plan for the children each week. I then talk through with the nanny the meals for the week and make sure she knows what to do - they're not particularly complicated and I point her to recipes for things that she's not cooked before. It works well for us, the children get some element of choice but not on a daily basis when they have to eat what they're given, the nanny knows what to cook and I know they're eating the food I want them to eat.

DO you want your nanny to spend more time in the kitchen cooking (and trying to translate cook books or is she english and not from the uk!) or spend time looking after the children!!! Or does she have time during the day to be able to cook??? Or why don't you prepare extra food when you cook for you so the children can eat what you eat (hoping that you don't eat fish fingers). if you want her to cook why don't you teach her few basics things yourself, I think it will be easier for her to learn if she isn't a great cook herslef!!! Good luck, I know how important it is to feed our little one in a healthy way

sunandmoon it is a misconception that homecooking takes longer/requires more attention than fishfingers and sausages. I can rustle up home made pizza or macaroni cheese in less time than it takes to cook fishfingers. tbh the guidelines are there (ish)- and they have fresh vegetables with every meal. And I don't mind sausages and fish fingers as such. The main problem is the lack of variety. She's also not totally unopposed to planning - she often does a shopping list for next week - but it's usually baking ingredients plus tomato ketchup which dh and I hate so never buy unless prompted. So the principle of planning is there, (as is the home cooking - we get a cake most weeks!)just need to work a bit on applying it to main courses! I think though you are all right that I need to talk to her and be a bit more pro-active in suggestions. The girls have a freezer drawer full of dd-sized portions of mince/chicken/fish etc. I think sometimes i just need to get something out of the freezer and suggest what to do with it, rather than just leave her to decide. she's a lovely nanny btw and the girls adore her.

I agree with you, you should help her out choosing the meals. You seem to have a wonderful nanny ant it is so important that your girls adore her. I think after a week or two giving her some cooking advice would work and then you should let her practice on her own for 1 week or 2 and maybe give her more ideas few weeks later and so on ... Not everybody can learn cooking by reading cooking books so help and practice always should work better!!!

Speaking as a tentative, follow-the-instructions cook, please don't go mad trying to get her to cook in your non-weighing/measuring style - it may just make her more stressed.
I am rubbish at making white sauce - I fret and panic and get lumps - so I just don't make it, and use yoghurt, fromage frais, grated cheese etc instead.

Books I've found helpful are (titles are not exact) Ainsley's Quick Dinners, BBC Easy Suppers, and the Dairy Cookbook, which is like a basic primer on how to cook, including stuff like dealing with fresh fish, what cut of meat comes from where, basic recipes with variations etc - Good Housekeeping do a similar one.

But my absolute top recommendation is Mary Berry's The New Cook - it's a DK with a photo of every step of the recipe so if you don't get all the nuances of the English, the pics will really help. Has a good variety of recipes too - her bolognese is the favoured one chez Badger.

DH is an instinctive cook and we have to cook seperately in our own way, else he tries to help me and gets cross when I say 'add half a pint of stock now'; or I try to help him and get panicked when he says 'slop it in till it looks right'.

I would also recommend - ahem - Nigella's How to Eat (I got it as a freebie, OK?). It has the stuff like how to make a white sauce (I didn't know) and also a helpful chapter on feeding kids.

[shame]
I love the mashed potato with peanut butter and coconut cream recipe in the Nigella - could eat it for Britain.
Find the recipes hard to follow due to lack of easy bullet points though.

point taken Mrs B. maybe that's why she likes cooking cakes (even I weigh out cake ingredients!)but mashed potato with peanut butter and coconut ewwwww. I have had a suspicion that she is not of this planet ever since I saw her claim that its easier to make marmite sandwiches if you get the blender out and whizz the butter and marmite together first. potato and peanut butter and coconut has confirmed it. Beyond Doubt.

I was wondering - when you mentioned cooking dishes from her own country, perhaps she could do a list of those for you? - it might be an interesting exchange?

And then, of course, you could put both your own inspirations and hers on here and we could all Steal Them (gratefully, of course).

An easy veg option we do is chop up spinach and put it in scrambled eggs. Takes 2 seconds and we have veg in the kids by 7:00am. Best served with orange juice for optimum iron absorbtion from spinach.

You can get frozen chopped spinach from tesco.

absolutely Bink. I think she probably feels nervous about suggesting this. I ought to take the initiative. Though we do have Czech biscuits and jelly cake....