Main meal ideas for DD (12) to get started on

[OrangeSunset]

I’ve just started studying alongside working, which gives me an excellent reason to enlist DD to cook the tea once a week.

She’s pretty good at baking - self-sufficient with recipe, mixer, oven etc. but will always go for sweet over savoury if given a choice. Can knock out beans on toast etc but that lunch in our house, not tea.

Any suggestions of good, quick main meals? We’re mainly veggie.

Am thinking
Pasta and fresh sauce
Risotto (maybe boring, all the stirring)
Noodles/egg fried rice

Pasta and home made pesto
Curries using a pre made paste
Fried rice with whatever you’d have with it

Fahitas
Lasagne
Spag bol

Baked risotto is a lot less tedious.
Omelette with salad
Soups
Baked potatoes
Vol au vents with mushrooms in white sauce
Ratatouille with rice or bread

You can do risotto in the oven with minimal stirring, would that help?

I've been meaning to get my kids to try this one from the Doctor's Kitchen - greek stew with orzo. He has lots more one pot veggi ones which would be easy to try

Home made pizza (given she’s good at baking - or start off with bought bases?)

Omelette or Spanish omelette?

Fajitas?

Roasted vegetable soup (carrot and butternut squash is my favourite)?

By the way, I don’t understand this whole stirring risotto thing. I make a lovely risotto with almost no stirring - put in about 90% of expected liquid at start, leave for while then few minutes before expect to be ready I pop back and decide if more liquid needed and add any last minute ingredients. Tried it once the traditional way and tasted exactly the same.

Butter bean and veg crumble www.deliciousmagazine.co.uk/recipes/vegetable-and-butter-bean-crumble/
Mexican peppers www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/mexican-style-stuffed-peppers
Naan pizzas realfood.tesco.com/recipes/naan-bread-pizzas.html
Frittata realfood.tesco.com/recipes/oven-baked-frittata.html
Microwave chilli www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/microwave-chilli

Both my kids can do this amazing pasta bake:

Boil pasta of your choice or use fresh.
Mix passata with a dash of olive oil and cream
Season with herbs of your choice (e.g. Oregano, Rosemary, ...) and pepper or chilli flakes.

Place in a baking dish, mix and sprinkle with cheese. Bake for 20 minutes. Serve with salad or garlic bread.

Make it more ingesting by adding cherry tomatoes (halved), chopped onions, mushrooms, ....

Stuffed mushrooms are fairly simple.
Veggie sausages and mash.
How about tray bakes? This is a good Haloumi and Mediterranean veg one.
A mixed bean and veg chilli is easy particularly if using canned beans. Serve with baked potatoes or tortilla chips for zero effort sides.

Tray bakes usually offer a nice meal with minimal effort so can be a good place to start. How about this Vegetarian Sausage Traybake?

Keema.(a curry that uses minced meat).
Or chilli/burritos.

Cookbook wise, we recently got the James May Oh Cook book. It's supposed to be an easy one. Our 9&7yos are finding. It straightforward enough to follow.

Agree with traybakes, Dd (same age) is much better at assembling everything first and then sticking it in the oven - much easier than coping with different timings, especially if it takes longer to prepare some bits than you were expecting.

Dd has made quite a few things out of The Quick Roasting tin cookbook, which has plenty of vegetarian recipes.
Particular favourites are a meatball "pizza" tart, a goat's cheese tart (both with ready made pastry), a couple of curries, and various pasta/gnocchi bakes.

Soup? And if she likes baking, homemade bread to go with it?