It's taken me ages to post this, but I really need some help

[Flgihtattendant]

Sorry to sound like an eejit

but I have NO idea when it coems to cooking.

It's been Ok all year, ds has had school dinners so just a sandwich after school plus fruit, etc has been Ok.

However. It's the hols, ds2 is slowly weaning off the breast and starting to eat proper food - atm I can give him some of my supper, but ds1 really needs feeding properly.

I have a history of eating disorder - ie I find it v v difficult to think about food, buy it, prepare it, or, well, eat it - I manage for me but only with the help of frquent shop-bought sandwiches, frozen pizzas, ready meals and chocolate so on. This isn't good enough for the kids, obv.

Please can anyone offer any ideas - I'm not averse to making stuff, but have genuinely NO idea how and every recipe book I've bought has a huge list of fiddly little ingredients and I just can't cope.

I need simple, REALLY simple meal ideas - I can make fish fingers, baked potatoes, can't do mash as I don't know how and I know how to boil pasta, usually add peas to that, but then no idea what to use for sauce.

I made the first dinner of the hols last night, using quorn mince (frozen) as I am mainly veggie and don't trust myself with raw meat cooking - simmered it after frying in olive oil, with some carrots and greens and a tin of chopped tomatoes. I liked it, but the veg was almost raw and ds didn't like the quorn.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed and please don't laugh at me - I know it's about time I learned.
Thanks xxxx

Right, brilliant - tesco pesto it is. I can't afford to be snobby about it - what I ened to do is incorporate food and cooking into the way of life round here. That's the stumbling block really - i'll do anything NOTto be in the kitchen (despite having just got a lovely nigella breadbin from TKMaxx! Undeservingly! I will just go and stand in there looking at my breadbin till I feel the urge to cook)

If you like Nigel, try his '30 minute cook'

Yummy recipes that are obviously quite simple as you can prepare and cook them in half an hour

Thanks Muffle, Ok I understand about the pink thing now, that's one more problem solved. (finally!) why did I not think to ask someone? Bonkers.

Buying the ready prepared steaks might be a good way to do it, actually. That saves having to store a big cooked thing in the fridge doesn't it, too.

I'm ultra careful about contamination so no worries there, yes cutting over the pan is a great idea - thankyou. Worktops etc bother me in that respect as I never know if I've cleaned things right.

Ok so it's looking quite good now.

I can do baked pots in the microwave and will convince ds to eat them, he does at school, but not here...yet. (mwah ha ha)

I'll buy some pesto
grate cheese instead of adding it to things in slabs, that's never good...
Can do chicken at least once a week, with mashed potatoes and carrots/veg (thanks BIWI)
Omelette (Thanks Huw) with sweetcorn maybe?

one night can be fish fingers, beans, mash
one night pasta with sauce (from a jar maybe or tomatoes/veg)

One more thing - at lunchtime is it ok to give them sandwiches? I try and do peanut butter with salami, or ham, or emmental type cheese slices.

i guess there is always beans on toast or cheese on toast as well.

I'll look for that Bernard. He is a sweetie isn't he.

pasta parcels - bought of course - with different fillings

chop a couple of tomatos finely chop a quarter of a n onion dollop of pesto - and olive oil - add to pasta a nd swish.

also i know that 'infused' olive oil is a bit expensive - but it does add to the taste if you buy say chilli olive oil

Yes, I love Nige

Sarnies are FINE (the dds have them most lunchtimes)

Cheese, ham, tuna, egg, humous, peanut butter, marmite... all popular

With some carrot sticks and cherry tomatoes it makes me feel satisfied that it's a reasonable lunch

brown suasages ( veggie or not) in frying pan.

stick into a pan with a can of chopped tomatos - let it simmer for ages - stick of a plate with whatever you like

Hi Flight
Search on here for some of Lucysmam's threads- they were brilliant (in Food and in Recipes) ...
She was basically starting from scratch, improving variety, economising, learning new recipes and techniques. I learnt a lot from them, and I've been cooking for 25 years!

Menu planning is really really useful, cannot stress how much. It saves time, energy (I can never decide what to make on spur of moment), money (you don't waste stuff). There are lots of threads on here with meal suggestions too, and in fact the recipe section now has a meal-planner function built in (click 'recipes' at the top of a talk page)

Oh- and get them involved... my dd (3.5) cuts up mushrooms (with a table knife, not a sharp one), watches every stage of the process, gets to nibble bits as I chop (tomato, pepper, courgette, whatever) - gets them really interested in what they're eating because they feel as though they've made it

Make double of things like chili, curry, spag bol sauce, so that you can freeze half, and save the pain of cooking another day

You only need to be able to cook a few things and shop cleverly to have quite a range of dinner options. I think two really useful things to know how to make are a tomato sauce and a cheese sauce.

I can rarely be bothered to cook a tomato sauce and buy it in jars. I am currently liking Jamie Oliver's sauces as they look a bit more homemade . You can put tomato sauce on pasta, add cooked mince to it (you'll know it's done because it goes brown!), pour it over chicken/fish and bake in the oven.

This is my really easy cheese sauce (you can use this for macaroni cheese, cauliflower/broccoli cheese, add bacon/pancetta to it for pasta, or add cooked onion and garlic to the sauce and pour over sliced potatoes and bake in the oven for 20 mins.

Take a knob of butter (about a teaspoon or so) and warm it in a saucepan. Then stir in some plain flour using a whisk (about a desertspoonful). If you are nervous take the pan off the heat to whisk in the flour and add a little bit at a time until the butter has been absorbed by the flour. It may look a bit stringy. That's ok.
Then add a bit of milk, whisking well. You want to add about a quarter of a pint for the measures above. You need to add the milk gradually, whisking all the time and when the butter/flour mix is still warm. You can put it on the heat to warm it and then take it off to add the milk if you like.
Then once the milk is added - warm the sauce through and you should notice it is thicked. You have now made a white sauce.
Once the mixture starts to bubble take it off the heat and add some grated cheese. Prob about 200g but you can add more or less to taste.

You can also add some cooked onion and garlic to the cheese sauce, or a bit of caenne pepper or nutmeg to taste. Just remember to add a little at a time and taste with a teaspoon.

HTH

Easy pasta sauces (my after work staple)

• If you see Lloyd Grossman sauces on offer, buy them. They are v. nice, but at a pinch any bought basic tom sauce will do and you can add veg (sliced peppers, onions, mushrooms - saute them a bit first)

• Homemade tomato sauce: saute some chopped onion in oil until softened, add any other veg you fancy, add tin of chopped toms and and a splash of balsamic vinegar or a teaspoon of sugar and cook down until it has thickened. If you're in a rush you can add a spoonful of flour to the veg and stir in before you add the tomatoes.

• Quick cheese sauce: Creme fraiche heated and then add grated cheese to melt into it.

• Pesto. Bought is fine. You can add some cooked green beans or peas and a spoonful of cream cheese if you like

Custy those two are great especially the sausages one - I usually do them in the oven (veggie ones) so in a pan might be quicker too.

Hi Each Gosh haven't seen you for a long time

Good plan to let him cut things, he keeps wanting to help. I will look up those threads, it sounds like a sort of masterclass...

Can I ask please about freezing and reheating stuff like that? How would you do it - wait for it to cool, and then put in a box in the freezer? Then what - how do you reheat things>? Do you just put them straight into a pan and let it simmer for a few mins or is there a rule about it? Obv I wouldn't do it with anything containing meat at this stage, am far too goggle eyed to cope with that.

Flight - which Nigel Slater book have you got? All of them have some brilliant, simple recipes in but Real Food is really, really good.

Brilliant, cheese sauce, thankyou!!!! and shona, that's excellent, I feel like I am actually going to survive this summer now. It will be an effort to actually shop for food, and then go and spend time cooking it. But having these recipes and ideas is really crucial as I was just standing there not knowing where to begin.

I must share with you one of ds's recipes - he is writing a BOOK of them.

'The mins dinr'

1. mins

1. karots

1. Qrens

1. mash

that's it he's way ahead of me on this.

I work as a cook in a nursery and this is my most successful meal. and great to get veg into the kids.

SWEET VEGETABLE SOUP

1 pack of ready cut and pealed carrots
1 bag of diced onion
1 leek
1 sweet potato
2 parsnips
1 tin of new potatoes
1 veg stock cube
1 chicken stock cube

Peal and chop the sweet potato, parsnips and leek.

Stick in a large saucepan with the carrots and onion and stock cubes and cover with water.

Bring to the boil and then simmer till all the veg is soft.

If you have a blender blend the mixture together.

If not, strain the liquid into a bowl and mash the veg. Add the liquid back and stir well.

If the soup is too thick, add some boiled water until you reach the desired thickness.

To add protein to your soup add 1 cup of split red lentils at beginning of recipe.

Serve with bread.

Trust me your kids will love it. Ive yet to have a child turn their nose up!

Daisy it is real fast food

I think ti was free with the grauniad some years ago, I just went and found it and even looking at the pages makes me go all confused. It's a total mental block unless someone talks me through it, like on this thread. I can understand it if it's explained, like you lot are doing. Maybe this is the AS again. I don't know.

I have also got Prue Leith bible thingy, which firghtens the heck out of me. She cooks grouse and stuff... Grouse?

My two like 'making' pizza.

I buy the ready made bases and the tomato pizza topping in a jar.

The dcs choose what they want on top - chicken, sweetcorn, ham, mushrooms, pepperoni, (pre-fried) onion, peppers, etc.

Pop into the oven according to instructions on the pizza base pack - usually 10mins or so.

It gets them both trying things that they would normall avoid and they can both participate.

Another fail-safe is houmus with pitta bread, carrot sticks, cucumber, ham, salami. They just get a little of each on a plate and can create whatever they want.

Teamcullen I will try to have a go at that too. Thankyou...ds is pretty fussy at home, he eats fine at school though.

I hadn't realised how much I depended on school dinners!

I often turn spag bol mince into chilli by adding a tin of chilli beans (kidney beans in chilli sauce) a bit of chilli sauce and a few strips of green pepper.

You can serve chilli with tacos, baked potatoes or rice. Yum. You can also freeze any left-overs.

My latest cheat is meatballs... made from sausages. Sounds mad, but is so easy. All you do is snip the end off the sausage, pinch it a third of the way down and then squeeze out the inside. This will give you a little sausage ball. Each sausage will easily do 3 meatballs. Put your sausage balls into a roasting dish and bake in the oven for about 20 mins at 18O C. Add to shop bought tomato sauce. Lovely with a bit of spagetti

Flight - there are a couple of really good cook books for teenagers. Nice, easy recipes to get started with. Maybe have a think about these as an easy intro to it all?

here

Do you know what book is really good? This one (Usborne Cooking for Beginners). I got it to review years ago and dh dug it out as he find recipes really hard to follow.

It's got great basics in it and is very clear. I'd really recommend it if you're wanting to start out cooking and finding other books a bit daunting.

That is brill, Doodle.
I like the paintballing references throughout and I can actually understand the recipes, that's exactly the kind of book I've been after really.

Thanks again Shona, everyone.
I'm off to bed now but quite excited about actually cooking tomorrow.

yeah agree with making pizza - we used to do it all the time with the kids - put all the ingredients into different bowls - they love it

also we used to do 'themed' nights - it might help plan this stuff - like indian or american or mexican or italian - a different country for a different day of the week

kids liked american surprise surprise

Thank you Flgihtattendant for starting this thread. I can cook a bit, but don't...! I'm loving JoesMummy09's meatballs cheat - will try that myself next week

And MARGO's slow cooker tip is the one I was going to post myself - it's the easiest thing in the whole wide world, easier than boiling an egg imo. Put stuff in slow cooker. Turn on. Go to work (or whatever). Come back to dinner! And I have roasted a chicken in one...came back to lovely moist chicken falling off the bone. There are some slow cooker recipe threads on here too

Best of luck and well done on your new-found determination.

Re freezing/defrosting sauces: I freeze a lot of veggie sauces (pasta/chilli/curry) - I make a huge pan and can usually manage to freeze about 3 or 4 extra portions (I use saved takeaway plastic cartons- just right size!) that will feed me, dp and 2lo's. Because they're veggie I don't worry too much about them defrosting in advance, just take one out of freezer and bang the frozen block straight in a pan on a medium setting till it's bubbling (but keep going back to stir it!). Sometimes you have to add a bit more water to the pan as it cooks, but it's really easy once you've made the original batch and can keep you going for a few weeks as one of your weekly meals.