easy recipes

pandas66

Hi,
Eldest son has made his 1st proper meal today!

Chicken, peppers & pasta in a tomato base sauce topped with chees and oven baked. the sauce was in a jar but bought froma farm shop so was relatively homemade style.

This is his 1st attempt and the suggestion came from him too, he's now said he'll cook a meal every week, so any suggestions for him, anything other buddy cooks have tried and tasted!
He is totally unconfident cook, he's 15, likes curries, can't chop, can't wash up and left a mess!
So today he browned chicken, cooked and drained pasta, put all in oven dish and grated cheese. These to date are his skills! bless......

lindadykes

Just yesterday I made a very easy mild curry for my teenage daughters, it is so easy I'm sure your son will manage.

Place the following ingredients in a casserole dish:
1 heaped teaspoon turmeric
1 heaped teaspoon garam masala
1 heaped teaspoom paprika
1 dessertspoon dried corriander leaf (not the powder if you can't find the dried leaf try dried parsley or just leave it out)
1 chicken stock cube (I used Knorr)
1/3 block of creamed coconut roughly chopped up
1 tablespoon tomato puree

Boil a kettle and add 1 pint of boiling water to the ingredients in the casserole dish and stir until all the coconut has melted. Use this as a cook in sauce. I added 1/2 lb diced lean pork and a handful of mixed frozen veg, but you can add any meat , vegetable or fish you like. Cook in the oven for about 1 hour.

pandas66

Thanks, he has a spicier palate to mine so I keep the plain yoghurt for me and he wants a little more heat but the recipe does should easy for him.

ChocClare

Sorry to say that 95% of my recipes start with "chop an onion", so that rules those out! :rotfl:

How about this for easy though: Sticky Chinese Chicken

1. Get a casserole dish.
2. Get a tablespoon.
3. Get a teaspoon.
4. Measure out 6 tablespoons of wine (red or white) and put in casserole.
5. Measure out 3 tablespoons of soy sauce and put in casserole.
6. Measure out 1 tablespoon of water and put in casserole.
7. Measure out 1 tablespoon of sugar and put in casserole. Stir a bit to get the sugar off the wet spoon!
8. Measure out one teaspoonful of mustard (ready-made variety, not powder) and put in casserole.
9. Stir.
10. Get some chicken thighs - allow about 2 per person. It doesn't matter if they've got skin on, though you might want to cut off some of the extra fat (or you might not).
11. Bung the chicken thighs in the casserole.
12. Use the tablespoon to stir everything round to get the chicken coated in the sauce.
14. Put a lid on the casserole.
15. Put the casserole in the oven and turn the oven on to Gas Mark 5.
16. When you can smell it cooking (after between 45 mins to an hour), open the oven door, take the lid off the casserole and put it back in the oven for about half an hour to crisp up the skin.
17. Serve with mashed potatoes (which your mum has prepared earlier) or rice (ditto) or - best of all - leave it to go cold and put it in the fridge. Tomorrow you can remove any fat from the top, bung it back in the oven to heat through and serve it with the mash or rice which you've now learnt how to make! Casseroles always taste better the next day!

Keep practising your cooking! My DS (nearly 14) is now quite a good little chef (albeit slightly limited repertoire!). Practice makes perfect - and just think, you'll be the only one not to starve when you leave home!

lindadykes

If he likes a hotter curry he could add some chilli powder to the recipe, I just didn't add it yesterday because it was for my daughters and they will only eat vry mild curries. If it had been for DH and me I would have spiced it up a bit.

pandas66

ChocClare he can peel potaotes, never chopped an onion, gonna print up these tomorrow and let him have a read and choose one or maybe he'll work through a list...

thriftlady_2

Have you seen this book?
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/1844287742/qid=1142583628/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl/026-6773062-4911644

otterspasm

How about pasta with some pesto stirred through it. He could fry off some bacon and mushrooms to stir through it as well. Not VERY old style but really tasty and easy to make. Could grate some cheese over it too.

Maybe he could make some slices of garlic bread to go with it. Just thick slice some uncut bread, crush garlic and mix with butter, spread this onto bread and wrap in tin foil in oven for a few minutes til butter is melted. I open the tin foil a bit towards the end so the bread can crisp a bit. HTH.

Lucie_2

If you want to avoid chopping, then meals with mince are good! How about meatballs with spaghetti & tomato sauce?
Chopping an onion is a basic skill for life, so I'd get him to master it sooner rather than later. Onions form the basis of so many meals, so he'll be able to expand his repertiore very quickly.

FunkyFairy

My DD 8 loves chopping up all the veg its the thing she does best. I started with mushrooms now she does all sorts. I tort her to use a knife the correct way and she has never hurt herself.

mummysaver

dd3 likes to cook this at the mo:

Chop one chicken breast and fry till browned, add a tin of campbells chicken or mushroom soup, stir and pour over some cooked pasta.

She had it at a friend's house, and it's now a favourite of hers! She's only 4 so I'm sure your son could master it too!

ds is great at making macaroni cheese - learning to make a sauce is really useful and can form the basis of many meals. You can either teach your son the roux method, or show him how to pour in milk, veg oil and flour mixed to a paste with milk, and then stir, stir, stir! Remember to tell him that if it goes lumpy he only has to liquidise it and reheat to make it smooth!

Pizza is another favourite in our house: strong white flour, warm water, dry yeast, bit of salt, knead and roll out into a very thin base. Top with tom puree, and various chopped things: ham, peppers, onion (doesn't matter how big the pieces are really!) and then sprinkle grated cheese over, stick in hot oven for 12 mins and there you go.

If he can chop potatoes, he can make spicy potato wedges. Chop potatoes into wedge shapes, sprinkle with oil, garlic powder, paprika and salt, mix about so all wedges are covered, bake for 30-45 mins. These are great with HM chilli: fry a chopped onion (again doesn't need to be finely chopped, I let the children do it and the pieces tend to be 1/2 inch cubes), fry mince, add stockcube and water, kidney beans and toms if you fancy, add chilli powder and salt to taste.

Hope that your son learns and enjoys all his cooking. My four each take a turn at cooking dinner, and their ages are between 4 and 12, it's never to early to start them off! Actually they asked if they could do it!