I have 2 wks to make up for not having taught my son to cook. Help me!

Cafe Society
1

CairoSon is 22 and headed off to start his Ph.D. program soon. For the first time in his life he won’t have ready access to meals prepared by someone else. He’s been living with his dad (health disaster - bratwurst, hot dogs, burgers, pizza…) but will stay with me for 2 weeks starting in a few days.

He’s gained a worrisome amount of weight over the last year and I hate to think of him subsisting on pizza and take-out for the next few years. He has a sort of theoretical interest in learning to cook, but I realize with hindsight that all those years when I could have taught him to cook, I blew it with all the elaborate recipes I showed him. (I love to cook and can happily spend all day in the kitchen roasting spices and chopping vegetables.)

His fine motor skills are below average, so he finds extensive chopping, peeling, and other kitchen tasks to be awkward and unpleasant. He does understand the need for good nutrition, and while he’s not a great vegetable lover, he’s not terribly picky.

Anyway, I’d like to teach him easy dishes that are a step above living on pizza. While I personally shun short-cuts like canned condensed soup, I’m going to include them in my cooking lessons for him as long as they produce results that are at least a little healthier than not cooking at all. Suggestions welcome!

He does like:

  • Salad greens
  • Spinach
  • Broccoli
  • Corn
  • carrot sticks
  • kidney/black/pinto beans and chickpeas
  • whole grain breads

he dislikes:

  • string beans
  • cooked carrots
  • Western pasta dishes
  • mushrooms

Dishes he already knows how to make or I will show him include:

  • Quiche (I have an insanely easy pie crust method, or he can [shudder] buy crust)
  • Quesadillas
  • Enchiladas (super basic - just stuffed burrito wrappers in a dish covered with a jar of salsa and baked)
  • Healthy-ish sandwiches (whole grain bread, vegetables along with meat/cheese)
  • Chicken Divan (boneless breast, frozen broccoli, sauce of sour cream & condensed cream of chicken soup topped with bread crumbs)
  • Ramen plus (ramen with added vegetables and an egg stirred in)

More ideas gratefully accepted.

2

GLOP! I call it that because it’s the sound it makes when it hits the plate.

  • 1 lb. DEFROSTED ground beef
  • Worcestershire sauce
  • (red wine if he feels like it)
  • Bag of egg noodles
  • 1 lb. FROZEN peas (I like the baby sweet peas)
  • spices to taste (I usually dump several tablespoons of the jarred chopped garlic, a bunch of dried onion, salt, pepper, and some curry powder)
  1. Throw beef into a skillet with several shakes of Worcestershire sauce (and 2 or 3 glugs of wine, if he feels like it) along with the spices. Cook thoroughly over a low/medium heat, stirring occasionally. Usually takes about 20 minutes.
  2. Cook the noodles (usually takes about 10 minutes after the water boils and the noodles are added).
  3. About 5 minutes into cooking the noodles, add the peas to the beef and keep stirring.
  4. When the noodles are done, drain and add them to the beef and peas. Mix a lot.
  5. Eat.

Adding the peas frozen means they’ll cook it that 5 minutes but will retain a bit of snap when you bite into them.

And of course, there’s the old standby of eggs and something. If he can make quiche, he can make scrambled eggs or omelettes pretty easily. Get pepperoni slices and grated mozzarella and make a pizza omelette.

3

Roast a whole chicken.
or
Buy a rotisserie chicken and show him how to make things with it.

4

He needs the basic skills that other recipes can build on. Focus on skills more than recipes.

How to sear meat. Chicken, beef, pork… doesn’t matter. Learn to sear in a skillet on medium high heat and then finish off with a lower temperature cooking method such as an oven at 350. Can cover with sauce of his choosing in the oven.

Learn to order the cooking of vegetables in a dish. Harder, denser veggies such as carrots go in before softer veggies such as peppers and onions. Can build great stir frys this way.

Learn to marinate meats to boost flavor. Brine a pork chop. Learn that good marinades need an oil and an acid. A bit of oil and lemon for chicken. Marinate some beef for stir fry with oil and soy sauce with a touch of brown sugar. Add a small smidge of baking soda to meat to promote browning. Browning = flavor.

Learn to make rice on the stovetop. Rinse three times before cooking to wash away starch for fluffier rice. Raise to a boil then drop to lowest heat. Leave lid on for 20-25 minutes. And use a decent rice like basmati. Cheap rice tends to be stickier and turns into glue too easily. Once he has basic rice down can learn to season it with a bit of onion, pepper, saffron, or whatever. And add in bits of veggies for a more complete dish.

Learn a basic dry rub seasoning. Cube a cheap 2lb pork roast. Coat with a tablespoon of oil. Stir in a package of jerk seasoning and coat. let sit for an hour. Pop in an oven at 425 for 15 minutes. Lower heat to 350 for another 35 to 40 minutes. Yum.

And for veggies. Learn to roast. It is so easy to prep a pan of potatoes, onions, carrots and such., Light glaze of oil. Generous sprinkling of a commercial seasoning mix like Mrs Dash. Pop in oven for 40 min for harder veggies. Softer veggies like asparagus take only 10 min or so. Learn harder denser foods take longer to cook.

And finally, teach him to not be afraid to experiment. Didn’t come out so great last time? Had burnt outsides and raw insides, then cook longer at a lower temperature next time.

5

Based on what I learned best from my mother, I think you should teach him recipes for the dishes he liked best from home. And it matters what sort of cook he is. I’m not the sort to experiment, adding a bit of this or that, or tasting the pot and deciding it needs a little more cumin or tarragon. I need a detailed step-by-step recipe and I don’t generally deviate much from that.

6

Good ideas, everyone, thanks and keep 'em coming.

Re cooking rice: having lived in Asia and Asia-adjacent places for basically forever, we are all big fans of rice cookers. The rice doesn’t burn, you don’t need precision timing, and you can cook it plain or with added flavors. I don’t know how I ever survived without one; it’s been an essential piece of equipment in my kitchen for decades. I highly recommend it (unless you have an instapot and that makes rice; I don’t have one so I don’t know).

7

I’m a huge rice cooker fan as well. There are cookbooks on cooking entire meals in rice cookers. Roger Ebert wrote one.

8

I just want to highlight this in case anyone reads this thread looking for ideas themselves. This is so true. CairoSon loves Brussel sprouts this way, and it couldn’t be easier: buy bag of b. sprouts, optionally cut in half if they’re big, mix in a bowl with olive oil, bacon salt, and pepper, put on cookie sheet and bake in oven til tender and roasted. Insanely delicious!

9

I don’t really understand why people love rice cookers for their simplicity. You can’t get much simpler than my non-rice-cooker rice method: put a cup of rice in a bowl, put two cups of water in the bowl, put the bowl in the microwave for 14 minutes. And - bonus - you don’t have to schlep around a specialised-use contraption every time you move house - bowls can be used for everything!

I do understand that some people who have higher standards than me think it might make better rice. But if you’re used to a REALLY simple method, that uses the things that are right there on your bench already, doing it ‘properly’ in a rice cooker seems … mildly complicated, actually.

This leads me to my main point: don’t complicate cooking beyond your son’s ability to actually notice and appreciate the difference.

What’s the absolute simplest and easiest thing that he can learn to cook, that is decently healthy, and he can cook over and over again without getting bored with it? Probably: meat and three veg. Infinitely versatile. ‘Meat’ can be: steak, chicken breast, pork chops, grilled fish, sausages, burgers, veggie-meat-substitutes. Veg: broccoli, carrots, cabbage, peas, corn, sweet potato, spinach, silverbeet, capsicum, zucchini, pumpkin … and so on and so forth. Once you know how to steam a veggie, the only other thing you need to know is 'this veggie takes this amount of time, that one takes that amount of time.

After you know how to cook things separately, then you can go on to actual recipes where you cook them together … but I wouldn’t start there. Just learn individually about the actual things you like to eat and plain-old cook them, would be my suggestion.

10

Strange recipe from a vegetarian, but here goes:

1 Pound of Ground Lamb
1 Can of Cream of Mushroom Soup

Brown the lamb in a skillet. Pour in the Cream of Mushroom soup plus one-half to one can of water. The instant the soup begins to boil, lower the heat, cover the skillet loosely, and simmer for approximately 15 minutes to reduce the soup (I think that was how long it took; might be longer, might be shorter–experiment!). Serve over steamed rice.

11

So you’re trying to avoid the ‘freshman 15’ ? Is he?

And I would translate this to “he’s kinda lazy”, which is probably unkind but accurate? That impacts what he could cook.

12

Hmm, 2 weeks? You’re not gonna teach them to cook in that time unless they really are dying to learn it. I fed my family 3-4 nights a week while only knowing 5-6 recipes for awhile when I was assigned the task at around 10 years old. But, I learned how to follow a recipe, and with time I learned how/when to improve them.

Heck, he’s beyond what I knew at 10, and I could feed a family. Seriously, teach them how to follow a recipe and understand how complex it is by reading it. If they can cook the list of dishes in the list of things he already knows or soon will, he’s doing OK. If he’s gaining a lot of weight, they need to look at their diet, not cook really well.

13

He’s a college graduate so I don’t know if the “freshman 15” concept applies…he already gained the “Covid 15” on lockdown in California with his girlfriend’s family in March-April. For sure he doesn’t need 15 more! As to whether he is trying to avoid it, that’s unclear. I’ve talked briefly to him matter-of-factly about my concerns over his health and left it at that. Nagging won’t help! My only role at this point is to show him reasonable foods he can cook easily and enjoy eating.

It’s a different topic, and I know you are only joking, but referring to people with identified motor skill issues as “lazy” seems a tad unfair. He’s had difficulty with pencil grip, cutting with scissors, etc., all his life and had OT in middle school to help him with it. You wouldn’t call him lazy if he couldn’t run well because he was born with a club foot; this is kind of the same thing. He manages, but will always have more difficulty than average doing certain types of tasks.

14

Rice cookers are the BOMB. Especially new ones where you can program the type and the time.

CairoCarol, if he likes rice and some simple veggies, then there are many variations of steaming the rice with a mix of legumes, veggies, and/or chinese style sausages. Also breakfast porriage if he likes that. Amazon him a small rice cooker to his new location, and indoctrinate him during the 2 weeks with you.

Would he like to make bread? Depending on interest and schedule, there are sourdough wheat or rye breads that are pretty easy but take a few steps…Pretty adaptable to a student lifestyle if he likes to bake?

Does he really not like Western pasta dishes? None? These are usually pretty easy if you can narrow down to something he likes. Even if it’s mac n cheese from a box

Since he likes Ramen. For the love of gawd, teach him how to boil real noodles. Use fish sauce, mirin, soy sauce, miso, japanese soup base, Chinese soup bases, or a combo to make a simple soup with noodles egg and veggies for a one pot decent meal.

Hey, what about breakfast style stuff? Omelets, scrambled eggs, pancakes (or the superior cousin waffles), oatmeal, hashbrowns? Breakfast works as cheap, filling, simple meals 24/7 y’know.

15

Sure, if you cook exactly one type of rice, in one way, in one quantity. Then your “life hack” rice method is great!

For me, and I think China Guy and others, your one-size-fits-all, just-do-it-in-the-microwave approach doesn’t account for all the ways we use rice. Maybe we’re feeding 2 people. Maybe we’re feeding 8. Maybe we just want a plain, medium-grain rice. Maybe we want a luxurious Basmati rice dish, sautéed in ghee before cooking. Maybe the rice we’re using is short, medium, or long grain, maybe it is black, brown, or red rice, and maybe we’re using coconut milk, or … you get the idea. The beauty of a rice cooker is, it doesn’t matter and it will hold your rice at a nice temperature until you want to eat it. You need to follow rules for the liquid:rice ratio (the rules vary according to length and color of rice grains), but after that it’s pretty much up to you. A rice cooker magically cooks your rice for however long it needs to be cooked, and then keeps it at a deliciously appropriate temperature for serving until you want it.

16

In the specific case of CairoSon, I’d start with shopping. Has difficulty with the more manually dextrous parts of cooking? There is no shame in buying meat that is already prepped for stew, or fresh veggies that are already washed, peeled and chopped (when or if you can find them)

Also, have you tried different knives with him? Some chefs knives are more curved for a rocking motion, some have a flatter blade for a chopping motion, or perhaps a cleaver would be a better tool for him. I’m not trying to say it will suddenly make him a knife weilding kitchen master, but maybe there is a specific style of kitchen knife that will make it easier for him when it comes to cutting tasks during meal prep.

Recipes, ham n beans? It’s a pretty simple dish and doesn’t really require a lot to be delicious. Just about any bean will do, and who cares if the ham is neatly cubed? Usually I make it to use up a ham so the pieces are all sorts of weird shapes and sizes.

I am a great proponent of Chilimacncorn. Healthy? I like to pretend the corn makes it so. Mac and cheese, can of chili can of corn. Leftovers freeze and reheat marvelously and tastily. Oh wait, no western pasta dishes, maybe some asian variation?

How does he feel about squash? Yeah, you gotta cut an acorn squash in half and maybe trim a end off, but pop it in the oven for a bit with some butter, can be either an entree or a side dish.

17

Thank you for the advocacy (and a bit of mama bear). I have a child with just this fine motor learning disability, special ed, the whole deal. I knew exactly what you meant when you said it. Shame on judgmental comments.

FWIW my son did well when he moved across the country and started doing all his own cooking partly because he learned to use a cast iron skillet and found it was great for a lot a things-searing steaks, stir fry, hamburgers, chili. He uses it in the oven for casseroles. Less intimidating than learning how to use 6 different pans and which pan for what, etc. Show him how to clean cast iron, buy him a good quality one, a big size and send him off with a pair of silicone oven gloves.

18

There are lots of cookbooks out there designed for beginners. There are a bunch built around cooking for two, and there are a bunch that include recipes with only a few ingredients. All of these are better than pizza. Plus, once the two of you go through a few recipes together, he’ll be able to do the rest. Better yet, buy two copies so that if he has questions you can answer them by looking at the recipe.

While fresh veggies are great (he says with a freezer full of beans from the garden) frozen vegetable are healthy also, and have the advantage of letting him pay attention to the main dish.
Rice is good, but so are noodles. Instead of french fries I cut potatoes in half length wise and then each half in thirds or quarters lengthwise, put spray olive oil on a broiler pan (not the ridged part) spray oil on tops, and then cooking in a 400 degree oven for 40 minutes, turning once and spraying again.
And why not send him off with a good collection of spices and the proper implements like decent pans and parers and a steamer?
Once he can figure out the simple recipes he can move up to the more complex ones. We have a lot of Weight Watcher books. They are reasonably healthy but mostly they are simple, since they were intended for people coming home after work and encourage them to cook instead of getting takeout.

Of course every recipe in the world is online now, but a book may be better because it offers fewer choices, and the ones I mentioned are targeted for new cooks. It takes a while to be able to judge how much of a pain a recipe will be to make.

19

You can go to Ebert’s website and see all the recipes before he stole them.

The pot and how to use it

Although he is very upfront about it:

" Dear Readers: If you desire fame, please please send in a recipe so I can rip you off when I publish my stinking cookbook in 2009. Chaz has been after me to write this book for years, but for some reason she objects to my title, “The Pot and How to Use It.” So do my publishers. You have to Use the Pot to love it."

And into the comments they went.

20

If you have ~1,000 $ to spare many people swear a Themomix is great. It has been mentioned in this board three times already. I do not have one myself, but friends of mine do, and they use it a lot.