DD is now aged 7 and loves cooking. We’ve decided a major summer holiday project will be for her to learn to cook herself rather than just helping with the basics. She now has her own recipe file and is keen to fill it up with recipes she can do on her own (I may help her the first time, but she wants to be able to make things herself).

She makes a great roux sauce and can do omelettes. We make bread together and pizza. And she can do pancakes on her own. She’d like to be able to do a whole meal. I’m a bit nervous about pans of boiling water, and the oven, but with supervision I guess this is OK.

Any suggestions of meals she could do independently? Or savoury dishes?

Thanks
Squigglepuss.

If she can make a roux, then lasange from scratch is a good start, or baked macaroni cheese, both with salad. Neither requires pans of boiling water. Can she make pastry? A pot pie is a nice easy one - leftover meat, a savoury roux sauce and a suet pasty top - boxes of suet have the instructions for suet pastry on them.

If she can already make pancakes, then toad in the hole made with the same batter as pancakes might be another option.

Angie

Spaghetti Bolognese

Fish Chowder

Stew

Baked Lemon Pasta

O is just turned 7 and has been cooking for a while, he loves to make pasta with sauces (veggie pasta with either a cream or tomato based sauce which he can pick the veggies for - great for helping him undrstand flavour combinations, not always great for us so a little guidance needed now and then), omelette, frittata, soups, slow cooker meals, curries (again combining veggie for flavour), He does sometimes need a litle help to drain pasta/rice etc but we usually get round that by him having a bowl next to the pan and lifting the rice/pasta into that with a slotted spoon.
C is 6 in a couple of weeks and is a little nervous still in the kitchen so does like more support around pans, popping things in the oven etc, but then that’s more his personality than his capabilities. He likes to make basics like bean/eggs on toast etc, anything you can put together and then pop in the oven (which is my job), baking cakes, cookies etc.
H is just turned 3 and is already gaining confidence and understanding in the kitchen. She can bake a simple cake/cookie mix with the ingredients premeasured, will happily don the oven gloves and understands the safety aspects, and loves to stir things on the hob, add chopped veggies to the pans etc.
Why not just start with a basic recipe - veggie pasta for example, talk her through it whilst she does the work, and then next time leave her to it if she’s happy? This is how we helped our children (grown and young) todevelop an understanding of flavour combination and general confidence in the kitchen. We also don’t patronies them - if it doesn’t taste great then we say so, constructively obviously.
Most of all just have fun. Our kitchen is our favourite learning resource, which we are missing hugely right now as it is being redocarted, retiled, and a new floor fitted. Will be so much more user friendly when done though, yay.

Becks xx

Len (about to turn 6) finds one pot stuff easiest. Veggie soup, curry (with naan bread), chilli (with tortilla chips) are all really simple to make.

Jenna does all kinds of one-pot things on a stove.  She has also started following recipes with minimal help, now that she’s reading confidently, so she has been starting to bake without me standing by constantly.

I let mine stir things on the stove from about two years old with me standing by, about four if I’m busy doing other things in the kitchen.  Things that aren’t very “wet” are best for beginners - thick curries, risotto, sauces, bolognaise.

Thanks for some great ideas. Keep them coming.

My kids are a bit narrow minded about spicy things like curries and chillies unfortunately. I’ve decided to just cook them anyway sometimes, as I like them, and hope that if I keep offering them they will come round in the end, but no success with this so far. If they don’t like what I’ve cooked they get something dull like bread and butter (nice bread though!)

Tamsin

Risotto is my dd’s favourite thing to cook - she loves summer veg risotto, with peppers, courgette etc. Homemade pizzas are fun, too. And everything everyone else mentioned! Have a delicious summer

Claire xx