<p>Wow people, if you’re going to teach a kid to cook, focus on fresh, healthy eating for life. Good fresh veggies are available almost everywhere. 30 minute fresh meal cookbooks abound. Foodnetwork.com has lots of easy resipes online.</p>
<p>Hard for me to imagine teaching a kid to pour a can of cream of anything into a pot in 2007. Sorry doubleplay, but between the soup and packaged onion mix there are far more calories, sodium and additives than anyone needs on top of that already not great for you beef. Just my controversial (I’ll bet) opinion!</p>
<p>Excuse my bluntness, but I’m a MD and have this discussion often. My obese young patients, never mind the fast food, are eating a lot of canned and frozen products.</p>
<p>I look up everything on-line. No sweat for today’s kids. Just type in “how to cook eggs” and you’ll get 1000 recipes.</p>
<p>Years ago when I was in Peace Corps the doctor’s wife put together
(in the days of typing and xerox) a cookbook with very basic recipes using the ingredients available in that country.
I still use that tattered old thing.</p>
<p>One cream of celery soup (and you can get low fat/low salt soups) per giant roast? And I’m not recommending gorging yourself on just a bunch of roast. A reasonable meal sized portion, accompanied by carrots or starch, green veggie, and/or green salad, and it’s a decent enough meal for a college student.</p>
<p>May also depend on other stuff, much exercise, male or female, etc. My son is 6’, 180 pounds, very athletic, runs steps and works out in weight room regularly. It’s hard to fill him up. Eating a little roast every now and then is OK, according to his doc.</p>
<p>Maybe you’re misunderstanding…I don’t mean to suggest that these recipes are the ONLY thing one eat at a meal. We always have a balanced plate- protein, greens, carbs, a salad or fruit. I don’t salt greens or starches either, if someone wants S&P, it’s on the table.</p>
<p>I did not mean to imply anyone was eating badly! What I was attempting to say, badly it seems, was that a good food education is every bit as important as a good college one!</p>
<p>Cheers, I think when we live in warm, “paradise” like locations where so much great stuff grows, we tend to become farmer’s market like cooks. I am always a bit taken aback when I go back East and see the quality and prices there. Much better than when I was a child, but a far cry from what is normal in CA most often.</p>
<p>When I was at Stanford and Cal we would eat fallen fruit as we walked to campus.</p>
<p>I used to have a James Beard cookbook that told you how to boil water in the intro. My husband learned how to fry and egg from the Joy of Cooking. I like it for the basics. My favorite basic recipe cookbook is Julia Child’s The Way to Cook, but I don’t think it covers the basic basics. Joy also has some good resources like a list of substitutions.</p>
<p>I think college kids are ‘one pan’ chefs…lol! So a few easy one pan goodies off the top of my head…</p>
<p>Crunchy Green Beans</p>
<p>Snap a bunch of fresh greens beans
Blanch in couple of inches of boiling water
Throw the water out of the pan
Heat some oil (olive) in the pan
Toss beans in and cook them for about two minutes, until warm but still crispy
Season with nutmeg</p>
<p>Easy Sunday Chicken
(close your eyes UCgrad ;))</p>
<p>Mix 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup with 4 cans of water and 2 cans of rice in a casserole dish
Lay 4 boneless chicken breasts in the mixture
Top with sliced sweet onions and fresh mushrooms
Cover with foil and bake for an hour at 425
Uncover and brown top for about 30 minutes </p>
<p>And I love fresh tomato and cucumber salad…just cut tomato into wedges, peel and slice cucumbers, add sliced sweet onion and olive oil and cider vinegar, salt and pepper. Yum…</p>
<p>Easy stuff kids…no need to eat ramen.</p>
<p>(Btw…I have to watch the sodium in recipes for my hubby, so I use the low sodium/healthy request cream of mushroom soup. And you’d be amazed how well other seasonings, like nutmeg, work in place of salt for flavor. )</p>
<p>It actually has a step by step for cooking a whole turkey dinner in it LOL - that is how I learned to cook a turkey dinner - ways to impress LOL</p>
<p>Sorry for the wrong title tho - it is out of print - but I have seen copies for sale on the net…</p>
<p>A great tip for eggs - make sure to teach your kids how to check to see if the egg is hard boiled - the spin test - if it wobbles - it is not hard boiled.</p>
<p>…I think college kids are ‘one pan’ chefs…lol! So a few easy one pan goodies off the top of my head…</p>
<p>And the BEST kind of pan - a good - or even not so good LOL - WOK - can cook anything in a wok - from soup to meatloaf to scrambled/fried eggs - to lava cake - believe me LOL - most versitle pan in ones kitchen</p>
<p>A wonderful cookbook for a beginning cook is the Good Housekeeping Illustrated Cookbook. I still refer to it on occassion, and my D has dipped into it more than once.</p>
<p>A wok is the easiest pan to cook in - and to clean as well - I like that part. Can boil - fry - stir-fry - saute - bake - braze - deep fry - used on a grill - on electric or gas - or even over a wood fire - if one gets real creative - just about anything you want. Good wok is worth it’s weight in gold - without wooden handle tho so can be put in the oven too :)</p>
<p>Can be used as a small dish pan in an emergency too lol</p>
<p>I used to have a wok I am sure- but I use cast iron skillet more- because they hold heat really well and evenly and brown beautifully-
the only thing I would even consider making cornbread in</p>
<p>My S can cook, my D can’t. Is this what comes of being a feminist? He eats so much I got tired of cooking four dinners a night. He eats a pound of pasta a day. I agree, sigh, it’s not the healthiest thing, but he’s so thin we can barely find pants to fit him. I have interested him in fresh, low fat mozzerella, diced chiccken and veggies (fresh) to put in pasta.</p>
<p>D said she was afraid of being type cast as wifey so she had no intnetion of learning to cook. So far her brother and two boyfriends have been willing to cook for her. She was off the meal plan this year and I think dinners were $4 worth of sushi or a huge bowl of Japanese soup or felafel. It was still way cheaper than meal plan, but on B’way in NYC she probably passed 25 low cost eating alternatives walking from campus to dorm/apartment. Still she was finally moved to cook a few things. All was well.</p>
<p>I bought my D Joy of Cooking and she does use it. She also calls me a lot from the grocery store to ask which ingredients to buy and how to cook something. It’s quite funny to explain how to make something over the phone to her. She is cooking dinners for her boyfriend who works in a restaurant–takes the homemade food to him so he doesn’t have to keep eating the same food from work.</p>
<p>I think the Help! My Apartment Has a Kitchen Cookbook would be a good choice for the OP to send her D for now; Joy of Cooking a good idea for the next birthday or holiday gift.</p>