Easy Recipes

[Angelskates]

I am looking for recipes to cook with my "kids". By "kids" I mean my special needs students who cook lunch at my centre every day. They need to be easy, but also with really common and not expensive ingredients. I have an oven, a slow cooker and a stove to cook, but also have a blender and most of that other stuff. The kids will be learning to use all of this.

Because these kids are not really young (10 to 26, with Down syndrome, autism...), I don't want recipes like making faces with pizza muffins. Vegetarian recipes would be great - especially some that it's easy to add meat to if they want it. We shop for the week at the local Chinese market and then buy some extra things (bread, pasta, tomato paste, herbs etc) at the foreign market every week, and so we need to be able to use the same ingredients for the whole week as much as possible.

We can't make soup, but aside from that, no allergies or anything. Easy to follow instructions, and dishes from different places in the world would be awesome. We're doing a health and nutrition unit, and growing a veggie garden (and strawberries) so healthy is good too!

They'll always have someone to help them, but the aim is to try and get them doing as much as possible on their own. Any recipes you have, or links you know of, would be much appreciated! Thanks FSU!

ETA: I've just stumbled across Student Recipes which looks good!

[Prancer]

I used recipes from this magazine a lot when my kids were younger: http://familyfun.go.com/recipes/cooking-with-kids/

Some of them are "happy faces on English muffins," but a lot of them aren't.

Rachael Ray might have something you can use; I know she has said that she thinks kids' recipes should be simple and good as opposed to fussy and cute-looking: http://www.rachaelray.com/kids/index.php

Non-kid-oriented, but might actually fit with your needs better: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Simple---Delicious-Magazine

Everything there is pretty simple to make, many of the recipes have nutrition breakdowns, and there are sections in the magazine like "Shop Once, Cook All Week." Recipes from that magazine and some others are all in this database: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes

You can enter ingredients or look for specific healthy recipes--lots of options there.

Have fun!

[Angelskates]

Ooohhh, Prancer, the Taste of Home website looks great! Thanks!

It's hard when the students are not young age-wise but are low cognitively. The 26 year-old is just learning to read and do maths now, so I'm having to write simple instructions for the autistic kid (who is a good reader) but find pictures to go with the instructions for the older one. So far it's been great (except for one soup disaster!), but finding simple recipes with just the things we can buy easily and cheaply here is not so easy. We made falafel (my mum gave me packets that just need water ), pasta, sandwiches, rice, sandwiches and some "surprise" thing they made themselves last week but I'd love to do curries and more variety so they can actually learn more.

Love the "can put in the ingredient" section - we're going to be stuck with lots of Chinese cabbage and eggplant this week I think (I feel a donation/food bank Saturday coming up). We learnt a lot about letting the kids make decisions when shopping this week. I'm not running the programme, but I am helping out and while it's been a blast, we want maybe 30 recipes or so to rotate to keep the amount of work for us down.

[taf2002]

Angelskates, you're a .

[Angelskates]

Angelskates, you're a .

Awww, what a lovely thing to say! Got any recipes for me??

[Stefanie]

I was going to suggest this "Cool Veggie Pizza" (no smiley faces! ) that I've been making since I was young, as it is very easy and involves chopping vegetables. However, I forgot that it requires pre-made crescent roll dough that you might not have access to in Beijing. But I'm sure you could find a recipe to make a comparable dough to use as the base for this recipe.

[Angelskates]

Stefanie, I don't know what crescent dinner rolls are. I love the vegetarian recipes on that site though (and some others). I love the look of this one, thanks!

[Simone411]

Mr. Food has several quick & easy recipes. Your kids might also be interested in some recipes made from Coca Cola. Some of the recipes are pretty simple.

Here's a list of other sites I know of that may have some pretty easy recipes.

Smucker's Recipes

Hersheys Kitchens

Nestle's Very Best Baking

Kraft Foods - Great Recipes

Campbell's Kitchen

Cooking With GMA

Betty Crocker

I hope this helps a little. Hug!

[Allen]

If you are interested in vegetarian/healthy recipes, you might try Heidi Swanson's website http://www.101cookbooks.com. You can search by ingredients and many of the recipes are really simple (some get a little overly complicated). I use her website a ton even though I am no longer a vegetarian.

[taf2002]

Awww, what a lovely thing to say! Got any recipes for me??

Would your students be interested in Mexican Soup/Stew? It's pretty easy:

Brown 1 lb hamberger meat with 1/2 cup chopped onions, salt & pepper to taste
drain well & put in large stock pot or crock pot or slow cooker
add:
1 can Progrosso minestrone soup (or any brand)
1 can Ranch style beans (or any chili beans)
1 can Ro-Tel (chopped tomatoes with green chilies)
Chili powder to taste (I use 1/2 envelope of chili seasoning)
add water to make thinner if desired

I add cubed potatoes, some pasta like elbow macaroni or egg noodle, & a can of corn (usually Mexicorn) & my husband likes canned mushrooms in it. I realize you will not be able to get the brands I mentioned, but once you put the basics in you can use just about anything in it & it can be doubled or tripled. It comes out different every time but the main flavor is about the same. We use Frito scoops with it but cornbread or tortillas are good too.

(I clean out the fridge when I make this. Leftovers I've used are mashed potatoes, peas, green beans, cabbage, most vegetables, macaroni & cheese. It has always turned out delicious.)

[Holley Calmes]

I don't know how easy is easy in your circumstances, but here are a few I consider when I don't have much time. Naturally, I adore salt, but I didn't add salt and pepper here. Just use your taste buds to make it right for you.

How about vegetarian crockpot chili? You don't even have to make it in a crockpot, either. It uses a lot of canned items, but you can get organic canned veggies....

1 chopped onion
1 chopped garlic clove
1 chopped bell pepper any color
2 tablespoons olive oil

Saute then add:
-1 14.5 oz can of diced or whole tomatoes
-1 14.5 oz can of tomato sauce
-1 can pinto or kidney beans
-1 can chopped green chilis
-1 tablespoon chili powder or more if they like it hotter
Cook and eat! This is easy to add ground beef or turkey and make it non-vegetarian, but it's tasty without the meat too. You can also goose it up a bit by adding a chopped jalapeno and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds.

How about creole rice?

Saute 1 chopped onion and 2 chopped cloves of garlic in 2 tablespoons of olive oil. When soft, add 2/3 cup of white rice (brown rice really doesn't work.) Heat stirring to coat the rice well. Then add a tablespoon of chili powder and stir some more until the rice is nicely coated. Add 2 1/4 cups of vegetable broth, bring to a boil, then lower heat to simmer, cover and cook for 20 minutes. Stir and eat. Adding shrimp is pretty fine!

Easy cheesy hash browns:

Combine a can of cream of mushroom soup, 8 oz of shredded cheddar cheese, 3/4 cup sour cream, 1/4 cup butter melted, and 2 tablespoons of chopped onion. Add a package of shredded hash browns (not frozen). Place in a casserole and bake at 350 for 45 minutes. Very rich, but very tasty! For an added delight on these, crush some ritz cracker, coat them with melted butter, and place over the mixture.

This brucchetta won a $5,000 cash prize for a friend of ours from Sargento!

Take a loaf of Italian bread and cut it lengthwise. Then slice into 6" individual pieces.
Chop 2 cloves of garlic and combine with 1/3 cup of olive oil, 1 teaspoon of dried italian herbs, and salt and pepper and stir. (Make this ahead so the oil will get flavored)
Chop a bunch of scallions (4-6) and chop finely 2-3 ripe tomatoes and combine
Spoon the olive oil mixture over the individual bread pieces. Be sure to get garlic down there on the bread too!
Sprinkle the combined veggies over each piece of bread on top of olive oil
Sprinkle Sargento shredded mozzerella (however much you like!) on top of each piece.
Bake in a 500 degree oven for about 10 minutes, but check on it often to keep from burning. When the cheese starts to get brown spots and bubbly, it's done.

[Allen]

I was going to suggest this "Cool Veggie Pizza" (no smiley faces! )

I like the cool veggie pizza a lot, although I do a little different variation with it. That would be very easy to do with the kids, but I'm not sure crescent rolls are available in china. Pre-made pizza dough would do a similar trick.

[Erica Lee]

Smoothies were always a big big hit on cooking days with "my kids". I don't remember having a specific recipe, just stuff like ice cubes, yogurt, fruit juices, various frozen or fresh fruits. We made them more than once and the kids in charge of making them on any given day loved "taking orders" from the other kids as to what kind they wanted. We were able to role play professional, polite customer and employee conversations on top of the cooking skills.

Breakfast sandwiches... toasted english muffins, fried eggs, cheese, bacon or sausage if you want to add meat... were always easy, too.

[Angelskates]

thanks Simone, Holley, taf, Allen and Erica_Lee! We made frittata today and had it with a Chinese cold dish (smashed cucumber) - very tasty.

taf the Mexican stew sounds great! (Soup doesn't work, D doesn't like to have drinkable food)

Holley love the chilli idea. Erica - the kids earn tokens during the week to choose a special Friday meal or snack, so smoothies are a great option for that - thanks!

[backspin]

OT slightly.....can we hear about the "soup disaster?" I can't imagine anything easier than soup.....

[Angelskates]

OT slightly.....can we hear about the "soup disaster?" I can't imagine anything easier than soup.....

backspin, it wasn't a disaster making the soup, it was a disaster trying to get one of the kids to eat it! It ended up being wiped on his shirt before each mouthful - all the soup went on his shirt and the empty spoon went into his mouth. So, no more soup.

[Angelskates]

Holly, we made the chilli today and we'll eat it tomorrow. We're probably going to also put it into tortillas. Yum!