You will need:

large pan & a lasagna dish

olive oil

dried basil

3 tins chopped tomatoes

1 ball of  mozzarella

parmesan

400g pasta (we used rigatoni)

1. Turn oven on 200 C.

2. Get a large pan and pour the 3 tins of tomatoes in the pan.

3. Put in the olive oil medium amount.

4. Put in a tea spoon of dried basil.

5. Turn down to low heat and stir, reduce by about a third.

6. Put in 400g of pasta- large pan-adult add  boiling water.

7. When the pasta is back to the boil set timer for 11 mins.

8. Grate about a small plastic bowl full of parmesan – about 75g.

9. Adult -drain pan.

10. Chop mozzarella into 1 cm cubes.

11. Put the pasta into the dish.

12. Add the sauce and both cheeses  and mix.

13. Put in oven and leave for 10 mins

Get a grownup to take it out of the oven.  Serve with a green salad.

4 pork chops

1 cooking apple

1 medium onion

olive oil

200 mls cider (you can use white wine or apple juice instead)

dried sage

salt/pepper

1. set oven to 200 C
2. peel and chop cooking apple and add to a roasting dish
3. next peel and slice onion and add that to the dish too
4. then drizzle some olive over the dish
5. lay the pork chops on top of the apple and onion and add a little more oil
6. season with sage, salt and pepper
7. cover in foil and put into the over for 25 minute (this is a mummy task)
8. remove the foil from the chops, spoon some of the liquid over them and put them back in the oven for 10 minutes to to brown and reduce a bit.
9. take the roasting dish out of the oven and put the chops onto a warm plate.
10. the apples, onions and liquid go into a blender cup and are whizzed up to make the gravy

Serve with new potatoes and veg.

One carton  of creamed tomato (or passata)

80g (third of a tub) mascarpone    

nutmeg

1. put the creamed tomato in a small/medium saucepan (medium heat) 

2. reduce,stirring ccasionally

3. grate about a teaspoon of nutmeg 

4. add nutmeg to the pan and stir

5. add a third of a tub of mascarpone to the pan and stir until smooth

Serve with your favorite pasta, we like fresh cappaletti 

We had agreed that when our children reached the age of eight they would become responsible for cooking one night a week.  Obviously there are safety concerns here, which are pretty complex but in essence boil down to the fact that adults need to deal with: anything to do with ovens or boiling water, supervising knives, anything else that seems dangerous as we go along…

The child needs to decide what they will cook, tell mummy what needs to be bought, and actually do the deed itself.

According to Joshua, who has just turned eight -

“Cooking with mummy is fun because, you get to do stuff, it’s good to learn, it tastes really good,you should have  a go, it isn’t scary and it’s fun”

It is probably fair to say that I (Mummy) like to cook and have always thought that my children should eat food that I would be will to eat too… which cuts out a lot of the stuff that is offered to children in the UK today.  Because of this, they are not that keen on things generally marketed at children… would you be if you are a grown up?  Frankly if I were offered some of the stuff people try to feed to children I would throw it right back in their faces….but I am try to teach my kids to be better behaved than that

So, in part as an exercise to help my boys (Joshua (8) and Alex (5)) learn to plan stuff, and write it down, we are blogging our journey cooking.  Not as a fancy cookery book world, but simply cooking to eat if you care about what you put in your mouth and get hungry of an evening…  Most of the entries will probably be by my kids, so please excuse the many and varied mistake which will follow…