what is safe and healthly for a 14 year old to cook?

Question

im 14 and my mom works long hours like 20+ and all she can usually do is pick up something from a fast food place

Answer 1

I started cooking dinner for my family at 12 years old. It really doesn't have to do with safe.. It has to do with how much you want to do.

You can look up recipes anywhere on the internet to make, just specify what you want in them. I suggest making a list of what you'd like to make each day, and asking your mother to pick the ingredients up from the grocery store.

Here are some links to recipe sites.
http://search.yahoo.com/search?p=free+recipe+sites&rs=0&fr2=rs-top&search=recipe+sites&ei=UTF-8&ico-yahoo-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAjW3hCqVfyCzuf0BI.w9CBoazKIX%2FSIG%3D111gjvvgj%2F%2A-http%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fsearch&ico-wikipedia-search-value=http%3A%2F%2Frds.yahoo.com%2F_ylt%3DAhwbF4IAsvYejipHZPBoLyEazKIX%2FSIG%3D11ia1qo58%2F%2A%2Ahttp%253a%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FSpecial%253aSearch&fr=ks-ans

If you click on that, you will bring up a search of free recipe sites. On each site, you will find recipes for pretty much anything you wish to make, most is easy, some is difficult.

Have fun and enjoy yourself. It's really great that you want to do that for your mother.

Answer 2

At 14 you are certainly old enough to cook and be safe about it.

Lesson no 1, when you start don't get distracted, stay in the kitchen and finish what you have started.

Lesson no 2, the microwave can be your best friend, I use it to cheat all the time

Lesson no 3, keep it simple to start with, ie..buy canned pasta sauces, add some fresh veggies like mushrooms or peppers for extra flavor, if you want additional meat add cooked ground. While that simmers cook your pasta and have a nice salad to go along with it. That can all be done in a 1/2 hour.

Lesson no 4, don't get discouraged if it wasn't perfect the first time...it wasn't for any of us.

You must be a very mature young person to identify the fact that mum can use some help here and you are willing to step up to the plate. Hats off to you.

Answer 3

you're 14 so you can use the stove safely.
I am 14 and I have to cook for myself when my parents are out. I have a gas stove and its hard to turn on, sometimes the flames dont go on and its super scary.
What meal are you talking about?
Anyways, I'm glad you realized fast food is not healthy for you. I make simple stuff too, like breakfast i'd make eggs, bacon, french toast, etc. Then lunch, pasta, speghetti, noodles,fried rice with rice that's already been made from the rice cooker, just fry the rice with whatever you want with it. Dinner, um never tried cooking that before, they are usually home by then.
Dont cook meat that's raw though, its quite hard, and they burn easily too. Look through cookbooks, they should help you more.

Answer 4

Safe is however safe you choose to be; if you can get through the average day without sowing disaster, haven't lost a limb to inattention or outright stupidity, can follow the always simple directions in most cookbooks, well Heck at fourteen you should be able to cook just about anything. All of those 'boys' found in Navy history about warships of old were expected to fetch ammunition & cook up a pot of oats by age nine!! Personally when I was twelve I developed a jones to bake and my parents loved coming home to fresh bread and cookies many from whole grains.
And yes, you do not need to cook; fresh fruit, salads, salads topped with a can of pre-cooked chicken or crab. All sorts of stuff.

Peace...

PS Patti scores solid, all good advice and laid out nice!

Answer 5

Frozen pizzas. Hot dogs. Pasta is easy to cook once you learn. Microwave foods are terrible. Unhealthy as well.
Its easy to put some seasonings on a chicken breast and bake it in the oven. Same thing with pork chops. Its safe to throw a baked potato in the oven as well.
Just be careful. Don't place things that can burn on the stove, use hot pads and closely monitor the time so you won't burn the food, and potentially start a fire.

Answer 6

DO NOT EAT MICROWAVE MEALS

You are old enough to follow any recipe that you have the ingredients for. At age fourteen I cooked for a family of five as well as in a small take-away shop. Use common sense and work with the facilities to hand and you can cook great food.

Answer 7

Have your mom invest in a George Forman grill. You can cook hamburgers, chicken breasts, and grilled cheese sandwiches in minutes(cook times are in the instructions)! You just have to keep an eye on the grill and use an oven mitt to lift the cover. Otherwise, spaghetti is an easy meal, just boiled pasta and some sauce.

Answer 8

Pasta. Frozen dinners.

My favorite quick and easy dinner is Easy Mac. You can add some nutrition to it if you get a bag of frozen chopped broccoli. Put some in the bowl with the macaroni and water, and follow the cooking directions. The amount of time to cook the macaroni is just the right amount of time to steam the broccoli, and once you add the cheese to it, it makes the broccoli better. :)

Answer 9

You can mix together a Cesar salad.

Dressing! Just throw in a blender!

1/3 cup olive oil
2 tsp lemon juice
2 tsp worchestire sauce
3 tsp red wine vinegar
3 drops Tabasco sauce
1 egg yolk
1 clove of garlic (Crushed)
1 dash dry mustard

Add some lettuce and croutons and woot woot!

Answer 10

When I would cook for myself, I would make sandwiches and cook a lot of stir-frys with chicken. That seems pretty safe. Hey there's always Subway if you can't cook.

Answer 11

Get a healthy food cookbook, try to stick to fresh fruits n vegies and raw nuts n seeds n vegetarian eggs. Porridge and barley with organic milk n honey is good and makes muscle. Try making chappatis and add pumpkin seeds.
Try to avoid yeast bread, peanuts, pasta, corn, margarine and sugar, they used to make me have alllergies & be sad.
Healthy stuff now will help your body be healthy when you are older.