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Daycare Menus, Breakfast, Lunch and Snack Ideas>Help For Someone Who "Can't" Cook
KatiesCorner 01:40 PM 11-30-2014
Hello all! Time to spill my dirty secret, I can't cook... Yet! I never had any interest in cooking, and when I worked at a child care center, they provided all of my breakfasts and lunches. So I I was usually only fixing my own food a handful of times each week. Now, I own my own Family Home Day Care and provide breakfast, lunches, and snacks each day for two toddlers.
I've made this work by using frozen foods, and using a pretty repetitive menu. I'm looking for a few different kind of suggestions-

1.What are some easy foods that you make that are also not too unhealthy?

2.As I learn to cook, what are some easy dishes to start off with?

I've literally never cooked any meats, or anything that didn't come with instructions. Where should I start?
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Thriftylady 01:47 PM 11-30-2014
First of all you CAN cook, you just never have!

Second, you just gotta do it!

Third want a great tip for something easy and healthy? It is so easy that DH uses it in the Semi for himself, quick enough that he will cook a healthy meal in an hour or less on a ten hour break!

It is called an Aroma 3-1 you can get it at walmart. It is a slowcooker (a must have in the kitchen really). It is also a rice and veggie steamer! It has white and brown rice settings. Hubby will rinse some brown rice, put it in pot with water put it in and start it. Partway through cooking, he will add veggies and chicken breast to the food steamer basket and get it going again. It cooks a healthy meal with no effort.

Other than that, well I have lots of ideas, if you will send me your email address perhaps I can help you out. I doubt they want all that here. When I married DH, I had always worked full time, came rushing home to a husband and kids and made something from a box. It is amazing what you can do once you feel you have the time to learn.
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Unregistered 09:17 PM 11-30-2014
One easy way to do meals is just do separate ingredients for each meal component.
Milk
Protein= egg or cheese or beans or chicken or ...
Veg = broccoli or green beans or lettuce & tomato or brussel sprouts or parsnips or carrots or ...
Fruit = apple or pineapple or orange or peach or banana or strawberries or blueberries or ...
Grain = bread or pita or toast or rice or barley or ...

Sometimes little kids like their foods all separate. Not that you'd necessarily do every meal this way, but it's basic and simple and gives them variety because you can mix it up and never serve the same meal twice. And it's easy-cook.
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craftymissbeth 05:11 AM 12-01-2014
I'm not the best cook plus I hate the clean up afterward. So I dumbed down my menu a LOT. As a bonus, my dcks eat better than they did before.

One thing I do is every single Wednesday its PB&J's, cheddar cheese cubes, raw broccoli w/ dip, Apple slices, and milk. Believe it or not, but that's the only meal where all of my kids devour 2-3 plate fulls of food.

I don't like PB&J's and since I eat with my dcks I decided to switch things up. I started cooking them just like grilled cheese sandwiches... Oh. My. Goodness. So stinking good!


I also used my crock pot a ton before I dropped the ceramic part and broke it. Since I dislike clean up so much I started using the crock pot bags... you just throw the thing away and washing is super easy. My crock pot was seriously my best friend. I even roasted whole chickens in it.

The rest of our meals consist of basic ingredients. A super simple protein (a lot of days it's something as simple as cottage cheese, cheese cubes, hard oiled eggs, yogurt, etc), two servings of veggies, and an easy grain (bread, roll, buttered noodles, crackers, etc). Many providers serve rice as their grain, but I burn it every time .
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Thriftylady 09:03 AM 12-01-2014
Originally Posted by craftymissbeth:
I'm not the best cook plus I hate the clean up afterward. So I dumbed down my menu a LOT. As a bonus, my dcks eat better than they did before.

One thing I do is every single Wednesday its PB&J's, cheddar cheese cubes, raw broccoli w/ dip, Apple slices, and milk. Believe it or not, but that's the only meal where all of my kids devour 2-3 plate fulls of food.

I don't like PB&J's and since I eat with my dcks I decided to switch things up. I started cooking them just like grilled cheese sandwiches... Oh. My. Goodness. So stinking good!


I also used my crock pot a ton before I dropped the ceramic part and broke it. Since I dislike clean up so much I started using the crock pot bags... you just throw the thing away and washing is super easy. My crock pot was seriously my best friend. I even roasted whole chickens in it.

The rest of our meals consist of basic ingredients. A super simple protein (a lot of days it's something as simple as cottage cheese, cheese cubes, hard oiled eggs, yogurt, etc), two servings of veggies, and an easy grain (bread, roll, buttered noodles, crackers, etc). Many providers serve rice as their grain, but I burn it every time .
Have you tried a rice cooker? I highly suggest the aroma 3-1 to replace your crock pot. 2 birds.....

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Aroma-20-c...Steel/14321181

Just don't use crockpot bags on the steam or rice setting, learned the hard way lol. They are fine for slow cook.
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AmyKidsCo 05:29 PM 12-01-2014
My kiddos LOVE quesadillas, and they're super-easy.

Place a tortilla on a microwave-safe plate. Cover tortilla with shredded cheddar cheese. Place another tortilla on top of the cheese. Turn another plate upside-down and use as a cover for the plate that has the tortillas & cheese on it. Microwave 20-30 seconds. Microwave another 10-20 seconds until the cheese is all melted. Cut into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Easy peasy!
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SignMeUp 08:28 PM 12-01-2014
Originally Posted by AmyKidsCo:
My kiddos LOVE quesadillas, and they're super-easy.

Place a tortilla on a microwave-safe plate. Cover tortilla with shredded cheddar cheese. Place another tortilla on top of the cheese. Turn another plate upside-down and use as a cover for the plate that has the tortillas & cheese on it. Microwave 20-30 seconds. Microwave another 10-20 seconds until the cheese is all melted. Cut into wedges with a pizza cutter.

Easy peasy!
Easy add-ins or add-ons too: diced tomato, chicken, peppers. My kids love to see a chicken & cheese quesadilla decorated with tomato and pepper - it's so colorful. I like to toast my quesadillas in a hot dry pan to crisp it up a bit, for the older kids (and me ) Whole wheat tortillas aren't too bad either, with cheese.
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Unregistered 12:01 AM 12-02-2014
I don't like a big mess at breakfast so I cook breakfast food at lunch.

I came up with an easy way to make and serve French toast. Lay bread in a long baking dish-I found a more dense works best like Brownberry Oatnut bread. Beat enough eggs with milk to covert the bread. Bake till set. So much quicker and really easy to serve and kids love it.

Breakfast skillet (at lunch). Microwave or bake three/four potatoes. Cool a bit and chop into chunks. I take the peel off. Melt a little butter in a frying pan on low. Add potato chunks, sauté a few minutes, beat eggs with a bit of milk, pour over potatoes and as eggs cook turn and mix this mixture so the eggs cook. Sprinkle on cheese.

Crock pots are wonderful.

Homemade cream of tomato soup.....a box or two of vegetable broth, one block lite cream cheese, one jar spaghetti sauce ( the jarred like Prego seem much tastier than canned Hunts sauce), simmer on low till cheese melts. Serve with grilled cheese. Yum! My kids love this! You'll never go back to canned tomato soup after this!

Easy, light lunch....yogurt and or cottage cheese, cucumber slices and green pepper slices, dip, crackers and cheese, & fruit

Turkey and cheese melts. Bake up some refrigerator biscuits.When lightly browned take out of the oven-turn off oven, split open biscuits...layer on deli turkey or ham and a slice of cheese. Place back in oven still on your baking pan. Leave in till cheese melts. Watch, as bottoms burn easy, but it helps if oven is off. I now use the immaculate brand of refrigerator biscuits, as they don't have all the added junk in them.

Bubble pizza-Immaculte refrigerator biscuits, tear into chunks and lay in baking pan or dish. Pour sauce over biscuits, sprinkle on mozzarella cheese. Bake 350 I'm not sure how long. I just watch them. This is yummy!
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DaveA 06:27 AM 12-04-2014
I'm going to use a slightly different take on it. You can find recipes for kids everywhere- once you learn to cook for yourself it will be much simpler. A good starting point would be your local community college. A lot of them offer 1 evening classes on basics or cooking certain foods. Your library should have a bunch of beginner's cookbooks. Grab a couple and pick a half dozen recipes or so. I like Melissa D'Arabian's (spelling?) $10 dinners and Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade. I'm also a huge Alton Brown fan- Good Eats isn't on the air anymore, but a lot of the episodes are on youtube, & DVD's of the shows are probably available from your library on Interlibrary loan (if they don't already have them.)

The bottom line is cooking should be playtime- don't take it seriously. Try out new things- I like to grab something I've never cooked with before & figure out how to use it. Good Luck
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Rachel 10:57 PM 12-04-2014
I cook simple. I learned on the job and I agree with the people who write simple really is best. Learn to do 1 or 2 things at a time, and then expand.

For example, chicken breast. You can stir fry it in a pan (cut into cubes just make sure center is white). You can put it in a loaf pan, cover with tomato puree mixed with water and cover and bake for an hour.

Crock pots are great. Chop up potatoes & carrots, put a whole chicken or chicken pieces on top, spice a bit (love Mrs. Dash Garlic & Herb) and 5 hours later you have lunch.

My cheat is frozen veggies. I rotate between the starches and proteins, but unless I'm doing a one pot in the crock pot or stir fry I pretty much only do frozen veggies. Use my pyrex measuring cup, dump in veggies and water & microwave for a minute or 2.

Lunches this week have been:
Chicken (from the soup) carrots, zucchini, onion & couscous (basically chicken soup but I don't give them the broth, too much mess. We eat that
Meatballs, pasta, tomato sauce (a little!) and peas.\
Fried chicken cutlets, rice, green beans
Turkey burgers, mashed potatoes, peas & carrots
Tomato chicken (breast w/ sauce), pasta & mixed veggies.

We have to serve meat every day (can serve fish one day). My kids love soup chicken and we love chicken soup so I get the best soup and they get the tasty chicken .

Start simple and add. The 2 year olds won't care .
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Josiegirl 03:12 PM 12-05-2014
PB&J made like grilled cheese? I have GOT to try that.

I do simple here too. It seems like the longer it takes to make or the more stuff I mix together, the less the dcks will eat.

I buy boneless and skinless chicken breasts and slice them thinly, stir fry them in low cal. Italian dressing. I usually serve all components separately; it almost seems like kids have to identify what they're eating before they'll eat it.
So if we have chicken, I might make brown rice or wheat pasta(just plain with parmesan cheese sprinkled on it), with fruits/veggies.
Some kids' eating habits can be a bit weird too. I have 1 toddler who loves any fruits and veggies but hardly any carb. Then my other toddler is just the opposite, eating just carbs with the exception of bananas and applesauce.
But simple is good. Plain fruits, veggies are healthier. Most kids love cheese. When you start feeling adventurous find something you'd like to try, either in a cookbook or on a recipe site and go for it. Make it on a day off and you can reheat leftovers for dc.
I'm not a great cook but I can cook. However, I have come to dislike it very much. It gets old after 40 yrs of cooking. I'm happy with a bowl of cereal, why can't everybody else be.
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Thriftylady 04:51 PM 12-05-2014
Originally Posted by DaveArmour:
I'm going to use a slightly different take on it. You can find recipes for kids everywhere- once you learn to cook for yourself it will be much simpler. A good starting point would be your local community college. A lot of them offer 1 evening classes on basics or cooking certain foods. Your library should have a bunch of beginner's cookbooks. Grab a couple and pick a half dozen recipes or so. I like Melissa D'Arabian's (spelling?) $10 dinners and Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade. I'm also a huge Alton Brown fan- Good Eats isn't on the air anymore, but a lot of the episodes are on youtube, & DVD's of the shows are probably available from your library on Interlibrary loan (if they don't already have them.)

The bottom line is cooking should be playtime- don't take it seriously. Try out new things- I like to grab something I've never cooked with before & figure out how to use it. Good Luck
Wow we haven't had cable for a few years, I didn't realize Good Eats wasn't on anymore. LOVED that show! So great for beginners and old pros.
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craftymissbeth 06:25 PM 12-05-2014
Originally Posted by Josiegirl:
PB&J made like grilled cheese? I have GOT to try that.
Gooey heaven is what it is

Pro tip #1: use slightly less peanut butter and jelly in the kids' grilled PB&J's.
Pro tip #2: use normal amounts in yours... pure ooey gooey heaven
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permanentvacation 07:54 PM 12-12-2014
Cooking in a crock pot is, to me, the easiest thing in the world. Like craftymissbeth said, you just throw everything in there and let it cook on it's own throughout the day. In the morning, you throw a roast, some cut up carrots, potatoes, celery, seasoning, and some water in and put it on low or medium. By dinner time, you have a perfectly cooked meal. You can cook almost anything in a crock pot. You can search for recipes online.

After the crock pot, I find that using recipes and cooking in the oven is the next easiest. If you follow the recipe and put the oven on the correct temperature for the correct time, it usually turns out right.

The hardest to cook on, for me, is the stove top. That's because I have to know how high to put the temperature, how long to cook it, and make sure to stir the food or flip the food before it sticks together or burns. I started making sure to stand at the stove the whole time I was cooking and monitored my food constantly. Then I learned how high to put the temperature, how long to cook it, and how often I needed to stir or flip the food. Now I can put something on the stove, walk away and do something else for a few minutes and then go back in to tend to the food.

You might not be able to cook simply because you are trying to do too many things at once and aren't focusing on cooking. Do you burn things because you get busy with something else? Are you trying to cook foods too quickly so you have the heat up too high? That will burn the food on the outside, but the inside isn't cooked. I used to be a horrible cook because I was trying to do too many things at once. My kids and I often threw away what I had attempted to cook and ordered pizza. My dog wouldn't even eat what I cooked! But once I stopped rushing about like a chicken with my head cut off and allowed myself to focus solely on what I was cooking, I became a great cook! I have actually cooked complete Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners with everything tasting amazing!

One trick I learned for cooking meats on the stove is to cut the meat into smaller pieces which allows each peace to cook through faster and you can see the inside of the meat better to know when it is cooked through. Instead of a thick chicken breast, I cut it into strips. Instead of a thick steak, I cut it into cubes. I figure you're going to cut it when it's on your plate so you can eat it. Why not cut it before you cook it so it's not such a thick piece of meat to get to properly cook through? It works for me. No more cooked on the outside, but rare on the inside.

I also find that some things are easier to cook in the microwave such as mashed potatoes and boxed stuffing. Just make sure that halfway through them cooking, you stir them.
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Leigh 04:36 PM 12-22-2014
Originally Posted by DaveArmour:
I'm going to use a slightly different take on it. You can find recipes for kids everywhere- once you learn to cook for yourself it will be much simpler. A good starting point would be your local community college. A lot of them offer 1 evening classes on basics or cooking certain foods. Your library should have a bunch of beginner's cookbooks. Grab a couple and pick a half dozen recipes or so. I like Melissa D'Arabian's (spelling?) $10 dinners and Sandra Lee's Semi-homemade. I'm also a huge Alton Brown fan- Good Eats isn't on the air anymore, but a lot of the episodes are on youtube, & DVD's of the shows are probably available from your library on Interlibrary loan (if they don't already have them.)

The bottom line is cooking should be playtime- don't take it seriously. Try out new things- I like to grab something I've never cooked with before & figure out how to use it. Good Luck


I find tons of inspiration on my Roku channels. Ree Drummond's recipes have never failed me-even though I may have happily made something for years, her recipes are always just a little better. I recently made her twice baked potatoes, and they were awesome...from not on, I'm making my mashed like this, too. Her salisbury steak recipe is one the kids here love, and so does my family (http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/). The hungry housewife has some good ones, too. I learned to cook from the Good Housekeeping cookbook-it's still where I go when I want a traditional recipe that taste's like my mom made it. Taste of Home magazine, and all of their affiliate mags are good, too. I have never made anything from one of those magazines that I haven't liked. I got a 4 year subscription for $16 from a magazine deal website (discountmags, maybe?).
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daycare 05:25 PM 12-22-2014
I have a funny story for you...

I also can't cook. I am vegan and 85% of what I eat I don't have to cook...I prefer most foods raw...
\
Well when I first meet my now husband, he is a carnivore. I really wanted to impress him so I tried to make the a low-carb-meatloaf.

When it said all-spice, I didn't know what that meant. So I put in all spices.................Including what for it,,,,,,,,wait for it,,,,, VANILLA..

Of course, my DH tired to eat it, but just couldn't. He said it tasted like a meat cake...............we laughed about it so hard when I showed him the recipe I got from online and he said where does it say vanilla....I said it doesn't, it says ALL-SPICE..... yeah I get teased all the time..

Oh I also didn't know what a griddle was when I first came to the USA... I was dating back in college when I tired to yet impress another young man and tried to make him hot-cakes. On the directions it said to put them in a griddle....well I put them in a frying pan in the oven on 350 degrees....yeah, let's just say that was another thing I still get teased about ..
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KatiesCorner 09:47 AM 01-10-2015
Thank you guys so much for all the inspiration and encouragement! I had forgotten I made this thread, so I apologize for not checking in sooner. I'll check into the Aroma 3-1 and/or a crock pot, should have thought of that earlier
I'm definitely going to try a grilled PB&J, that sounds delicious.
Daycare, that's hilarious! You live and you learn, right? That's actually a helpful story, because I think part of my problem is that I'm scared to mess up. I don't wanna cook until I know how, but I won't learn how until I cook. I'm feeling better about experimenting now though!
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Rachel 03:39 AM 01-12-2015
KatiesCorner, how's the cooking going? Ready for The Food Network yet
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samuelscott 04:38 AM 01-12-2015
I'd say tacos are very easy, chop your veggies, brown your hamburger, drain fat and add seasoning if you like and scoop into shells. or use leftover rotissary chicken for chicken tacos. Now It's ready to eat.
Originally Posted by KatiesCorner:
Hello all! Time to spill my dirty secret, I can't cook... Yet! I never had any interest in cooking, and when I worked at a child care center, they provided all of my breakfasts and lunches. So I I was usually only fixing my own food a handful of times each week. Now, I own my own Family Home Day Care and provide breakfast, lunches, and snacks each day for two toddlers.
I've made this work by using frozen foods, and using a pretty repetitive menu. I'm looking for a few different kind of suggestions-

1.What are some easy foods that you make that are also not too unhealthy?

2.As I learn to cook, what are some easy dishes to start off with?

I've literally never cooked any meats, or anything that didn't come with instructions. Where should I start?

Reply
Unregistered 04:36 AM 04-24-2015
Another really easy item ....refrigerator biscuits (again I use immaculate. At least they are just basic, no weird ingre,). Bake, take out slice, add cheese slice and sliced turkey or chicken ( see below) place back in warm oven till cheese melted. I turn off the stove when I first take them out, so they don't burn when I put them back in. Yummy!

Also, I always to cook chicken breasts in my crock pot for shredded chicken. It can be used in sandwiches, tacos, burritos, etc. it seemed to dry out. I saw somewhere to pour chicken broth over the breasts and cook in the crock pot. They come out moist and delicious.

Also good...shredded chicken & buttered noodles! Yum! Add some frozen peas for color! Easy peasy! Haha
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