Like bumblebeez, I was doing a lot of cooking for the family by the time I was 12, but I'd spent my whole life cooking with Grandma, so I was familiar with foods, preparation and techniques. If this 12 year old has spent no time in the kitchen, she'll be starting from scratch, but is plenty old enough to be very competent in the kitchen. Poor kid, I do hope she likes to cook, or learns to like it and feels that it's a help. OK, so meals. I agree with the meatloaf, that's a good start and the same mixture can be used for meatballs, which can be baked in the oven. A crockpot is a really good idea too, so things can be prepared ahead and can cook all day while the kids are at school and Dad is at work. Pulled pork in the crockpot is easy, and I've used that recipe that calls for root beer, a kid might like to try that. Add BBQ sauce or not, depending on the family's tastes. Other good crockpot recipes are Ginger's french dip sandwiches and Amanda uses hers for pork roast and makes an enchilada type casserole with layers of beans and tortillas with cheese and sauce. I also use those ziplock microwave bags for vegetables sometimes, they are good for asparagus with a little sesame oil and Mother always uses them for broccoli, fast and simple. A roast chicken is pretty basic and there's a "no peek stew" recipe hanging around here somewhere. My girls liked to make "coke chicken", a recipe from the Girl Scouts. Scrub and quarter red potatoes, add some baby carrots and layer chicken pieces on top. Mix half and half cola and catsup, pour over top, cover and bake for an hour and a half at 350. The coke and catsup makes a sweet BBQ type sauce that the kids just loved and they'd fight over the last potatoes in that sauce. There are some very simple macaroni and cheese recipes available and most kids like that, or spaghetti with a canned sauce and some of those meatballs. The dreaded tuna noodle casserole is another thing that many kids like and it's relatively simple. Teaching her to make soup from leftovers is a good idea, or any kind of leftover usage. She could bake a ham, then make scalloped potatoes with ham or a ham loaf, then use the bone in a pot of beans. The roast chicken could later become chicken pot pie or chicken noodle soup. Pizza goes without saying, and even Makayla makes "pizza" from English muffins, pizza sauce, pepperoni and cheese. Poor baby, I feel so badly for her. You're a good uncle to take this on and she'll appreciate the help. You'll be creating a good memory for this child and she'll love you for it. Annie

Meems is a sweet girl and if she doesn't like to cook I don't think she has to learn a whole lot of cooking techniques that fit someone else's lifestyle. I think that's what AnnT is getting at. Everyone needs to find their own system of what works for them. My brother and BF are "plain food" people. They eat like LindaC suggests, a good cut of meat, a cooked vegetable, a quick salad and some kind of starch, all in their neatly arranged individual corners on the plate, lol! Me on the other hand, I like stir fry, a jumble of pasta, a melange of soup. That's why I can't really give quickie advice here, my quickie stuff is mostly some version of rice and beans, something most folks don't eat for dinner as the sole dish. My system is to cook some larger, more complicated dishes on the weekends and freeze them. And I love leftovers. Someone else's system might be to throw something fresh together every night. There are lots of quick and dirty ways to get a fast meal on the table. I am learning more and more of them everyday as I venture into the wonderful world of "cooking for two." Sooner or later you'll get a repertoire together that suits your new lifestyle realities. Seems like that's what you're asking for here, not a treatise on how to get along with your adult children. There are certain dishes I just won't do, not because I can't do them or they are particularly difficult, but because I just do not want to fuss with the process of making them. Pie is one example. I love pie, so I make it, but I rarely do the crust from scratch, I don't care how easy someone tells me it is or how much they enjoy homeade pie crust. I buy boxed pie crust, haven't found it to be all that much worse than my own homeade, and a whole lot less trouble. It is a compromise I'm willing to make. This week I'm making a quiche with one, which then makes quiche one of those easy, delicious, semi homeade meals. Add a salad, some good rolls and you're good to go. The pre-shredded gruyere at the market was actually way cheaper than the whole cheese, what a boon!! Sometimes it's not just the process of cooking that makes getting a meal on the table a no-fun endeavor. My kitchen set up is so awkward it has greatly reduced what I'm in the mood to cook. No matter how I've reconfigured it, it is still a pain. I love to cook with a good music or other NPR show on the radio as accompaniment. Maybe that is one part of motivating yourself to cook dinner--make the kitchen environment seem fun and welcoming to you when you come home tired from work. Unfortunately, mine is not, which explains a lot of why I don't like to cook. The other thing for me is cooking with someone else. I am WAY more motivated to cook something if someone else is helping. I am an extrovert who loves to be with friends, I love to cook with others so when BF helps me in the kitchen I am way more motivated to make things. Being a craftsman by profession, he loves the process of dicing and slicing, which I hate. So I would suggest that is part of the equation. Take a look at your kitchen and see if there are ways to arrange things that make cooking faster, easier and more enjoyable. I rotate my crockpot and my bread machine, one or the other is going on my counter almost every day. The joy of those appliances is not that they do such a spectacular job of cooking food, but that they fill up the house with wonderful, homey, mouth watering aromas, which makes you feel good about both cooking and eating. That's part of the process. A bowl of fresh fruit and nuts or a tray of muffins in a see through glass container on the counter, etc. I once lived in a big old farmhouse and the kitchen was loaded with counter space and was by far the biggest room in the house. I lived with some great roomates, we cooked together and hung out most of the time at the kitchen table. I cooked WAY more in that set up than I do now. I can't believe the baking and cooking I did back then, having no more time than I do now. Anyway Susie, I know I tend to be the alpha wolf in a lot of situations and sometimes what I need to do is ask for help, tell others I need help. Sure, you can cook everything all by yourself, but if you tell the kids you would really appreciate some help, they will find ways I'm sure!! Somtimes all you have to do is ask, because what one person automatically knows to do isn't the same for every other person.

For many decades we were a two-income household. It's the norm here in CA. All the younger couples we know (Gen X & Y) both work and plan to keep on doing so, with or without kids. They shop at Trader Joe's and Costco. Seldom at Whole Foods; too expensive except for an occasional trip. Standard grocery chains (Lucky, Safeway, Andronico) for standard stuff. They are very busy, and need to make a complete healthy dinner in 30 minutes, max. They vacillate between Sandra Lee's Semi-Homemade, ethnic restaurant/takeout, and quickie chicken, pasta, or rice meals (homemade, but nothing fancy). One thing I really notice they are missing: they do very little make-ahead cooking. My mother was one of the rare women who worked outside the home in the 50Âs and Â60Âs. She did a lot of cooking which was done in advance: stews, casseroles, braises. Not necessarily a completed dish, but rather one where you break the steps down over a couple of days, then assemble and finish cooking to serve. To this day I cook this way. I almost never just "degrease the pan juices and serve"  I prefer to refrigerate and lift off all the fat. Since most meat is so lean you donÂt need to cook it for hours to become tender (it only dries out), I work on creating a flavorful sauce with some vegetables after browning the meat. Similar in concept to the Spanish ÂsofritoÂ, almost always with olive oil and sometimes a bit of wine. Refrigerated overnight, it gains flavor and depth, adding a richness to the finished dish that goes far beyond what can be achieved in a 15-minute saute. For the older generation, I find many cook with too many additives, too much salt and fat (especially trans-fat), and too much sugar. They need to realize changing the diet can be done gradually and easily. Start with small changes, then work up to bigger ones. Frozen foods can be high in salt with plenty of additives, so although fine once in a while they should not be the mainstay of a diet  many seniors, especially when single due to death or divorce, find it much easier to use ready-made processed meals rather than try to cook for one. They need to be encouraged to try different brands until they find one that works for them. For instance, my MIL prefers her bread white and soft, but my DH needs fiber and whole grains. I tried different breads until I found a whole-wheat thatÂs a good compromise they can both agree on. Every once in a while white bread is served with a meal, but not more than two or three times a month. No more soda pop, first juice, then eventually juice mixed with water, once a day  the rest of the time, plain water (we have an undercounter filter at the kitchen sink, saving us thousands of $$ from bottled water). I tried salt substitutes, but didnÂt like any of them. Then I tried lemon pepper, and found a brand that was easily available which we liked, thatÂs among the lowest in sodium content. Fresh herbs, when possible, also help cut down the salt cravings. No snack foods except for healthy ones: no-salt roasted nuts, popcorn without butter, whole- or multi-grain crackers, raisins or dried cranberries/apricots/prunes. You have to watch the portion sizes (pre-packaging into small baggies really helps!), but they are much healthier than chips. And of course, dips for those (healthy, preferably baked) chips are easy to make with yoghurt and much healthier than processed ones! Cooking Light magazine is a wonderful resource to start with, and their "Recipe Remake", where they take a readerÂs high-fat recipe and refine it into a healthier version that still tastes great, is a great inspiration for people to start reconsidering how they can change their diets without feeling deprived. Kudos to you for the inspiration for this class, and best wishes for success!

Ann H., traditional Chanuka foods vary with the community. Jews of Eastern European descent eat latkes (but never agree on how to make them). Israelis eat fried filled doughnuts. As you see in the string, and can find on many web sites, everywhere in the world, Jews come up with something different for Chanuka. The one constant is that it should be something cooked in oil; that's the point. The idea is to commemorate the story about the oil for the menorah. lpinkmountain, if you use a mix for matzo balls, you will go to hell. JUST KIDDING! But really, I have never understood what the point is of that mix. I mean, matzo balls contain matzo meal, salt, egg, water or broth, and fat (chicken fat best if you are not a vegetarian and your cardiologist isn't looking). So what's in that mix? I think it's just matzo meal, salt, and some bouillon powder (which I don't like anyway); you still have to add the rest -- doesn't really save any time and just costs a lot more and uses more packaging. Lakeguy, here is how I (a genuine Jewish mother) make chicken soup and matzo balls. It's a very simple recipe, without even any dill or garlic, but it really doesn't need it, because the strongly developed chicken flavor holds its own, so try it this way first. Really, you can make any kind of chicken soup your family likes, but make sure to follow the two essentials about the type of chicken and the length of cooking. Try to find a kosher chicken -- the bigger, fatter, and older, the better. The taste is just much, much better. It's not that the kosher slaughtering makes a difference. But they grow them bigger, and they don't feed them chemicals (not for kosher purposes, just to broaden their market to foodies), and the soaking and salting of kashering is like brining it. If you can't find a kosher chicken in your town, then go for an organic one, I guess. Lindac taught me the money-saving tip of using a package of wings instead of a whole chicken (kosher chickens are not cheap). Gellchom's Jewish Chicken Soup (eat! eat!) 1 cut up kosher chicken, or a large package of wings, necks, etc. 2 stalks celery, NO LEAVES, scraped and cut into sticks 2 large carrots, scraped and cut into sticks one whole onion, peeled Salt and pepper Rinse the chicken and put it in your soup pot. Cover with water to about 3/4 inch from top. Bring to a good hard boil, reduce the heat, and skim. Then add the vegetables, 1-2 T salt, and some pepper. Cover and simmer a LONG time -- absolute minimum 1 1/2 hours, but I like to let it go to much longer, even to 6. If it cooks too far down, then just add some water; the taste will still be plenty rich, I promise. Remove chicken and use for something that can have seriously overcooked chicken! Discard onion (and celery, if you want, but I like it in the soup). Remove carrots and set aside. Strain soup and return carrots, celery, and maybe some of the chicken. Chill and remove some but not all of the fat before reheating. Serve with matzo balls, kreplach, noodles, or rice. Matzo balls (this is just the old recipe off the back of the Manischewitz matzo meal box, before they changed it from schmaltz to oil) 2 T schmaltz (rendered chicken fat; buy frozen in kosher market or make your own) or oil (if you must!) 2 lg eggs, slightly beaten ½ c matzo meal 1 t salt, optional 2 T water or broth (use broth if no schmaltz) Mix schmaltz and eggs. Mix matzo meal with salt and blend. Add water and mix. Cover and chill at least 15 minutes. Boil slightly salted water. Reduce heat to low, form balls (with wet hands, and note that they will enlarge as they cook), and add to soup. Cover and cook 30-40 minutes.