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<blockquote data-quote="Marguerite" data-source="post: 267517" data-attributes="member: 1991"><p>ABout teaching her to cook - getting her to help is a step in the right direction. Encourage her to choose the menu, work with her to make healthy choices but also to make choices she likes. Budgeting for the preferred meal is part of the process - you can't have lobster thermidor if all you can afford is macaroni cheese. You can help here - you know she is into comfort food, so you might be able to find foods she will like even though she hasn't tried them yet.</p><p></p><p>An example (cheap) - gnocchi. I had difficult child 3 helping me make this, when he was a pre-schooler. He was mostly non-verbal at the time, but still capable of helping me when I showed him what to do and put his hands on the dough. Gnocchi is made from leftover mashed potato (or especially cooked, cooled, mashed potato - my kids love it!). You mix about a handful of room temperature mash with one egg, then when it's smooth you add a couple of Tablespoonsful of plain (all-purpose) flour. Do all this iin a mixing bowl. The dough needs to have enough flour to be fairly solid, but still should be very sticky.</p><p></p><p>I then roll the dough out on the kitchen bench, on a dough mat or silicone mat if I can but when on holidays I have just dumped the dough onto the bench. Put lots of flour down first.</p><p></p><p>I doon't dump all the dough, I actually use a plastic spatula to 'slice' off a chunk of dough and put it on some flour on the bench. The chink of dough then gets rolled over in the flour (not kneaded any further) until you can touch it without it sticking to your hands. Roll it into a long snake, about as thick as your thumb. If you have too much dough then cut the snake in half and roll again, one piece at a time.</p><p></p><p>When the dough is even thickness then use the floured spatula to 'cut' the dough snake into 1 cm thick pieces. It's quick and easy. Then toss these pieces in flour to stop them from being sticky on the cut surface. Next - get the tines of a fork and press each piece of dough gently. Sometimes it will stick to the fork - if so, roll it off gently, letting it curl up a little. It makes the end result dumpling hold the sauce so much better.</p><p></p><p>I then put each dumpling on a foam tray (the kind our vegetables are sometimes packed on). You could also use a well-floured plate. Then drop them into salted boiling water and stand ready with a slotted spoon and a bowl. As the dumplings float, let them boil for about 30 seconds then lift them out, drain them and toss in sauce. You need to toss them in sauce, or a bit of olive oil or butter, to stop them from sticking to one another.</p><p></p><p>It's best to make small batches rather than one huge amount, because you can't put the dough aside and leave it at any stage, you have to keep going with it. So when you're learning, do one egg's worth at a time.</p><p></p><p>I'm very fast with it now - I put a pot of water on to boil and by the time the water is boiling, I've got all the dumplings made.</p><p></p><p>And to serve - my underweight difficult children would get it with just butter. But a kid needing to watch their weight (and difficult child 3, who prefers it this way) can have it with a tomato-based sauce. That way it's fat-free.</p><p></p><p>It's comfort food, sure, but it's got protein in it and the carbs are slow-release, which is much better for you. It's fast, it's cheap, it's easy, it tastes wonderful. And the amount of gnocchi you can make in a short time costs a bomb at the stores and doesn't taste half as good. Commercially-made gnocchi is stodgy and rubbery (too much flour added - necessary, for commercial production).</p><p></p><p>The home-made stuff is exactly the same as what you get in the best Italian restaurants for a large cost.</p><p></p><p>If you need to cook a large quantity to feed everybody a main meal, something I do is this:</p><p>I coat the batches straight from the pot with a small amount of bolognese sauce or tomato-based pasta sauce and put it in a casserole dish. When I've cooked it all I put a layer of sauce over the top, then a layer of cheesy bechamel. Then I bake it in the oven until the cheesy sauce has browned a bit.</p><p></p><p>THis should be well within difficult child 1's reach especially with help, and she should find it tasty.</p><p></p><p>If she's been labelled as mentally retarded, then it's possible that she's been choosing the noodles option because it's easy plus it's something she can do for herself (if not now, then it at least seems achievable).</p><p></p><p>Also another suggestion (in terms of board use) - try to use quote marks when you are pasting in a chunk of text from someone else, to make it clearer to the reader if they're reading your words or someone else's. I'm not conocerned about you using my words, only that as the reader skims it, it can be confusing not knowing the border between yours and teirs. You might be quoting someone and disagreeing with them, for example. To the reader it can seem very confusing.</p><p></p><p>If you look at the top of the box where you're typing text in, you will see (on the extreme right of the icons) what looks like a comic book dialogue box. If you click on that it will put (QUOTE) (QUOTE) in the box with the cursor right between the words (only it will use square brackets, not round).</p><p></p><p>You can then type your reply on the next line, and it will be easy and obvious.</p><p></p><p>It took me a while to work it out - before that, I was manually putting in the quote marks.</p><p></p><p>Another option is to use bold, or italics, to distinguish between the different blocks of text.</p><p></p><p>Whatever works for you.</p><p></p><p>Marg</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Marguerite, post: 267517, member: 1991"] ABout teaching her to cook - getting her to help is a step in the right direction. Encourage her to choose the menu, work with her to make healthy choices but also to make choices she likes. Budgeting for the preferred meal is part of the process - you can't have lobster thermidor if all you can afford is macaroni cheese. You can help here - you know she is into comfort food, so you might be able to find foods she will like even though she hasn't tried them yet. An example (cheap) - gnocchi. I had difficult child 3 helping me make this, when he was a pre-schooler. He was mostly non-verbal at the time, but still capable of helping me when I showed him what to do and put his hands on the dough. Gnocchi is made from leftover mashed potato (or especially cooked, cooled, mashed potato - my kids love it!). You mix about a handful of room temperature mash with one egg, then when it's smooth you add a couple of Tablespoonsful of plain (all-purpose) flour. Do all this iin a mixing bowl. The dough needs to have enough flour to be fairly solid, but still should be very sticky. I then roll the dough out on the kitchen bench, on a dough mat or silicone mat if I can but when on holidays I have just dumped the dough onto the bench. Put lots of flour down first. I doon't dump all the dough, I actually use a plastic spatula to 'slice' off a chunk of dough and put it on some flour on the bench. The chink of dough then gets rolled over in the flour (not kneaded any further) until you can touch it without it sticking to your hands. Roll it into a long snake, about as thick as your thumb. If you have too much dough then cut the snake in half and roll again, one piece at a time. When the dough is even thickness then use the floured spatula to 'cut' the dough snake into 1 cm thick pieces. It's quick and easy. Then toss these pieces in flour to stop them from being sticky on the cut surface. Next - get the tines of a fork and press each piece of dough gently. Sometimes it will stick to the fork - if so, roll it off gently, letting it curl up a little. It makes the end result dumpling hold the sauce so much better. I then put each dumpling on a foam tray (the kind our vegetables are sometimes packed on). You could also use a well-floured plate. Then drop them into salted boiling water and stand ready with a slotted spoon and a bowl. As the dumplings float, let them boil for about 30 seconds then lift them out, drain them and toss in sauce. You need to toss them in sauce, or a bit of olive oil or butter, to stop them from sticking to one another. It's best to make small batches rather than one huge amount, because you can't put the dough aside and leave it at any stage, you have to keep going with it. So when you're learning, do one egg's worth at a time. I'm very fast with it now - I put a pot of water on to boil and by the time the water is boiling, I've got all the dumplings made. And to serve - my underweight difficult children would get it with just butter. But a kid needing to watch their weight (and difficult child 3, who prefers it this way) can have it with a tomato-based sauce. That way it's fat-free. It's comfort food, sure, but it's got protein in it and the carbs are slow-release, which is much better for you. It's fast, it's cheap, it's easy, it tastes wonderful. And the amount of gnocchi you can make in a short time costs a bomb at the stores and doesn't taste half as good. Commercially-made gnocchi is stodgy and rubbery (too much flour added - necessary, for commercial production). The home-made stuff is exactly the same as what you get in the best Italian restaurants for a large cost. If you need to cook a large quantity to feed everybody a main meal, something I do is this: I coat the batches straight from the pot with a small amount of bolognese sauce or tomato-based pasta sauce and put it in a casserole dish. When I've cooked it all I put a layer of sauce over the top, then a layer of cheesy bechamel. Then I bake it in the oven until the cheesy sauce has browned a bit. THis should be well within difficult child 1's reach especially with help, and she should find it tasty. If she's been labelled as mentally retarded, then it's possible that she's been choosing the noodles option because it's easy plus it's something she can do for herself (if not now, then it at least seems achievable). Also another suggestion (in terms of board use) - try to use quote marks when you are pasting in a chunk of text from someone else, to make it clearer to the reader if they're reading your words or someone else's. I'm not conocerned about you using my words, only that as the reader skims it, it can be confusing not knowing the border between yours and teirs. You might be quoting someone and disagreeing with them, for example. To the reader it can seem very confusing. If you look at the top of the box where you're typing text in, you will see (on the extreme right of the icons) what looks like a comic book dialogue box. If you click on that it will put (QUOTE) (QUOTE) in the box with the cursor right between the words (only it will use square brackets, not round). You can then type your reply on the next line, and it will be easy and obvious. It took me a while to work it out - before that, I was manually putting in the quote marks. Another option is to use bold, or italics, to distinguish between the different blocks of text. Whatever works for you. Marg [/QUOTE]
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