Do you have an upcoming college graduate about to sprout wings and fly solo? You may want to avoid extending that ”wallet-ectomy” on take-out food and restaurants when they move out by preparing him in advance with help-yourself recipes for survival.

Of course, you can go shopping and send him or her off with a few jars of Casericco marinara sauce and bags of pasta…. Or….. you can arm them with some simple cooking skills.

You can start now when they come home on breaks or weekends. Plan a “learn how to prepare this” afternoon together. Keep it simple.
Here are a few effortless ideas:

First, the simplest is always pasta, with different sauces, such as tomato, oil and garlic, mac and cheese, or a quick meat sauce.

Easy dishes:Pasta in olive oil and garlic: Sauté garlic in olive oil and a tbsp. of butter. Prepare favorite pasta, drain-saving some of the water and pour into the oil with the saved water, season with s/p, parsley, basil.  Throw in vegetables like peas or broccoli, and top with grated cheese.

You can add meat to this dish by browning sliced sausage or ground beef in the garlic and oil before adding the pasta. This works well with bow tie pasta. Top with cheese.

Chicken and rice:Prepare rice as directed on package, but use a can of chicken broth for part of the water for the rice to flavor the rice. While it is simmering, wash and pat dry chicken breasts, sprinkle with olive oil, salt and pepper, press in bread crumbs on both sides. Sauté garlic in olive oil and brown chicken breasts approximately 5 minutes on each side over med. Heat. Lower the heat, cover, and simmer about 10 minutes. By this time, the rice will be ready at the same time as the chicken and you have a complete dinner.

If you have any family favorites, this would be a good time prepare it together because sometimes seeing and participating in the preparation is a better tool than just following a recipe. This way, they will also learn some valuable information about safe food handling.

Plan a list of the essential herbs and spices to buy: salt, pepper, parsley, garlic powder, basil, lemon pepper, ketchup, mustard, cheese, etc.

We did this in our house with our kids and we had a good time. They are both own their own now and have a fully functional “pantry” of items for themselves. I get phone calls now that sound like, “I made our chicken recipe tonight and it was great.” “Instead of take-outs, I made dinner for myself and had leftovers for tomorrow’s dinner.”They really will save money and enjoy the cooking experience.