As a father to a daughter with additional needs, I’ve always been concerned with how I could support her to be safe, secure, and live a rewarding and fulfilling life when I’m no longer around. I’ve always believed there were a couple of key things that needed to fall into place in her life for that to happen:

• A purpose to her day, so she wouldn’t be stuck at home bored and isolated without people to interact with.
• The ability to look after herself at home.

As we all thought more deeply about these, it led us to think of her life plan along 4 lines:

1. Daily Living: Basic skills like cooking and cleaning to be more independent.
2. Relationships: Building and maintaining connections with others.
3. Purpose: Finding meaningful activities to fill her days.
4. Financial: Managing her money day-to-day and us planning for her long-term financial security.

And from our thoughts came the book, “What’s Possible? Plan a Better Future for Your Young Adult with Additional Needs.” It’s a guide for parents like us who want to support their children to plan for a fulfilling future.).

One of the most challenging areas we’ve tackled is cooking, because if my daughter is to have the sort of independent life she wants, being able to cook for herself is a must. We’ve worked on this since she was young, but she always found it challenging

Often the barriers to her being able to cook independently seemed insurmountable. It wasn’t just from a safety perspective, with hot ovens and heavy pans of boiling water, it was also the practicality of following a lengthy recipe that might require frying onions, chopping vegetables, and weighing ingredients. It certainly seemed pasta, one of her favourites would be off the menu.

Finding A Way Forward

But as we thought about the barriers she faced, we realised we had a list of all the options that wouldn’t work. So, all we had to do was find options that would. And that’s what we’ve been doing over the last 18 months.

The first thing we looked at was the safety challenge. The oven and the stove both presented her with issues. An air fryer was an obvious replacement for the oven because it’s smaller, lighter, and easier to handle. But as we went along this route, we found it quite restrictive. Think about it, do you cook all your meals in the oven, or do you use saucepans to make many of the meals you like?

Many people have a slow cooker in the cupboard but only use it for soups or when a large group of friends comes over. But slow cookers are an easy and safe way to cook, so we bought a small 1.8 litre/1 quart slow cooker. This is great for my daughter who wanted to cook for herself because, although it can cook family meals, it also enables her to batch cook so she has tasty meals ready in the freezer for when she wants them.

So with our two safe appliances, the air fryer and a small slow cooker, we looked at how to adapt recipes that were simple to follow. Our basic rules were:

• No boiling water or heavy trays of hot food
• No peeling, because some vegetables are hard to peel, and it takes a long time
• No chopping with sharp knives
• No weighing of anything, maths isn’t everyone’s thing
• No more than 5 ingredients (I get confused when I look at recipes with a long list of ingredients).

Once we knew what we couldn’t or wouldn’t make, we had guidelines for the recipes we could make or that could be adapted (in many cases, particularly with our pasta dishes, almost reinvented) to be cooked in the slow cooker or air fryer.

What gradually evolved was a system she uses constantly and consistently. She only uses frozen pre-cut vegetables, any measuring is always done using cups and spoons, and at most recipes only have 5 ingredients. Plus, the system approach means she always uses a slow cooker and the air fryer on the same settings each time.  

The result is a Safe, Simple, System our daughter uses as she cooks for herself. She does this without our support or help. She usually cooks for herself, and sometimes for us, at least 3 times a week. And she does this because of the safe simple system that works for her.

I’m excited to announce we’ve just released a cooking course (Independent Cooking Made Easy) that shares our cooking methods.

I believe cooking for anyone is a big part of growing up and becoming independent. All our children need food preparation skills. It’s a key skill they need for when we’re no longer able to support them in the ways we do now.

Conclusion

One of the things I want for my daughter is for her to live a safe, secure, rewarding and fulfilling life. Part of this is her living independently with as little assistance as possible, her having community in her life, her having a purpose to her day, and her having financial security.

Graham Caldow

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