Books like I'm Just Here for the Food: Food + Heat = Cooking

I have a 13-year-old who thinks he wants to go to culinary school, but has still only mastered the arts of ramen noodles and jello. He's a fan of foodie rock stars like Anthony Bourdain, Gordon Ramsey, and, of course, Alton Brown. So, this summer we're making cooking homeschool -- I've got it all planned out, and this book is our text. We'll focus on one cooking method a week, and come September, I'll have another hand in the house that has no excuse for not coming up with dinner once in a while. He already made us beef stew and an oreo ice cream pie, and despite the anxiety, it all came out well. Here we go...Week 1 Completed!We have mastered the method of Searing--Meal 1: Beef stew, delicious the first night, even better the next day.Meal 2: Jerk tuna steak, the boys found the spices too...spicy, but I thought it was great. They scraped the spices off and enjoyed the tuna, and Eb added a coleslaw vinaigrette, which was the perfect side to mellow the spices.Meal 3: hashbrowns. Eb refused to include the red beet the recipe called for, so he just made regular hashbrowns with ham steak and eggs. Nothing extravagant, but a challenge to have everything ready at the same time.We'll be taking a 2 week hiatus while they're out of town, but next we tackle the barbeque. Let's hope we don't burn the house down...