to wonder what defines 'home made'

[biddysmama]

my friend is making "homemade sausage, mash and gravy with jelly for after"

what about if you use a sauce to make your bolognese? is that homemade?

[Iklboo]

How far do you go though? Milling your own flour to bake your own bread, making your own butter & cheese?
For me, as long as I don't have to 'pirce film lid several times' it's home made

[sanielle]

I'd say all but the sausage is homemade..

[nikki1978]

Homemade sausage? As in with a sausage machine and everything?

[pantaloons]

It varies greatly, doesn't it?

I saw a recipe in the Asda magazine for "homemade Lasagne", but they used packet cheese sauce and ragu. I think it should have been "home assembled".

I like to think most of the stuff I serve is home made, but I do use stock and would never consider making my own pasta so I suppose I'm only about 90% there at best. My sausage isn't home made, but it is made from my pigs and my gravy is always Bisto!

[biddysmama]

no lol bought sausages, shes boiled and mashed the potato, stirred some gravy granuels into some water and stirred the jelly into (seperate) water

not having a go btw, just curious what others think..

[BessieBoots]

Gravy granuals are not home made!

Brilliant, but not home-made

[Firawla]

i always wonder why do some people make a big deal about saying "homemade" infront when they make something? i would just say the food names myself. it comes across a bit showing off for no reason. is she really going to make the sausages jelly and everything from scratch? or is she buying sausages from butcher and cooking them and using granules or cubes for making jelly, cos if so i dont think it needs to be said "homemade". i just dont get why people would specify it, unless they never ever cook anything at home so its a big deal?
same with the bolognaise sauce, yes you have made the meal 'at home' but why label it up so smugly especially if its not from scracth but even if it is then so what just eat it and stop showing off!
so no yanbu to wonder about this

[wukter]

I am curious regarding "Home - Made Soup" in cafe's.

[fireupthequattro]

Dolmio sauce - heavens above.

Now sausage and mash if i remember rightly:

That would be rearing the pigs, making the sausage casings from her sheep's intestines and producing her own wheat to prepare rusk and then combining with herbs and spices from her kitchen garden to prepare the sausages.

Once done she could dig up her spuds and boil them with water from her well. Hopefully in pans she has spent cozy winter evenings beating into shape over the hot coals. Add some butter she's churned from her cow, and some salt she has made from dried sea water on her windowsill.

Hopefully she's boiled the bones of her pig down enough to extract the gelatine which would make a fantastic jelly with the fruit gathered from her orchard?

Or perhaps she's just mashing the spuds herself without a "ping" noise to tell her that dinner is ready!

[biddysmama]

my dad used to deliver for a company in ireland that sells 'home made' jam, unless they live in a big factory,its not homemade! it was in his contract that he wasnt to tell the customers!

[Smithagain]

Me too, Wukter. Cafe made, possibly, but surely not home made. Unless the waitresses have to bring a vat of soup in with them every morning LOL.

[minipie]

That sounds like home made mashed potato but not home made other bits.

in my book home made gravy is made with meat juices or home made stock, not granules

and home made jelly is made with juice, water, sugar and gelatin.

My definition of home made would be "Everything made from scratch apart from the stuff you can't really make at home (eg sausages, butter, pasta)".

Even then though, people have different views on what can be made at home.

[sanielle]

Bisto gravy is not homemade..

[helyg]

For me Homemade means that you have made it from scratch. Opening a tin of tomatoes to make a pasta sauce is OK, opening a jar of Dolmio isn't.

But HM sausages? Surely that would mean at least mincing the meat and putting it into the casings?

Gravy would be made with proper stock and meat juices, not OXO/Bisto.

She probably means that the mash isn't SMASH

[SloanyPony]

Home made and home reared are 2 different things though.

I also think its fair enough to say home made in the case of sausages - its not a common thing to make at home. Is not a ready meal, you still have to cook them and there is (some) skill involved in not burning them but cooking them through or whatever, and it requires you to stand there and turn them and watch them etc.

Gravy - sausages dont generally give enough sediment to make a gravy from so whilst her gravy is not "real" or "home made" but "instant", it doesn't change that the overall meal is home-made as opposed to buying a bangers and mash ready meal and then a pot of ready made jelly.

However, its weird to say "home made" in that context, its almost stating the obvious.

[greenbananas]

Last night when DH got home, I said, "It's sausages, veg. and gray tonight because I can't be bothered to cook". Then I prepared the cauliflower, peeled and chopped the sweet potatoes and made the gray from OXO cubes - and I saw that as 'not cooking'. Clearly I am too hard on myself!

[greenbananas]

Sorry, "gravy", not "gray". The 'v' on my keyboard is going.