Tell Tefal about your Mum’s best evening meals - win a digital cooker worth over £300! NOW CLOSED

[AmeliaMumsnet]

Many of us look back longingly at our Mums’ home cooking but, with full-time jobs and busy lifestyles not to mention that take-away restaurant just around the corner it can be hard to get your own cooking up to her standards. That’s why Tefal want to know about the best things your Mum used to make for you on weeknights - that you wish you had the skills, confidence and time to cook for your family.

Here’s what Tefal have to say: ‘You don’t need to be a masterchef to achieve delicious meals in no time! Tefal have innovated again, and now give you Cook4Me.

Cook4Me is a one-pot digital cooker, ideal for mums looking to make fast and fresh meals. It is easy to use and intuitive: Cook4Me comes with 50 built-in recipes, and features a digital screen with guided cooking steps. Cook4Me cooks under pressure, which means you will save a lot of time. For example, after browning and pre-heating, it cooks a Chicken Tikka Masala in 3 minutes, a Thai Green Chicken curry in 4 minutes and a Risotto in 9 minutes (and no need to stir!)… It is the ideal all-in-one cooker, with up to 6 cooking manual modes: not only does it pressure cook, but it also steams, browns, simmers, gentle-cooks and automatically keeps your food warm. Its dishwasher-safe bowl can feed 6 people, perfect for the whole family or for batch-cooking.

Cook4Me comes in a standard version, with 50 built-in recipes, and in a Connected version, that works with My Cook4Me app, giving access to over 100 recipes.

You can use this link to purchase a Cook4Me of your own, at a fantastic 50% off retail price.’

Whether it’s a signature risotto, a flavoursome curry or the classic chili con carne, post on the thread below your Mum’s best dishes that you wish you could replicate. Everyone who posts will be entered into a prize draw where one MNer will be randomly selected to win a Cook4Me.

Thanks and good luck with the prize draw.

MNHQ

Standard Insight T&Cs apply

[Sammyislost]

Her lasagne! I don't know what sets it apart from all the others, but the crispy bits on top, and that she hides so much veg inside the sauce too!! She always serves it with homemade chips or wedges too, and a rainbow salad!! It's her signature dish!

[HamletsSister]

My Mum, in common with many people who grew up in the aftermath of the war, was brought up making cheap recipes using mince. Spaghetti Bolognese, Shepherd's Pie - dishes that were meat, plus carb and a few vegetables (maybe a carrot or an onion). These were the dishes we grew up on. However, she had a very adventurous palate and also began to cook far more variety - nothing like the ingredients we have today but dishes that had a bit of oomph or spice or something a bit more unusual.

I think, if she were alive today (and she only died last year so she is still much missed) I would want her roast lamb or roast chicken. Both came minus the skin / crispy bits which she would "harvest" before the meal but were still delicious and a real treat after all the mince.

[Esoresila]

We never had a lot of money growing up as there were 4 of us and my mum always used to cook fantastic meals. Our favourite was always cheese pie, it was a pastry based flan with odds and ends of cheese that mum had floating in the fridge (usually left over from dad's sandwiches from work) she'd combine the cheese with eggs and a splash of milk and add to a pastry case and bake. It would be served with boiled potatoes, baked beans and secret sauce. There were always clean plates left at the end of the meal!
We had to bribe mum to give us the recipe and as we are now scattered all over the country we make this meal for our own little families to have that little taste of home when we felt home sick.

[rupert23]

My nan was the main cook in my childhood and made fantastic bread pudding. She made it for my children too and used to make an extra one for me to bring home. i have never tasted anything as good and when i was ill or a bit fed up she would always make some to cheer me up. she has passed away now and is sadly missed every day.

[Alexandra87]

My mother cooked for a living so we had a lot of fancy stuff but if I had to pick one for her to make me it would have been one of the simpler dishes she did sausage casserole, mac and cheese, roast beef dinner, meatballs, fish pie etc. She's also fab at just chucking a few random ingredients together and making something delicious. Puddings on the other hand were shop bought she couldn't make a pudding to save her life

[MaroonPencil]

You know even in the dim and distant past of my childhood, not all Mums stayed at home and did the cooking. My mum worked fulltime as a social worker with an hour commute each way. My Dad did all the cooking in our house, on weeknights anyway. He did a mean Chinese chicken soup, and an excellent stew and dumplings.

[Chelsea26]

Her stew is amazing - my dad used to eat his stew out of the fruit bowl so he could have loads! With warm crusty bread and loads of butter - oh my god I want some stew so badly now...

[mumsbe]

Home baking was done by my mum and dad mum made amazing pies scones and jam tarts and dad made the most amazing chocolate cake Yorkshire puddings and crispy roast potatoes. We were very well fed kids.

[ohfourfoxache]

Soup!

No matter how hard I try, I just can't replicate mum's soup. Even with 1:1 guidance, it just doesn't taste "right".

Sadly she's stopped making her own soups now - she finds it too difficult to move big, heavy pans. And all attempts to show my sister and I what to do have only been successful insofar as we've managed to make versions of it.

[GoodyGoodyGumdrops]

Why just Mum's?

My Dad made a mean fish pie. No mash potato topping or pastry crust. The whole thing was layers of fish, vegetables, herbs, grated cheese...dense, flavoursome, textured, crispy all over. Mmmmmmm

Both my parents are excellent cooks.

[GoodyGoodyGumdrops]

Argh - rogue grocers' apostrophe!

[MrsBellefleur]

My mum makes the best stews, roast dinners (especially Christmas dinner) and a creamy leek and bacon pasta dish that is my death row meal of choice. It's never the same when I make it myself.

[asuwere]

I don't think there is anything my mum made that I haven't managed to replicate - only tastes better when mum makes it because I've not had to cook :)

My dad does a good fried egg though and I've never managed to get that right!

[foxessocks]

Probably roast dinner and a traditional pudding for afters!

[Faithless12]

My favourite meal by my mum is now my comfort food: homemade cod in sauce with mashed potato and sweet corn. Yummy.

[NotSoSkinnyNow]

7 year old DD will only eat cauliflower cheese if it has been made by DM. Despite DD and I getting lessons from DM in how to make it, DD carefully writing the recipe, and us following this special recipe every time it never tastes as good.

[mrsBeverleygoldberg]

My Mum is an amazing cook. She is very abusive so I don't see her anymore.
I can't narrow it down to one thing.
Steak and kidney pie. Crisp suet pastry, thick meaty gravy, just enough kidney so it isn't overpowering, and the steak is so tender as it was slow cooked. It's my dad's favourite and it takes at least three hours to make.
Chicken Cadiz. It's onion, sherry, chicken stock, mushrooms, sultanas (pure 70s gold,) butter to slowly fry the onions and mushrooms, flour to thicken, and chicken breasts. With the crispiest roast potatoes. Also she would put the vegetables in a serving dish for us and guests to help themselves.
I miss her roast dinners.
Eating her food was a way I felt I could connect to her. She hates me, since I was born really, I grew up knowing my dad made her have me. So her cooking was a way I felt close to her.

[ALemonyPea]

My mam is an excellent baker, her cakes, scones and pies are very moreish.

My favourite meal growing up was our Friday night feast though. Homemade soup and hot dogs in buns, followed by some sort of cake or tart. Even now, when she makes homemade soup, it takes me right back to a Friday night, sat in front of the telly, eating soup and watching Alien Nation.

[Signoritawhocansway]

My Mum didn't cook, but my Dad made the most amazing stews.

[YoumeandlittleP]

My mum was not very good at cooking/didn't have time because she was working long hours so we really looked forward to our stepmum's lasagne, with homemade chips and salad and her spare ribs. The ribs I will never forget because I had braces at the time and used to avoid anything that I had to use my hands to eat with, but not these! They'd get everywhere in my teeth and I wouldn't mind because nor did they. Nice memories.

[ShatnersBassoon]

My dad was the cook in our house, my mum couldn't be bothered.

Chicken curry was my favourite of his. It never tasted the same twice

[sharond101]

My mum isn't the best cook but she for the best roast chicken known to man! She seems to time it to perfection and although Iam much more capable in the kitchen hers is always juicier than mine.

[silviuccia]

My mum is the best cook that I know :) She made the perfect lasagne and I love her roast potato with sausage :)

[GiraffesAndButterflies]

Toad in the hole! My mum does the best toad in the hole in the world ever. With leeks, mash and graaaaaaavy. Nom.

[Carriecakes80]

Lol to quote everyone else "My Mum did the best....." Sausage Mash n Beans! Or Corned beef hash! Or Stew with dumplings...but my most favourite that we had to live on for a while because both the Nurses and Ambulances used to be on Strike a lot, was Pork Luncheon Meat, mash n beans. It was cheap, but BOY was it tasty! lol

I still love my Mums stews, so when she makes the four hour trip to mine, she ends up making me a weeks worth of stew, and I end up making her a spicy chilli, and we swap! lol. Its nice to know my Mumsy loves my cooking too! x