Do you enjoy cooking?

[Helmlover1]

Just that really. I try to cook (mainly) from scratch as my partner was diagnosed with high cholesterol a while back so we’ve tried to cut back on convenience food, but sometimes it feels like so much effort and so time consuming-especially when the same meal with a jar of sauce would halve the amount of cooking time!

Was wondering how many MNers enjoy cooking or whether you see it as more of a chore?

I’ve always cooked from scratch, even though I was a working single parent for almost my DCs’ entire childhood. Most meals don’t take hours of prep, and roasts just cook themselves while you do other things.
To PPs who say they’re short of time - just make double the amount and freeze half. That means you have a home made ready meal for 50% of your life! Also, master a few easy stir fry recipes, they’re really quick and tasty. My kids loved Indonesian style food, which I cheated by using peanut butter in the stir fry, along with ginger purée, soy sauce and coconut, but I also mixed my own spices for quick curries, and used herbs from my garden to flavour salads etc.
I never spent more than half an hour on cooking an evening meal, and we ate well.

I love cooking. I cook everything from scratch, all sauces, all everything. The only convenience food we occasionally have is pizza as I am not a good bread maker.

Just put music on and I'm off.

I love cooking. Not to keen on the meal planning and shopping tho! Iv started batch cooking lately so I can have Syn free hot lunches.

Nope. I hate the prep, the mess, the standing around, the cleaning up afterwards.

I like eating but by the time I've actually cooked something and sat down to it, I can't be arsed with it anymore. I usually have cereal or a sandwich for dinner.

I love it. As a teenager I worked in food factories and it gave me a real appreciation of food that hasn't had four different people touching it.

It helps to take time to appreciate all the textures, patterns, colours, smells, not to mention understanding the nutritional content and how it will keep you healthy.

It doesn't have to be that time-consuming either, use passata with a bit of tinned fish or capers instead of a jar of pasta, etc.

but by the time I've actually cooked something and sat down to it, I can't be arsed with it anymore.

Shit yes
By the time the food is ready, ive lost my appetite, just sick of looking at it
I wont spend more than 30 min on any meal and even then thats pushing my appetite

Bring on a 10 day holiday where i wont cook a thing

Not really. Deciding what to cook is the worst though.
I don't mind baking but don't do it enough

Nope I absolutely hate it. We live in convenience food and meals that take less than 20 minutes to make.

No. I loathe it. I do not see anything fun about any of the process.

I quite like it but my dc are fussy so have to adapt some meals.

I'm fast though, can chop and prep stuff very quickly and I clear up as I go. There are a lot of meals I can make quickly - tray baked chicken or fish, stir fries, spag bol and so on. Thai chicken curry is really quick although I do use a ready made curry paste.

Sometimes we have eggs, either fried on toast or omelettes. Again very quick and easy.

I recently discovered a great pasta dish, think it's Jamie Oliver. You cook some cavalo nero and a few garlic cloves for a few minutes in the pasta water. Then take them out and blitz in a blender with olive oil and parmesan cheese. You get a bright green sauce which you add to pasta. My dds love this and it's really healthy and gets some veg into them.

I do love cooking, but I don't have time, DH moans about the washing up and the cost.

HATE IT! 😠

The meal planning, food shopping, prepping, cooking... definitely one of the worst jobs at home.

Putting bedding back on the bed comes a close second 😣

Love it! I can happily spend hours pottering round the kitchen, love food shopping and using new ingredients and seeing the year turn as different things are coming into season. I spend hours flicking through recipe books whilst meal-planning, trying new things and creating my own recipes, I'm big on entertaining too, it's well-known that you'll get an excellent feed when you come to mine. I see it as an expression of love, nourishing those you care about with excellent food, wine and company.

It's a big thing for me,.DH too, he's the baker and brewer and makes a three course dinner every Saturday. We take food very seriously in this house, Epicurus is our favourite Greek!

Nope, hate it but I’ve got a milk allergy, a sulfite allergy and dh has diabetes so I have to cook rather than just buy ready made 😭.

Joy.

I do put the effort in but with a deep seated feeling of resentment. If I’m really pissed off you can taste it in my food.

I love it and I love being cooked for - just love food really.

Hate arranging lunch tho. It’s so in the middle of the day. Just really messes things up.

I love it but can't do it any more, due to the aches and pains of old age! Can't bend to the oven or the bottom of the fridge, can't carry heavy saucepans/pots around, can't stand very long to chop or mix ingredients, whereas I used to love doing all those things when I was hale and hearty. As a PP wrote, I regard it as an expression of love for my friends and family and am really sad I'm incapable of it now. I used to pore over cookery books finding new and interesting recipes for my family, now there's no point as I am in too much pain. Pah!

I love eating good food - most processed stuff tastes pretty bad in comparison...so I'd rather put the effort into cooking and eat something good - I crave variety too...so I've always cooked - even when I was a student.

I love cooking. It's my way of relaxing after work. That's not to say I don't get fed up sometimes especially since we have GF and a veggie to cater for.

Batch cooking is your friend if you don't want to spend every day preparing meals. I have chilli, curries, sausage casserole & a gnocchi bake in the freezer at the moment plus frozen veg & fruit.

I grew up in a home where my mother hated cooking and it clearly showed in the meals she produced!

I love cooking but hate the clean up. I do quite a bit of batch cooking but I think it's probably easier if you live alone as you can cook whatever you want without worrying other people won't like it.

I have to be in the mood but I mostly like it. My slow cooker gives me a lot of pleasure! DH is a great cook - he just needs to do it more often!

I used to enjoy it but after 15 years of marriage to dh who doesn’t cook at all (he does lots of other things though so it’s not an issue), and a very fussy dd who only likes quite plain food plus an adventurous ds who doesn’t like plain food, it’s sucked the joy out of it.
I never really eat what I’d like as I’m too caught up in thinking of things that everyone else will like- , or at least tolerate.
The shopping, meal planning, cooking, is just a constant pita