Do your "people" cook from scratch?

[JohnSmithDrive]

My mum did and I do mostly. If I have people round for a buffet, things like quiche and sausage rolls, cake are homemade. If it's for dinner it won't be particularly exciting, but I'd do a homemade chilli or lasagne, something easy to prep ahead and feed lots of people..

Among my friends no one cooks, to the extent that it feels pretentious to do so. They are all generous hosts, but everything will be from a packet or they'll suggest takeaway pizza or similar.

I worry that my cooking seems like showing off and also (sometimes) wonder why I bother!

Well it's pretty obvious that you can cook unhealthy food from scratch, isn't it?

Anything with lashings of cream, cream cheese, icing sugar, butter, chocolate, cookies, brownies, fatty meat, pork crackling, breads and cakes, biscuits and jam, chees sauce and pasta, sugar in sauces ...

But leaving that aside, it's cheaper and healthier to cook with chopped up vegetables and maybe tinned tomatoes in there somewhere, to leave out the ultra-processed food, at least for the children.

The 20somethings in the family won't even grate cheese themselves onto pasta. Has to be a bag of ready grated, most of which then goes in the bin a few days later. And they are skint.

I always buy the ready grated cheese, chopped onions , salad bags and trays of prepared vegetables and fruit - time is precious.

Of course cooking from scratch can be unhealthy, especially baking. But just look at the ingredients in processed foods, never mind the sugar and salt content.

@Newfrontdoor

Cooking from scratch is really important in my circle. Even if it is just nibbles. eg crackers (possibly) and cheese may be bought, but it is genuinely not unusual to find someone putting a (simple) home made cheese on the table with (home made) dips and home made bread. All quite high flying, full time working people, so not loads of time on their hands, but fairly foodie. Hosting a full meal would involve lots of prep. It's isn't snobbery or showing off though, just that they all enjoy food and hosting. Quite often there will be a bought in desert like a lemon tart or something, just because they've found somewhere that makes an amazing one.

So, no. In my experience it is your friends who are odd, and you are completely normal!

Home made cheese? Bollocks.

I don’t think anyone in real life really believes you need to make your own pasta to be cooking from scratch.

@PurpleDaisies

I don’t think anyone in real life really believes you need to make your own pasta to be cooking from scratch.

I do. Making your own pasta is very easy. How can you claim to be 'cooking from scratch' if you're using ready made dried or fresh pasta?

You’re not in my real life @MapleMay11.

Making pasta from scratch is not easy. This is one of those crazy mumsnet things that no one actually thinks is true.

Homemade cheese😄😄😄😄

How to waste your life.

@HaveringWavering

a frozen Tesco lasagne that just needs heating in a microwave for five minutes

No pre-prepared lasagnes are intended to be microwaveable. I mean, they’d be edible if cooked that way, but they will all say “for best results, oven cook”. Most of the chilled ones come in foil trays and are not microwaveable.

IME, only the Finest/"Luxury" ones are in foil - all the others are in plastic trays that are intended to be put in a microwave for five minutes.

I have ready meals at least once a week - they're all microwaveable unless I feel rich and splurge on the 2 for £7 ones instead of the 3 for £6 ones

Making your own pasta is very easy.

Right? I mean obviously I grow my own wheat and hand-grind it into flour. How can you claim you're cooking from scratch if you use ready-made industrial flour?

Seems to me there are two questions being answered here:

1. Do you always eat home-cooked meals/'cook from scratch' or do you mix it up and sometimes get takeaways, prepackaged food, etc?

1. When you do cook, do you always cook from scratch or do you sometimes mix it up with already-prepared ingredients?

For me, 1) We mix it up - home-cooked and takeaways. I prefer takeaways for the convenience.

2. When I do cook, I cook from scratch because the food that we cook have always been the sort to prepare from scratch. We just call it cooking. However, as I've discovered some convenient prepackaged ingredients, I incorporate them into the cooking whenever possible.

This really isn't something to look down on (or up to, for that matter) anybody for.

@PurpleDaisies

You’re not in my real life *@MapleMay11*.

Making pasta from scratch is not easy. This is one of those crazy mumsnet things that no one actually thinks is true.

Then you're no cooking from scratch and there's no point pretending otherwise. Typical MN bullshit.

My mum generally served bought foods - burgers, pizzas, fish fingers, ready meals - and I mainly ate ready meals for many years. However I’ve got more into cooking from scratch over the past few years and have built up a “repertoire” and now find most ready meals sloppy/bland in comparison. I am vegetarian though and what I cook is generally simple to make - roast vegetable lasagne, risotto, chilli, etc. I also find that pastry, cakes and cookies take no time in a food mixer. I did study cookery to GCSE level at school though, so was able to revive my rusty skills, which gave me a bit of confidence.

IME, only the Finest/"Luxury" ones are in foil - all the others are in plastic trays that are intended to be put in a microwave for five minutes.

@icedcoffees even the plastic trays can go in the oven. The whole point of lasagne is that it should have a crispy top. As I said, it may be edible microwaved, but even the most basic of basic ready meal versions will say “for best results oven cook”.

Most people use their judgement @MapleMay11

Most people in the UK if they think about it at all, decide that the benefits (nutritional, flavour, texture) of making their own pasta are negligible. And it’s a ton of work to make it nice without a pasta machine.

@HaveringWavering

IME, only the Finest/"Luxury" ones are in foil - all the others are in plastic trays that are intended to be put in a microwave for five minutes.

@icedcoffees even the plastic trays can go in the oven. The whole point of lasagne is that it should have a crispy top. As I said, it may be edible microwaved, but even the most basic of basic ready meal versions will say “for best results oven cook”.

I know they can go in the oven, but my point was that they're designed to be microwaved as well.

Other way round @icedcoffees. They are designed to go in the oven but they can be microwaved!

What is cooking from scratch though? Are you making your own sausages?

This!

I'd say I 'cook from scratch' quite a lot. But I don't make my own pasta when I make spag Bol. When I make lasagne 'from scratch' I make the mince (but I do use tomato purée in it ), make my own béchamel, but don't make the sheets. When I make burritos I make all the fillings but don't make the wraps. When I make sausage casserole I think that's from scratch as the sauce is made from veg/water/flour but I buy the sausages. When I make risotto I'd say that's from scratch, but unless I've recently roasted a chicken and happen to have stock left from that I wouldn't buy in a chicken carcass to make stock, just use a cube.

Is there a scale of 'scratch'? If I make a beef Wellington and make the beef/duxelles/pancake myself but wrap it in pre bought pastry what is that?

If I make a curry is it from scratch if I use jar sauce? Or what about a premade paste? Or do I have to actually grind the spices myself? Or by MN standards is it not from 'scratch' if I haven't grown my own herbs

Personally I bought my bread sauce pre made for the Xmas dinner yesterday, but would it be 'from scratch' if I made it but with a supermarket loaf of bread? Or do I actually have to bake the bread myself too?

I'd say my Xmas dinner yesterday was from scratch if you'd asked me in an off the cuff way. Roasted my turkey without it being preprepped in any way, made my own roasties, carrots, parsnips, gravy. But if the bread sauce was pre made, the pigs in blankets came pre wrapped (rather than buying sausages and bacon separately and wrapping myself, or even making my own sausages ) and the stuffing was pre bought sausagemeat rather then making it from pork mince, am I allowed to call it from scratch? Clearly not by some people standards on here!

I don't know about insulted but if I invited friends round and gave them a ready meal they would certainly think it was a bit weird. What exactly would you do, put the various plastic trays in the oven or microwave then tip them onto a plate?

Uhhhhh yeah? What's the difference between an M&S lasagne and one you make from scratch? Or a quiche or pizza? Is it really that hard to understand?

I always cook from scratch at home. If I was entertaining I might feel it was more of a treat to get a nice takeaway or some deli stuff than just serve up a bowl of pasta or a risotto? My cooking is nice but it isn’t very “showy”. To be honest we live in a titchy cramped flat, so we usually meet people in the pub or in a restaurant anyway rather than coming round to ours - we don’t have a dining table, and the sofa only seats two people, so it isn’t exactly inviting!

If you are only seeing your friends socially, you might not be seeing what they actually eat on their own.

What's the difference between an M&S lasagne and one you make from scratch? Or a quiche or pizza? Is it really that hard to understand?

Quite a lot of difference. Is that really hard to understand? I am a pretty good cook. My friends would wonder why I had invited them for a meal and then just heated up a ready meal.

It would be so out of character for me or any of my friends to do this.

Having friends over for dinner is as much about the food as it is about seeing people.

Yes we both cook from scratch.
Lasagne can take all day for example.
We had a mixed Eastern European-British Xmas dinner.
Mrs HR spent 3 days in the kitchen before hand prepping and cooking. 💪
Occasionally we'll have a takeaway pizza but that must be from an Italian takeaway.
And we do eat out regularly.
The problem with being semi competent at cooking, is being disappointed when eating out. Or visiting for Dinner.😯😂

Home pride sauces don't count 😂😂😂

The problem with being semi competent at cooking, is being disappointed when eating out.

I know what you mean. This is why I would never go out for a carvery meal for example. We would eat something I can't make easily at home or can't get ingredients for.

Quite a lot of difference. Is that really hard to understand? I am a pretty good cook. My friends would wonder why I had invited them for a meal and then just heated up a ready meal.

If I invite my friends round or vice versa, it’s because we want to spend time with each other, the food is a supporting role not the main purpose of it. They really, really don’t care if I’ve made the lasagne myself and it comes out of the oven in a glass dish or I’ve bought it from the deli and it’s come out of the oven in a foil tray. If they’d be insulted by me buying something pre-prepared they wouldn’t be my friends.

Sort of... but what I do never really feels like 'cooking from scratch', which always sounds to me like something more competent would need to be involved, with items being modified during cooking. I mostly heat several different items then combine them on the plate.

For me the phrase conjures up something more like a fruit pie where you take some raw ingredients and the resulting pie emerges from the process. While I can make pastry and pasta etc from scratch I never bother, particularly as I'm then going to use it in something else that needs cooking ;)

Tonight's dinner (and indeed most of my dinners) is what I'd call modular cooking - I heated up some potatoes, some brussels sprouts and some carrots (all done in a steamer, carrots go in last). Then added a bit of smoked salmon (the packet chunked version, not the sliced stuff) and some creme fraiche.

I think what I do is more Advanced Heating (as opposed to microwaving, though I do that too) rather than Cooking From Scratch. But it does involve cooking from uncooked ingredients I suppose.

A couple of weeks ago I added ½ a teaspoon of paprika to a packet of pre-chopped butternut squash and heated it in a roasting tin with some olive oil at Gas Mark 7 for 30 mins (turned at 15 mins) and honestly felt like I was approaching Cordon Bleu levels of deliciousness.

But mostly I hate cooking; it does not spark joy. Nor does the washing up afterwards ;)

Jo