What is cooking from scratch?

[ChockysChimichanga]

I see this phrase a lot on MN, but what do you actually consider ‘cooking from scratch’?

Are tinned tomatoes cheating and you crush your own tomatoes? Fresh herbs instead of dried? Dried beans/pulses instead of tinned?

Personally, I think life is too short to crush a tomato and tinned beans save a lot of time.

I think it depends on the person.

My sisters cooking from scratch involves making the pasta herself and basically everything.

My from scratch is no jars or tins, but ground beef mince for example.

My friends from scratch the other day was burgers, except the burgers were already prepared in a packet, so basically cooked them and put in a bun. To me that's a lazy treat day.

I do a mix

So cottage pie, lasagne, beef stew etc made from scratch
I don't make mayo, bread, chutney, stock, pasta, ice cream etc
I eat chicken goujons as I love them with a salad, and buy supermarket pizza once a week
Don't use jars of sauce but I do use jars of pesto, jam etc

But some curries need dried bird's eye chillies and while I have cardamom pods I will but the seeds in a packet and I am not drying and grinding fresh chillies when chilli powder exists because life is just too short.

There's also a distinction between cooking for fun and cooking to feed people. I love cooking and sometimes make my own pasta. But if I didn't love doing it there is absolutely no way I would! When tomatoes are cheap I make and freeze my own tomato sauce, and I often make double quantities of "from scratch" meals. Because it makes me happy both to cook AND to have a freezer full of "ready meals". If I feel like baking I bake. There is absolutely nothing morally superior about doing this. And often nothing cheaper. It's a hobby with a coincidental positive outcome. It's literally like being someone who loves cycling and uses their bike to get places. All the drifty "I make my own cheese-doesn't everyone?" brigade can get in the sea.

I use dried red lentils ditto, and nobody ever notices those either.

@Stripesandchecks543 I am not always the best at making my own stock and try to have low salt versions when I need them.

But I throw the veg peelings (clean) into a pot rather than straight to the compost bin when making a roast dinner, add the meat bones, pepper, herbs and water once we've eaten and I've stripped the joint, to boil up while I do washing up and then let it sit overnight in the pot before straining in the morning (or evening after work sometimes) to freeze.

But if I get a lot of juice when cooking mushroom, fried chicken for stir fries, roasted lamb (if it's not gone into gravy), roasted veggies etc, I will save that in small pots in the freezer to use as concentrated flavour as an alternative to stock in other cooking.

That’s interesting; thanks for the tips BiddyPop, that certainly sounds less time-consuming!

One question: is it ok food hygiene wise to leave out at room temp for that long? I can imagine that you can get away with it with beef, but what about chicken stock?

That’s a great tip about feeezing ingreds too, as well as final product. Thank you.

I would say basically it's cooking using separate ingredients that you wouldn't need specialist equipment in order to prepare for yourself at home - so dried pasta is still cooking from scratch as you'd need a pasta machine really, bought in sausages (quality varies obviously) as most people aren't stuffing their own sausage skins.

But not jars of ready made sauces, packet mixes, microwave flavoured rice, etc.

I do more or less the same thing and have had no issues. The stock is used in other recipes and gets thoroughly cooked through again.

@BiddyPop I love a good stock and celery is absolutely key for me. It's just that I don't like celery and resent buying a whole bunch that'll inevitably get composted. I now freeze the whole bunch and break off a stick as and when I need it. It's not pretty but makes the stock. (Same goes for fresh chilli's, I rarely use the a whole bag so I just have a pot in the freezer.)

Yes, I have left stock out overnight most of the year (except not high summer) with no issues - as another poster mentioned, you thoroughly hear it again when cooking your dish.

I rarely bother with celery, but I do freeze chilli's as I only use small amounts at a time. Also blocks of feta gets either diced up and frozen or put in olive oil now that I am solo. And I tend to slice and freeze the half a lemon or lime leftover from a recipe to use in drinks or water as I may be slow to use that up. And I spent an hour last weekend blanching and freezing beans from my plant, and beans I hadn't used as planned from the fridge, as neither would get used this week (home to see family). And I'll use those for dinners in the next few weeks when I am back.

Whereas I've just finished lunch here, that was a chicken and mushroom soup using the ends of a couple of cartons of mushrooms from the fridge, leftovers from last night and chicken stock (the water with salt and pepper from poaching chicken for dd) and a couple of the small tubs of chicken juices from the freezer. DH will eat the leftovers from the freezer but he wouldn't touch the stock in what he cooks, so I'm trying to be sensible for them too.

The one that needs to wait for me another trip is the 200mls of mussel liquor, as that will make a great seafood risotto base but that's definitely something DH won't make but he loves to eat it. Am home again in August...

But for "ingredients ready to use" category, I love to prepare and dice to equal sizes a mix of Mediterranean veggies (onion, garlic, tomatoes, mushrooms, peppers and courgettes mainly), toss in some olive oil, balsamic, salt/pepper, and herbs (thyme, oregano, basil), mix well and freeze in a big ziplock bag. They can be cooked directly from frozen for easy midweek veg when I am already using the oven, leftovers freeze well again as roasted veg to add to tomato sauce for pasta etc or to make an easy ratatouille. And it means if I have misjudged usage, I can freeze veg that is starting to turn rather than wasting it. Or do larger chunks for BBQ's - that I can do the weekend before a gathering when I am not rushing to get things done and be a calm host.

Thank you again BiddyPop

All of that info is really useful!

My freezer is currently storing a lone pkt of peas and three inches of ice, so I must defrost it tomorrow and start using it properly as an advance food prep tool!

Definitely appreciate help with being a calm host! 😀

Thx also Missshilling

I work on the principle of my great grandmothers kitchen like a PP above. They would have been able to buy tinned veg and fish so that's OK. I also consider frozen fruit and veg acceptable eg peas spinach etc as it is often as good if not better for you than fresh. I grow a lot of my own herbs but also used dried and dried spices. Dried pasta has been around since Medieval times so again I consider it to be acceptable.

I'm not a total purist though so I do buy a few UPFs - tomato ketchup, marmite, peanut butter, mayonnaise, pesto,cream cheese but I try to go for brands that have relatively few non food ingredients. I also tolerate Nutella in my kitchen as there would be a riot if I banned it.

@BiddyPop if you like it, I used a handful of roasted veg the other day added to tinned tomatoes and spices/herbs and turned it into shakshuka with a few eggs, Parmesan and sourdough to serve
Came out really nice

I always think it's using unprocessed/ lightly processed ingredients you can get anywhere. I think preservation methods such as drying or canning don't stop things being "from scratch" but the more the ingredients have been pre-combined, pre-cooked or pre- processed the less it's "from scratch".

I also think it doesn't usually matter and what does matter is avoiding too much ultra processed food if possible.

However many , many years ago I moved to a rural part of a country where I was an hour's drive from the nearest Indian restaurant and where no "ready meals" nor jars or pastes to "cheat" in making something resembling Indian food were available in the shops - I could cook standard "British" classics "from scratch" but realised I was clueless about cooking Indian food or the facsimile of Indian food I craved from the UK. A friend promised me while chatting on the phone that she had brilliant and easy recipes to cook Indian food "from scratch" without needing to spend hours. She sent me her recipes two days later.

My disappointment at discovering each and every one used a paste I couldn't buy was crushing at the time (because it was, of course, actually about homesickness for familiar tastes not about the snobbery of "from scratch" cooking).

So sometimes it matters. Probably less in these days when you can order anything on the internet if you don't mind paying massively over the odds though. It wasn't an option, or not one I knew about, back then.

Thanks @spikeandbuffy - always useful to have other ideas! 😁 Will try that soon

Jusy echoing that it’s really cooking without jars/packets of things that are pre made, meat that’s yet to be marinated, pure ingredients.
We use tinned tomatoes, we buy stock cubes (although mostly make our own and have it in bags in the freezer), use dried pasta although make our own when we have a glut of eggs from our hens.
We avoid anything ready made, no frozen pizzas, try not to buy things that we can make nicer ourselves pretty much.
Dh does the cooking and really enjoys it.
If it were left to me I’d be buying chicken nuggets and sausages because I hate cooking 😂

I agree with this, with the exception of using the refrigerated ginger/garlic paste.
I make my own masalas, find I can adjust them to my taste, but the ginger/garlic paste is a real time saver.

Also, if you haven't yet, take a look at this prep technique:
https://myheartbeets.com/indian-onion-masala/
This freezer masala makes it possible to make a curry in under an hour, suitable for a weeknight.