Are people really making homemade meals every night for their family?

[Lilacbluewaters]

soon to be family of 6 and I don’t know if it’s just because I’m pregnant at the moment but I had this sudden overwhelming feeling that I have to cook homemade meals every night for like another 15 years 😂
I’ve been pretty bad recently with eating out too much, the extra layer of washing up after is exhausting. We don’t have a dishwasher and can’t get one because we rent.
anyway, do you cook from scratch every night nearly? I can never think of quick easy meals.

I’m never impressed by people making their own butter (unless they also have their own cow). My grandfather, who grew up in terrible poverty, would tell me about having to save the top of the milk in a jam jar, then sit shaking it for hours to make a little bit of butter because his family couldn’t afford to buy it. When I read on here about people making their own butter, to me it’s like someone cosplaying poverty. Go to bloody Aldi and buy it.

You have a lot on your plate….and more to come!
I think planning ahead is the best strategy. Can you find an hour to sit down and plan a 2 week evening meal list? Include some easy ones like pizza or soup and salad.
Make another list of all ingredients and do an online shop.
The pressure of what to cook with what you have got in will be eased.
Keep to it and re order the same list in 2 weeks.
You can be spontaneous when and if the mood takes you but you’ll know that you’ve done the thinking, and the cooking won’t take as long when planned ahead.

I do.

I make 3 meals a day, all homemade, organic ingredients where possible.

Cheaper, tastier and all round better for you.

They are small but we end up just running it a few times a day if needed. Ours isn’t plumbed in so we top fill it with water and it drains into same place as washing machine (but you can put it next to the sink if that’s not an option). Can’t do baking trays or other large items but does plates, bowls, cutlery etc so just massively cuts down on washing up time. For a family of 6 though I’d be tempted to get two 😆

Yes, I do but I hugely enjoy cooking and planning meals etc. It's a therapeutic activity for me! I like to try 1-2 new meals a week.

Yes. And it’s a faff and I do all the cooking and washing up but it’s much better for everyone’s health that we cook and eat like this. It’s also a hell of a lot cheaper to cook things from scratch. After work I’m tired but if I’ve meal-planned in advance I can sort of do it on autopilot. It’s much harder if I get home and then have to figure out what we’re eating.

Yep, very true!

Every night for over 50 years. Nowadays other adults in the house might cook on one night a week. I Used to be preparing a dish to go in the slow cooker while supervising breakfasts and making packed lunches. Tbh I’m trying to cut down on cooking when I can and often cook enough for two nights and have introduced pizza night and burger night.

Yes, I really do. We might have a ready meal or eat out once or twice a month. But it’s not really faster or less stressful than cooking.

Cooking from scratch can be as simple as throwing together a salad. We have Greek salad with nice toasted bread and butter often, or tomorrow we’re having Niçoise salad with garlic toast. It takes 10 minutes to throw together. Even my littlest will eat components of it.

Tonight we’re having bean chilli with tortilla chips to dip and salad stuff. The chilli itself takes 45 minutes or so to cook, but it takes maybe 15 minutes of chopping and dumping into a pot and that’s all the work. It’s so much nicer than some ready meal and cheaper.

Yep. Pretty much every night from scratch (with the proviso that extra is frozen, and defrosted when we have a 'picky dinner' because none of us want to cook) - perhaps once or twice a month we'll eat out or have takeaway, and about the same a frozen pizza or similar.

My mum did the same, so it's normal for me TBH, and prebought food is expensive and just doesn't taste very nice.

Mind you, when I was a kid (in a family of 6) those dinners weren't very inspired and featured a lot of pasta and rice with 2 veg and some form of processed meat...

When I lived in a little flat I put one of those table-top dishwashers on top of my washing machine (so I could hop on the water supply) - it saved my sanity, because standing there playing washing up jenga 3 times a day was just too much.

Tinned tomatoes aren’t a “shortcut”, they’re a basic ingredient. And better quality than fresh for much of the year.

I do buy jarred sauce but only the more basic ones, tomato type. Pesto and cream sauces I do myself (you can make pesto and freeze it minus the cheese). I have a few frozen convenience items but they’re more for the teenagers. It always helps to have a just in case frozen lasagne or pizza!

I don't know how old your children are, but do you find salads keep you older children full until breakfast?

Scrolling back to find out who's suggesting tinned tomatoes are a shortcut - that's madness - I have tinned tomatoes, passata, concentrated tomato paste and fresh tomatoes - and which i use will depend on what I'm cooking.. I buy jars of curry paste too (paste rather than sauce so I can tweak it better)

When I say 'from scratch' I do include basics like that.. I'm not getting in at 6 and boiling and straining tomatoes to make bolognaise - I do chop the veg rather than buy frozen though, because frozen chopped veg never seems to be as good quality (or cut exactly how I want it)

Yes they are. Definitely can't fit 6 plates cups etc plus 3 or 4 pans or whatnot. Plus having to fill the water manually it's pointless. All that time it's quicker to wash up

I'd completely forgotten the existence of smoked haddock chowder. DH and i used to make this all the time before DC were born but they didn't like smoked fish when they were small and we stopped making it. This is definitely going back on the menu this autumn. Thanks for the reminder.

Yes but I often cook double portions and freeze one. Those freezer ones are eaten on my days in the office or when I just can't be bothered.

I plan which days to cook more complex meals, i.e. days we don't have clubs/sports and I'm wfh or not working.

Curries/spag bol/chicken in creamy sauce with rice all good freezable options.

I use weekends for meals that take longer or don't freeze well like Beef Stroganoff, Chicken Provencal, homemade nuggets, chicken drumsticks, lasagna.

It always takes me longer to prep than recipes say.

We do have things like sausage and homemade mash or fish with potatoes once a week too. So it's not all massively complex.

For convenience I also do buy things like frozen bagged cauliflower cheese - I just look carefully at ingredients to make sure no rubbish in there. I buy mini potatoes to save chopping up big ones etc and roast them.

I couldn't live without my dishwasher.

We probably eat out once a month (resturants, at friends/families houses) and have a take away maybe 7-8 times over a year.

I didn’t miss it. I just think that posting about making your own butter and jam on a thread where an exhausted, pregnant mother of 3 small children is struggling is unkind and unhelpful.

Not every night no, last night we had chicken Kievs (from the butcher), frozen wedges and salad. Tonight I’ll make a lasagna (yes I make my own white sauce too)

The OP asked if anyone cooks homemade for their family, I answered according to my experience ......which bit of my answer is unkind ?

I didn't compare, you chose to cherry pick and twist my words, that says more about you than it does me ? Are you always like this ? Did someone piss on your cornflakes this morning ?

FYI I've been in OP's position, Which is why I acknowledged it is much easier in a small household.

It is how I was brought up in a poor household and how I've continued to adopt home cooking as a way of budgeting and ensuring minimal reliance on UPF 's and takeaways.

Take your indignation elsewhere, you won't make me feel bad.

I've posted this before but no. I barely cook at all any more. DH has done all the food planning and food shopping for about 19 years now. I would help with the actual cooking when ds was small. Despite working 3 days a week then 4 days, I only ever really did about 40% of the cooking overall, maybe 50% occasionally. Nowadays I do about 10% or less

As to if it is all from scratch , It has varied over the years depending on how busy we are and how much spare money we had

Nowadays, we have a takeaway occasionally ( about once a month or less) and we eat out for lunch or brunch quite often at weekends plus DH does also use a good quality ready meal like Charlie Bingham or Cook, maybe once every month. So probably not all from scratch but about 80% of it is from scratch . DH loves the insta pot so one pot meals and tray bakes feature highly.

We do have an autistic adult son at home though and DH often prepares two meals as DS just won't eat a lot of veg and DH is a vegetarian. I eat anything but if left to myself would be like one of the previous posters and would never cook beyond scrambled eggs or a jacket potato

I don't have a cleaner but if it were a thing and affordable I'd definitely pay for someone to cook me nutritious home made meals a few times a week. They would have to clear up too though. The worst part of having a home cooked meal us the clearing up and cleaning the kitchen 2-3 times a day and I should know as it is ny job most of the time . Hence why I am happy even if DH chooses not to cook on a particular night and to get something Iin.

I a lot do but with shortcuts. I batch cook a lot so maybe 2/3 days a week I’m basically just defrosting something and cooking rice or pasta to go with it. I use frozen mash or gnocchi to top fish/shepherd/cottage pies (batch cook the bases) I use jars of pesto instead of fresh. I have a bank of easy pasta recipes that can be made in 20mins or less. I also use my slow cooker a lot - more in winter. You can do jacket potatoes in the slow cooker very easily and have with cheesy beans or a chilli.
What constitutes “cooking from scratch” varies wildly. We have a “big breakfast” maybe once a month and, tbf, I often do bake bread to go with it, but I’m using tinned beans and frozen hash browns and I’m not slaughtering a pig and curing bacon and making sausages and I don’t actually have to make the bread, I just like it. I do a really nice pasta dish with bought sausage, a carton of passata and vacuum packed chestnuts. I’m not gathering and shelling chestnuts or sieving tomatoes or mincing and seasoning pork. I think a couple of days eating something you’ve made double/triple and frozen, a couple of days something traybaked or a one pot dish or an easy pasta dish, a couple of days of something “assembled” rather than cooked (ploughman’s/picky tea/decent salad with cold meat or smoked fish and a baguette) plus the day you are doing the actual cooking to create your batch cooked freezer meals then it’s manageable. It’s not manageable to be making elaborate “from scratch” meals every night for 6 people when you have other things to be doing. I hated not having a dishwasher. I think a diddy table top one would be life changing. You will likely need to set it off twice a day and still wash all your big things by hand but it will mean the bulk of your crockery and cutlery will be out of the way.

Most nights yes but fresh food that can be prepared and cooked very quickly.

Nothing that involves too many stages on a daily basis

So meals like fried chicken breast and veggies
Roast with veggies
stir fry
baked potatoes done in microwave then air fryer
veggies chucked in the air fryer with a chicken leg
chicken leftovers in gyros with quick homemade flat bread (I keep the dough I make in the fridge for a couple of days )
rice dishes using rice I’ve precooked and frozen with veg and left over chicken
Omelettes
steak and veg
I have a bread maker so we’re happy with one of my huge sarnies with various fillings
spag bol
chilli bolognaise
Various salads especially when it’s hot

Tonight for everyone we had homemade flat breads with chicken, lettuce, tomato and dressing. Followed by a fresh pineapple 🍍 I’d sliced. I’d pre cooked the chicken legs in the air fryer and warmed up and assembled when everyone got home.

DS is always hungrier than everyone else so he had some spring rolls heated in the air fryer with sweet chilli sauce later on. These were not homemade.
I have lots of this kind of food on hand for when DS gets hungry
I’m not a martyr so can’t keep cooking from scratch and he often doesn’t want to eat the same thing later on as he’s annoyingly pedantic about his food so there’s a balance

I always wonder with families who eat a lot of ready meals - isn't it loads more expensive? My weekly shop for three (two teens and myself) comes in at roughly £150 (including topups) as it is.

We had to eat ready meals for a month while I got the kitchen replaced, and we only had a microwave in the dining room to cook with (and had to do all the washing up in the bathroom sink, which was grim). I actually had to buy a microwave (I promise I am not a twat, we just never really needed one before), and got a whole bunch of different ready meals in, and the kids HATED them. It was the smell of them microwaving - just rank. And they tasted kind of plastic. After about two days, we gave up on those and I ended up giving them all to the local food bank. We unhealthily ate takeaways (cost me a fortune) and toast for the whole month instead, so I am not doing some kind of humble brag here! It just seemed like a lot of money for stuff that...wasn't nice. (I realise now that I should have got an air fryer but they weren't such a big thing at the time!) Maybe there's an art to buying the good ready meals, but surely that's really expensive?