Who else cooks like this?

[Anythingyoulike]

I think we eat well as a family and I would say I cook “home made” rather than “from scratch”, as in we don’t do very much freezer food and no ready meals or anything like that, but I do like convenience.

For example, tonight we had meatballs from M&S in their “family hidden veg sauce” with spaghetti and salad. I just use a jar of sauce for things like that and obviously haven’t made my own meatballs. When I make bolognese I used tinned chopped tomatoes and tomato purée and build the flavour with garlic and herbs etc and never use a jar of sauce. If we have a roast chicken I will roast the veg and potatoes or peel and mash potatoes, but I don’t roast a chicken myself I buy one from the rotisserie section in the supermarket ready to go and just add our trimmings.

I’ll use the leftover chicken for making a chicken risotto with onion, garlic, and lemon. Or we’ll have it with a creamy tomato sauce I make myself with sun dried tomato paste, garlic, shallots, herbs, cream and lemon. I use the slow cooker to make curries and chillies where everything is just flung in and left to it.

We also eat a lot of simple tuna pasta dishes, baked potatoes, omelettes, baked salmon, and so on.

Are most people cooking like this? I think it’s a decent balance of kind of home made with convenience. I’m definitely not a natural cook but our family eat fairly healthily I think and we have a good rotation of curries, chilli, pasta dishes, tacos, risotto, fish, as well as the odd night of fish finger sandwiches or pizza!

uh....the money it saves in energy to cook a chicken for an hour and a half/two hours?
and, more importantly for me in this weather, the increase in house temperature from having your oven on.
the cost between the rotisserie version and a normal chicken isn't much. I don't get the 'precooked chickens look small' argument - they clearly aren't too small for OP's family if she gets a second meal out of them.

I think your way of cooking is very normal OP. Face it on MN you aren't going to get the (high proportion) of people who chuck in chicken nuggets a few times a week commenting on food threads but it doesn't mean they don't exist or represent a large proportion of the population.

This is a fabulous easy and cheap recipe I make all the time - I’ve passed it on to friends who love it too!

Excellent tray bake

We’re the same, except Saturday might be pancakes with Nutella, but Sunday is always a cooked breakfast complete with potato scones.

We get a roast dinner for me and my husband and my 5 year old (I’m sure when he’s older the whole thing will be gone in a oner!) and then we have enough chicken leftover to fill out a risotto dish the next day, and I keep the drumsticks in the fridge and my husband will grab them for a snack with something for lunch the next day. There’s even enough little bits for the cat to have her treat.

Honestly, some nights I just want a massive bowl of cereal with cold milk and my son wants boiled eggs and soldiers. I like those nights. Or the nights when we have Heinz tomato soup and endless sourdough bread and kerrygold butter 🤤

I won’t buy Yorkshire puddings and I love to bake. But sometimes I just want an M and S Swiss roll. Don’t come at me 😂

Sounds normal to me. I don’t use jar pasta sauce though, just our preference. We do have M&S curry sauce though.

I can't deal with their price anymore. Used to be my fave

I have never heard of these. Are they shop bought non UPF breads?

I’m often, but not always cooking like this. You’re doing fine. Don’t pay attention to anyone who says different.

They are, Tesco usually has them in. To be absolutely honest I don’t like them - the base is sourdough which for me is too heavy for a pizza base, and they aren’t cheap at full price.

Unless I’m making my own, pizza is one of the junk food options in my house - I really don’t care if it’s UPF. I tend to buy the Pizza Express ones when they’re on offer and bung them in the freezer.

We rarely have pizza and 99% of the time it’s when we eat out at our favourite Italian restaurant so I doubt it’s for us either.

I don't see what is unusual about doing that though. It is not complicated,or anything.

Yeah I don’t love the C&M pizzas either. There aren’t many shop bought ones that I like, not because my palate is so refined or anything, it’s just not a favourite food of mine - expensive cheese on toast really. There’s a place near where we have been on holiday a few times that everyone absolutely raves about, the pizzas are nice and all but I still find the prices outrageous.

That said I bloody love the Pizza Express Pollo ad Astra 😆

Obviously because I’m not that keen, they’re DH and DD’s favourite food. DH does quite like to make his own, sauce included, as well. And again they’re nice but I wouldn’t bother if it was just for me. He always makes too much dough so we use that for garlic bread whenever we have a pasta dish in the week, so do actually make our own garlic bread too - though I don’t think you can beat the cheapy frozen garlic baguette slices, I love those but DH would be affronted if I started buying them again now!

I think as always with MN, the perfect becomes the enemy of the good. Because you have one meal every week or few weeks that uses a (perfectly good, with no terrible additives) jar of sauce then suddenly you don’t eat a balanced diet and ERMAGAHD THE CHEMICALS! Most people I know do as you (and I) do and take some short cuts that make sense to them.

I read Ultra Processed People like seemingly the rest of mumsnet and got all stressed about UPFs and determined to rid ourselves of them entirely - the fact I still use the C&M wraps/ flatbreads is a hangover from that, but I do like them and find them much more filling so it’s a swap that’s stuck. And I’m generally fussier about bread than I used to be, more conscious of labels etc. But I’ve also calmed way down from the immediate evangelism of it. We eat pretty well, could be better but it’s really not that bad and we’re bloody lucky to have the choices and options we do, to be able to turn your nose up at a jar or dolmio is a luxury, and to act like it’s the equivalent of shooting crack into your family’s veins is a weird mix of blind privilege and orthorexia really.

Love a rotisserie chicken but wouldn’t use one for a roast. But I live alone and if I want a roast I’ll go out.

The range and volume of jarred sauces in the supermarkets would suggest they are a staple in many houses.

Nobody is doing this OP, everyone is living off chicken nuggets, pot noodles and oven chips but nobody wants to admit it.

No I generally cook from scratch, convenience is general not as good, and much more expensive.
You have less control over what you eat- levels of salt , sugar and fat tend to be unnecessarily high if you cook with convenience items.
I'm not sure you can describe the way you cook as entirely home made- because the sauces meatballs etc were made elsewhere, but the balance sounds good.

I definitely don’t describe what I make as entirely home made. The vast majority is home made, but we certainly do use the occasional jar of sauce from M&S, boxed taco shells, shop bought wraps, bisto gravy, fish fingers, custard pots, cereals and so on. Today we baked one of those shitty box packets of cupcakes where we normally do home baking. But my 5 year old wanted to make the Toy Story cakes in the box and I have fond memories of similar as a child so - fuck it.

I also cook lamb dinners, curries, salmon, lasagne, chilli and so on, all home made.

My point is surely the vast majority of people are cooking meals this way too. I don’t think Mumsnet is representative of the norm where people question even a jar of pesto.

Completely fine OP and normal food that all houses eat.

we are vegetarian we have our 35 more like 50 different five a day veggies and fruit each week. And mixed in with that we have jars of sauces, condiments, table sauces, tins of baked beans and tomatoes, tins of various beans and chickpeas (I use these to make a sandwich filler), dried herbs, stock cubes, oils, dried lentils, Pearl barley and so on ….. oh and instant gravy and cereal.

In the last week for example I’ve made

veggie bolognaise (using tinned tomatoes tomato purée and frozen soya mince plus tons of fresh basil and veggies),
roasted vegetable couscous with toasted pitta breads (bought in a packet) with salad,
omelettes with a big salad and Mayo (from a jar),
veggie chilli and rice (packet chilli mix, tinned tomatoes, tomato purée, tinned kidney beans, tinned butter beans, soya mince and lots of fresh veggies)
potatoes, fresh vegetables and shop bought quiche
pasta with jar of coop tomato sauce , shop bought garlic breads, tons of veggies
cheese ploughman’s shop bought rye bread, jars of beetroot and pickle.

tomorrow we’ve got Weetabix for breakfast, rye bread cheese sandwiches for lunch and a big salad with various things to use up for tea before the next big shop.

I don’t think there’s anything at all wrong with my diet and no idea how I would make homemade pasta sauces without tinned tomatoes. They are a staple ingredient in my food cupboard.

Doing a perfect example right now. Making chicken souvlaki with a fetta sauce from scratch. Fresh yellow beans from our garden. And… a packet of pre-seasoned rice on the side, because my kids just prefer it. 🤷‍♀️

I'd never buy a cooked chicken for a roast as I've got the oven on anyway for roast potatoes, Yorkshire puddings etc. I would buy one if I just wanted it for salad or sandwiches.

We rarely use jarred sauces but do like some convince foods. We do try and pay attention to quality of ingredients though e.f we get food quality olive oil or beef fat to cook in, buy good quality meats (we would make meatballs), eggs, fresh bread etc.

Sometime we also make pizza and have started making our own dough. Also for a pasta machine but we've not mastered it yet.

We do have takeaways though and will also eat out

I think most people cook this way- when short of time or inspiration it is great to be able to use shortcuts. I rarely use packets /jars but that is mainly because I've been cooking every day for over 40 years- back then there were far fewer possible shortcuts, I just didn't move with the times because I have always used the same shopping,planning and cooking strategy.

I don’t buy jar sauces or precooked chicken or readymade meatballs, but that’s not because I think it’s bad! It’s just because I a) don’t have kids and thus don’t need quick family friendly meals and b) get pleasure from cooking from scratch. Millions of people cook like you and it’s totally fine. And tinned tomatoes are literally just tomatoes. There’s noting added to them. I don’t think many people (and that includes most Italian and Asian people) use fresh tomatoes every time they make a pasta sauce or a curry.

You’re cooking decent, simple, seemingly pretty balanced meals.

There is SO much absolute nonsense spouted on Mumsnet about ‘UPF’ and additives and 99 times out of 100 it has zero scientific validity. It’s completely fucking fine to use a sauce from a jar sometimes.

i very rarely use jars of sauces and would roast the chicken myself. But I use ready made meat balls for a week night meal. I’m also not adverse to a freezer tea once in a while of the oven chips, chicken chunks/fish fingers variety or a pizza (shock horror).

mumsnet Isn’t the real world. I bet your meals are probably better than 80% of the nonmumsnet populations.

I hope you're catching and fingering the fish yourself!!

I genuinely loathe cooking, I'll take every shortcut going.

I have never used a jar of sauce but was taught to cook by my parents who ran a restaurant when I was young. The key is speed and confidence. I don’t weigh or measure anything I do it by feel.

DS messed up a couple of years ago as they were having a fuddle, shared lunch and he had forgotten to ask me to make stuff. I did make him go and buy a rotisserie chicken as I only had an hour to make stuff. I made chicken and egg friend rice and chicken and sweetcorn soup for 10-12 people in just under an hour.

The other reason and long before processed food came in for criticism is the cost. I just hate the thought of paying out when I can make it substantially cheaper.

Your sort of food set up is I would imagine pretty standard for a comfortably off family.