to beleive that a lot of people in the UK don't actually know how to cook.

[OrmIrian]

They know how to follow recipes. And it isn't the same thing.

I am quite old. I was brought up with a mum who had been through the war and was totally intolerant of waste. So left over meat from Sunday roast was always used up - cold with salad and baked potatoes, or made into cottage pie or a stew. Whatever was left over in the fridge got made into something and if you were a half-decent cook it was delicious. For example last Sundays lamb shoulder leftover were taken off the bone and slow-cooked with some pearl barley, lentils, sweet potatoes and the remains of the red wine gravy. On Tuesday there was half a pack of sausages in the fridge - they were chopped and cooked with some chorizo, garlic, passata, basil, chilli and onions and served with pasta. Dh was about to get a load of mince out of the freezer and cook spag bol - the sausages would have stayed there till they were ready to walk out of the fridge on their own.

When my children cook at school they always seem to learn how to cook specific dishes - not the general techniques that would serve them well for general day-to-day cooking. DD loves cookery programs - when she decides to cook she comes out with a huge list of ingredients that would cost a small fortune because someone on Masterchef did it! They are learning to do it my way, but it's slow progress.

Cooking is being able to make something good out of whatever is available. Not just being able to make something good out of a trolley load of expensive ingredients.

Oh rose cupcakes sound lovely!

I have never progressed past the recipe stage. It doesn't come naturally to me.

I agree that cooking is more than following recipes but I think you are either that way inclined or you aren't.

I found cooking easier and more enjoyable pre children. I am so stressed when cooking that even my fail safe recipes let me down these days and I do resort to cooking a lot of really simple things/ready meals. I'm looking forward to the stage when my youngest stops clinging onto my leg so I can get back into cooking.

The cafe I used to work in, used to sell lavender and strawberry/blackcurrant cheesecake. It was lovely. if a little remeniscent of shake and vac
You could also try icecream.

CHops I tried to make rose cupcakes but they tasted a bit like rose wine... Do you have a recipe? :)

I can cook and I can use leftovers. I am bit of those who get to the end of the week with little left because I buy far too much as everything cos it looks so nice and I can't resist have a very well stocked store cupboard and I would love to have just enough and not have freezers and cupboards stuffed with food so it doesn't hang round for months. Things get put in the freezer and do get used eventually - we waste very little food.

I think its very telling that it is possible to buy ready made 'leftovers' such as breadcrumbs or meals that are normally made of leftovers such as shepherds pie - we shouldnt be buying these things we should be making them from leftover bread (freeze if you dont need them straight away) or that bit of roast lamb that isnt enough to make a whole meal and you dont want the same thing again but it can be made into shepherds pie - thats the real skill that may have been lost

"thats the real skill that may have been lost" Yes

I would like the receipe too chops!

Saggy that cheesecake sounds good. I once made a cheesecake with gelatine. The stench of cooking gelatine is one of the most revolting smells known to man!

But thankfully receipe books and sites showed me alternative ways

No problem with anyone using a recipe star. I had to find one to make lime pickle recently.

Lime pickle? What would you serve that with?

Curry. Or anything you fancy I guess.

WTF at the Korma recipe from hell...

Chops and Starwisher

You can make Lavender flavoured sugar by putting flowers wrapped in muslin in a screw-top jar of caster sugar. It works well in sorbets and icecream.

Lavender and rose are also essential ingredients in Ras al Hanout (Moroccan spice mix)

I agree with you too, OP. I meal plan and rarely buy more than I need and I quite enjoy making things like casseroles, curries etc. and am able to think about adapting recipes, but I would say I am very much a basic cook who sticks to what I know and I probably rely too much on easy stuff, like jackets and pasta. And we love our oven chips and veggie burgers once a week!
I am from Ireland originally, and I have often seen people there eating food combinations that don't really go together. For example, boiled potatoes, rashers, spinach and baked beans. Yes, all on the same plate! Or one of my mum's old stand-bys was pasta in a cheese sauce with chicken burgers!

Perhaps joints of meat have shrunk, because if I ever bother cooking a roast, by the time all the water has seeped out of it and four people tried to eat it, there is certainly not enough left for a cottage pie or stew.

That's why I added all the lentils and barley mummys

Don't know if YABU or not.

I understand your point about children being taught to make specific dishes at school but how else are you supposed to practice the techiniques, without wasting food, unless you teach a recipe? If, for example, you are learning to make a batter (which could be used for many recipes) surely you aren't just going to make a batter, you will do something with it like make pancakes or Yorkshire pudding or whatever. Not to use the techniques within a recipe and actually make something would be wasteful of the ingredients. Of course children should be taught to use what they have but since all the children in a class won't have the same things at home the school has to chose what they make. I don't think the schools should be criticised for not teaching cooking the way our parents used to cook.

But on the other hand I was taught to cook like you, OP, and that isn't the way I cook now - I would never buy anything to roast on a Sunday that we wouldn't eat on the day for example, so my boys aren't learning how to cook like the old days either - we don't really have left overs to get creative with. I do however, make things up with what we have in the cupboard but mostly they are there with some aim in mind so I suppose I do only buy what I know will be used, even if it isn't that same week.

Maybe what children are lacking is not how to cook but how to shop without wasting anything. That is perhaps the basis of it all.

Oh thank you very

Rose Cupcakes

80g unsalted butter, softened
280g Caster sugar
240g plain flour
1 tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp rosewater ( I actually use rose syrup, for a stronger flavour)
240ml whole milk
2 large eggs

For the frosting

500g icing sugar
160g unsalted butter
3 tbsp rosewater (again, I use syrup)
50 ml whole milk

1. Preheat oven to 190
2. use handheld whisk or stand mixer with a paddle attachment to whisk the butter, sugar, flour, baking powder and salt together on low speed until the consistency of breadcrumbs
3. Mix the rose with the milk,a dd eggs, whisk by hand. Pour 3/4 into the dry ingreds, mix on low speed to combine. Increase speed to medium and continue to mix until smooth and thick. Scrape down the sides, add remaining milk mixture and continue to mix until the ingredients are incorporated and the batter is smooth again.
4. divide the batter between cases, filling to 2/3. Pop into oven until well risen and springy to the touch.
5. use the stand mixer/whisk witha paddle attachment slowly beat the icing sugar and butter until mixed in (mixture will still look powdery). Mix the rosewater with the milk and add whilst machine still running. Once combined, increase speed to high and whisk until light and fluff.
6. Ice the cupcakes!

The recipe is from the Hummingbirds bakery book. I cannot bake without a recipe! It suggests violet and jasmine as alternatives, but I have been unable to find either.

Lavender sugar sounds lovely and would be very nice in shortcake but don't think it would give the strength of flavour needed for cupcakes.

We also rarely have leftovers as I don´t often cook too much.

I find joints expensive tbh so don´t buy one big enough to have any left.

Also, I think for my Mum it was an easy meal to make on Monday!

Otherwise, why not just buy a smaller joint??

Thank you for that recipe Chops. :)

gotta laugh at the irony, sharing a recipe on an anti-recipe thread!

Starwisher - infuse some caster sugar with some lavender heads for a couple of weeks and you have some lovely flavoured sugar.

Infuse milk/cream with lavender heads if you are making ice cream/creme brulee/pannacotta types of thing

Chop up lavender heads and put into shortbread

Hmm, think a buttermilk and lavender pannacotta with lavender shortbread might be on the menu soon [drools]

That is a perfect example actually of a cook in action. I used to be a chef, and at college we learnt techniques through recipes and practising. I use a mixture of bodge it and following recipes at home. I have lots of techniques stored away in my mind so that, if someone says "how can I use lavender in cooking" I can think of methods that would be appropriate. Then I would adapt a recipe.

It's not an 'anti-recipe thread' chops.

Starwisher - ice cream - google Lavender ice cream and you'll get loads of recipes, and also in crème brulee. Lavender sugar perhaps, the same way as vanilla or cinnamon sugar is made?

OP - my mum is a great cook, but I wasn't interested when growing up, so I taught myself when I left home with Delia's complete cookery. I have 300+ cookbooks, some used more than others, but I use recipes some nights and what's in the fridge another. I don't think it matters as long as someone else also said, that it isn't ready meals every night.

I think the the problem with just cooking from recipes is that they are often used without a basic understanding of why they are set up the way that they are. For example, I am not from the UK and yorkshire puddings were a curiosity to me. I had never tasted one and where I am from, a pudding is a custard dessert, so I couldn't understand why one would serve it with sausages. I looked up a recipe and followed it disastrously. Had I known something about the dish, I would have known the importance of resting the batter and also of adding the batter to a smoking hot pan to rise properly.

Everyone has to start somewhere, and recipes are OK, as long as they are accompanied by a curious mind and palate, as well as time to do and redo them until one understands them. I think that many people lack the time or desire to do the research into recipes to really become good cooks.

Starwisher - I have used lavender to flavour lamb successfully.