To think that sauces from jars are much nicer than homemade?

[Satine5]

Or am I just a rubbish cook? I don't buy ready meals, but I can't get over my love of ready made sauces. As hard as I try, a can of chopped tomatoes and herbs are never as nice as a jar of good old loyd grossman bolognese sauce. What am I doing wrong? Same with hummus- I tried making my own and it was vile!

I think that the additives in the jarred ones change your taste buds and palate and then the ones you cook yourself taste strange.

The lloyd grossman and the seeds of change are probably the best of a bad lot but the likes of dolmio, bleurgh. They are borderline inedible.

Ooh carbonara...

Packet pancetta, fry while pasta is cooking. Three egg yolks, grated parmesan, black pepper, mix in.

Drain pasta, hold back about two to three tablespoons worth of water. Let pasta cool a bit - this is very important so the egg doesn't scramble - then coat in the moisture, serve immediate.

I do a lower cal version with whole eggs and less yolks which is just as nice too.

"who can be bothered?! All that chopping and cooking. "

Chopping up an onion doesn't take long. Frying it slowly on a low heat with the lid on needs no supervision. I often MN while the onions are cooking. I throw in a tin of tomatoes and some seasoning and leave to simmer for half an hour while I MN or do something else. I don't exactly find that arduous.

I am not averse to ready made food, but something as simple as tomato sauce is IMO not as tasty, more expensive and just not worth buying.

Ragu is rank. Even worse than dolmio.

It doesn't matter that chopping up an onion doesn't take long or that you can MN while your sauce simmers, it's still boring.

Some people get their jollies cooking - some don't. I knew a woman who would d wax lyrical about each dish as she served it with a flourish and a beaming smile, and to be fair her cooking was nice, but I always felt she was over-selling her talents and fishing for praise. Picture Nursey from the second series of Black Adder but with cooking skills. I really don't give a rats if food was made from scratch or made in an industrial kitchen, so long as it's fit for purpose and tastes good I'll come back for seconds! My daughter is going through a phase where she takes perfectly nice factory made sweet biscuits (Arnott's TimTams and Mint Slice biscuits for anyone who's visited Australia) and converts them into very average slices and treats that are about 10% as pleasant as the originals! Can't see the point.

And I would be disappointed if I didn't see some pineapple pieces in the sweet and sour from my local Chinese takeaway and I'll expect to find some in the jar of KanTong sweet and sour sauce that's going into tonight's chicken stirfry, cooked in the electric wok I scored from a friend who bought herself a bigger model and was kind enough to pass down the old one to me! Major score! :)

lookingtobuy I agree with you. I would also say that I like my food very much and am fussy about the quality. I am not above buying some "short cuts" (I hate making pastry for example), but I tend to find that most premade stuff simply doesn't taste as nice as home made and that is why I cook from scratch.

And as for most shop bought cakes, don't even go there. The number of times DD has had some nasty confection that passes for a birthday cake (cheap Barbie/Scooby Doo/other cartoon character cake from a supermarket) in a party bag is depressing. DD always tries them and then throws most of it in the bin.

I'm not saying I never buy premade food though. I do buy ready meals occasionally because sometimes I am so short of time that throwing something into the microwave is the only way I can get a hot meal into DD between coming in from one activity and going out to another, but invariably I am disappointed and so is DD.

lookingtobuy - When I worked at a uni here in Adelaide I was single so I hung out with a lot of the postgrad International students, mostly from Asia and India, as well as Brits, Canadians, Americans and various parts of Africa. We'd often go as a group to the restaurants that the students ate at and the food was completely different to the Chinese, Indian, or Thai food served in the generic restaurants. Sometimes it was better, sometimes wat too spiced to my western palate, but always interesting, and of course it helped that the students could make recommendations of what not to eat! A staple amongst the Asians was a dish that was basically white rice, minced meat in a sauce, with a deep fried but soft yolk egg in the middle. Bloody marvellous tucker! Interestingly Indian food isn't as popular here as it is in Britain, and some of the Indian students who had studied or worked in Britain said that Indian food in Britain is adjusted to the western palate in the same way that Chinese and Thai food are westernised here, where the Indian food here is more traditional and much less popular. You'd never starve surrounded by International students though! They know where to find a good meal at a bargain price! :)

I've recently started making pies. I buy the pastry but the fillings are made from Sunday lunch's leftovers and stuff that's in the cupboard. As well as finding them really tasty, cheap and easy to make, DH remarked on how nice it is to know what's in a meat pie, rather than to try not to think about what some of the contents might be.

'Some people get their jollies cooking - some don't.'

Indeed! I have been cooking for myself and other people for over 30 years. I am bored of it now!

I don't mind baking - there is some art to that but then you have to eat the stuff or it is a waste of time and eating cake all day is not really good for you. So the only interesting bit of cooking I don't do any more.

Who actually has time to cook onion slowly on a low heat?! Really? Whack it up high and get on with it - none of this sweating stuff. Of course you can't then leave it so no you can't MN whilst you are doing it because the computer is in another room. And then you have to stir it or it sticks to that pan eventually. Never ceases to amaze me how quickly things can reduce down to nothing, even on a low heat.

Don't understand why it is OK to cheat and buy nasty shop prepared pastry but not to buy pasta sauce. Double standards surely?

I think we need a 'tongue in cheek' emoticon btw - just to be clear about my last post.

I think it all boils down to whether you are a live to eat or an eat to live sort of person. I am definitely the later.

"Don't understand why it is OK to cheat and buy nasty shop prepared pastry but not to buy pasta sauce. Double standards surely?"

. Yes I admit to double standards - to me shop bought pastry doesn't taste as nasty as shop bought sauces. And to slowly sweat an onion doesn't need me to stand over it and stir constantly. It isn't risotto - which is something I can't be arsed to do. If I put the pan on a low heat with the lid on and set the timer for 5 minutes each time I can slowly sweat an onion and MN at the same time. I find that a slowly cooked onion makes a huge difference in basic simple sauces like tomato sauce and adds an extra sweetness to it that you wouldn't get if you stir fried it on a high heat.

If you dont like chopping just buy chopped onions, garlic and peppers and mushrooms and keep them in your freezer.

If you buy them from the cheaper supermarkets they are not expensive and there is no waste.

Make sure you cook off the water for a bit first.

I make my own sauce for pasta. Sometimes I will buy jars if they are on offer.
My OH always says 'that was really nice' when I give him a jar

I put it down to his lack of (literally) taste due to having MS and it screwing with his taste buds.

Anyone tell me how to make a creamy pasta sauce please? Not a carbonara one, a tomatoey one?

If you want a creamy tomatoey one, I'd just stir in some double cream/creme fraiche into a tomato sauce.

Incidentally it is possible to make a fabulous - if very garlicky - tom sauce in five minutes before work. I know this because I frequently do it.

I personally would never touch 'curry sauce' but that is because I am forrin.

When I was a kid I always thought my Mum made THE BEST chocolate cakes, with chocolate icing and buttermilk in between the two layers, and sometimes if she and Dad were going out of a Saturday night she'd make one as a treat for supper and we'd share it with our babysitter.... the whole cake between a 5 year old, a 12 year old and a 17 year old, which over time became a 9 year old, a 16 year old and a 21 year old until our babysitter married a farmer and moved away and my sister was old enough to go out with her mates and I was stuck with a cranky old crone from down the street - but that's a different story! The point is my frame of reference for THE BEST chocolate cakes in the entire universe were my Mum's.

Here in Australia we have a chain called The Cheesecake Shop. Lots and lots of cheesecakes, flans, cakes etc., all very reliable and consistent, and generally considered to be great products. Every now and then I buy one of their chocolate cakes, especially if the kids and grandkids are coming over. A mate of mine is a professional pastry cook and just got the job managing one of their stores. I made the comment that it seemed a waste of her talents as I presumed there was an automated factory somewhere that churned out the products by the thousand, froze them, then trucked them to the stores to be defrosted ready for sale each day. She shook her head and laughed and explained that the products are all made in the shops by qualified pasty cooks using state of the art equipment, quality ingredients and precise recipes that must be followed. She said it's actually a joy to be working there and she can't fault their equipment or processes.

Mum will be 90 in June, and hasn't made a cake for years. She buys them from The Cheesecake Shop. :)