Am I "cooking from scratch".....

[Janeymoo50]

or not...

Curry - brown onion, garlic, chicken, add jar of paste/sauce?

Shep pie - brown mince, onions, carrots, add tomato paste, stock, flour, marmite, seasoning, herbs, etc

Fish pie - put frozen salmon and cod fillets (Iceland bargains) in bit of milk, butter and dried herbs, then make proper roux with the liquid, top with frozen mash (with added butter and good shake of black pepper)

My DP says I cheat, I might concur on the frozen mash (but it works better on fish pie).... But I've always thought this was ok....am I really cheating???

That counts as cooking in my book!

It doesn't have to be 'from scratch' to be good, but if your DH needs it to be from scratch, then I'll assume he knows where the local supermarket and the kitchen is.

By the way, darling husband is darling girlfriend (soon to be darling "wife". I hate peeling spuds. Frozen mash is so easy, and pound for pound....cheaper. Literally put in pot, add knob of butter, dash of milk, white or black pepper and hey presto.... Yummy mash in 10 mins. Great for when we leave the house at 0645 and get home at 19.30.

DP roasts and grinds his own spices quite often when he makes curries, but also often uses premade masala blends or occasionally pastes. Sometimes he uses ghee he's made himself from butter

I'm teasing , frozen mash tastes like potatoes. And youncannot weak it to suit with butter and milk.

You can make a big batch of mash and freeze it.

OP you put marmite in your cottage pie?!

I've made my own curry. Curry from paste or sauce is much nicer!

Also, who gives a shiny shit if you use frozen mash? There are children starving in this world. You get food - nice, nutritious food - does it matter who mashed the fuckers?

Ooh congratulations A fiance should definitely be watching her comments or you might decide you won't cook as her wife.

Yup, decent curry pastes, plus home grown chilis and garlic, browned onions, ginger and additional spices, (some ground, some whole ) all go into my curries. Using good pastes is really not cheating. Not so sure about jars of curry sauce though, but just because they're not that good IME.

It doesn't matter if you don't cook from scratch as long as the ingredients aren't full of chemicals. But cooking sometimes needs a little help. We had crispy Sainsburys spud slices tonight and lovely they were. Went beautifully with my home made cod and spinach cheese bake.

Frozen peas are the best peas there are.

Are you sure you want to marry someone who calls this cheating?

Maryz

I do grind spices and make my own bases for Curries, and onion bhajis and flat breads. But only when I have the time or the inclination.

My favourite curry though, is

Sweated frozen onions, frozen garlic and frozen ginger.

Add pataks balti paste. Chopped fresh tomatoes. Splosh of water.

Then once the sauce has thickened, chuck in chopped up lumps of chicken that's been poached in chicken stock, or left over roast chicken if we've had a mythical chicken. I then stir in some frozen coriander and a back of fresh spinach leaves. (Occasionly if I have any double cream or yoghurt dregs in the fridge I chuck them in at the end to make it creamy).

It's mind numbingly easy and quick and is always lovely.

Curry no.

Shep pie yes.

Fish pie - more or less.

Tho I agree, who's checking? (your DP apparently )

Maryz I grind spices to make curry. Only cos I like doing it tho. I think we need to do what we need to do to get food on the table. It's not like anyone is serving pot noodle every day here, is it?

The curry is most definitely not from scratch.

Shepard's Pie is yes.

Fish Pie, pretty much is but not because of pre-prepared mash but a cheat now and then is totally fine in my book! I like the mash from the chillers, I hate making mash.

Curry is definitely not from scratch (no judging here, I love my Pataks korma sauce!) the rest is ok IMO, not tried frozen mash but there's not much added to that is there?

I presumed Frozen mash for top of shepherds pie too. To me anything that requires you to combine and heat ingredients rather than just microwaving straight from the container as full meal or just chucking it on an oven tray, is cooking - whether it counts as from scratch or not I couldn't care less :)

Frozen Mash is the absolute dogs bollocks - best thing ever - brilliant for when you just need an individual portion too - fill a bowl with as much as you need and fire it in the microwave - job done! I've recently converted my 82 year old Mum to it - makes a nice easy dinner for her with the goodness of real potato.

For those who like instant - Sainsburys instant powder is the way to go - it is quite acceptable but not as good as frozen.

I have frozen my own mash before though and that worked well. Especially sweet potato. Just added a bit of milk after microwaving I think.

Is tinned tomatoes cheating?

My curry is 900g onion, with 50g ginger and 50g garlic and (I think) 375ml water cooked for a couple of hours then blended.

So far from scratch so good.

Then a tin of tomatoes, fried in oil with paprika and cumin.

Then when you cook the meat or veg add the two sauces and add garam masala.

Is garam masala cheating?

I make bhajis from scratch,and the dips, but my popods come ready to fry. Curry night is rare here, if we lived in the UK we would be getting take away every week. We made samosas, but the pastry was bought, so not from scratch and they were a bit shit tbh.

Of all the things that I miss about living in the UK, curry ranks high.

Anything that uses a jar as it's main component cannot be described as 'from scratch' (weird term though). Most curry sauces are also pretty disappointing too. We struggled to find good pastes for a while and so made them (Jamie Oliver recipe) it was quite a hassle!

Using frozen mashed potato is obviously a short cut, so yes it's a 'cheat'. Most of them seem to be made from the same ingredients as homemade mash so I'd be happy with that so long as it tasted good.

I blogged about frozen mash some months ago. I agree with pp that such things are a shortcut rather than a cheat.

Jar sauces are full of sugar and other peculiar fillers. Jar paste isn't. The line between scratch and not falls between the jars of curry paste and curry sauce.

That said, the continuum from "ring Domino's" at one end to "The Good Life" at the other is a broad one. I'm probably more scratch than ping, IYSWIM, but that's more to do with the qualify of the contents than any martyred idea that all from-scratch meals are necessarily nutritionally superior to all other dishes.

Oh and I miss British curry too!

Garam masala definitely not from scratch. It gets ridiculous Sooooo fast doesn't it?

No
Yes
No

I prefer fully prepared frozen fish pie to your method as I think the fish freezes and cooks better like this and some frozen ranges are exactly what you are doing anyway.

Your Shepherd's pie and curry pretty much from scratch if paste rather than sauce is the addition. Not much point making your own spice mix unless you have a really fresh source. Preprepared of these are not as nice - this lazy HW has done lots of testing.

Re pp and cheesecake I agree from scratch is much more expensive but once you have had proper NY cheesecake in the US it is very very hard to make do with anything less.

Think your DP owes you a meal out.

If there are any chemicals, ready paste or pre prepared ingredients then that means that...

Bla De bla.

Not scratch: burger king.

Anything else: go for it.

It doesn't matter.