To wonder who these wonder women are who 'cook from scratch' every day

[MGFM]

Following on from all the threads about supermarket shopping and how to make it cheaper etc, I just can't get me head around all of the families 'cooking from scratch' everyday.

Is it just me that thinks that cooking from scratch everyday is an absolute nightmare? Are people confused about what cooking from scratch actually means? Are all these people who do this SAHM/SAHDs? Are they getting up at 5 am to put the meal together to heat up in the evening. I just dont get it.

I am currently on Mat Leave but when I was working full time and getting home around 1645/1700 every night, the last thing I wanted to start doing was cooking from scratch.

And what does cooking from scratch even mean? I enjoy sausage, mash, peas and gravy. The mash is from scratch...does that count?

I tend to cook from scratch at the weekend....a big pan of chilli which can cook for a few hours, or spag bol and then will freeze the left overs but I dont start cooking this on a thursday night for example.

Anyway, If I am being unreasonable and it is actually pretty easy to be super mum/dad and cook from scratch, can I please have your recipes?

Thanks! -

I hate cooking. I'm veggie so maybe it's as I have to cook ethg. stuff for me. stuff for carnivores, but if popping chicken breasts in an oven for 20 mins with a jacket potato and beg counts as scratch, then pop me in the microwave for 2 mins and call me Delia.

I used to love cooking pre kids. I either throw stuff into a slow cooker or oven. I buy pre prepped med veg and cut every corner I can.

This includes yummy M&S meals if they are reduced, shock horror.

veg, not beg, though I would beg somebody to cook dinner ever night. it's snoresville but a necessary evil. food shopping too!

I'm stealing icantevens butternut squash pasta recipe. It sounds delicious 😋

Re slow cookers; I find most recipes use too much liquid and the cooking time is too long. Try reducing the suggested cooking time by about a third - you might find it tastes a lot better. Chilli works really well and is a great batch cook dish.

Ah right, that makes sense rose

We cook from scratch everyday. We get ingredients for meals delivered from Gousto three days a week, which are so big they often cover us for more days. Otherwise we have something very easy like a chilli.

Sometimes I also happily have cereal from scratch when I can't be bothered with dinner or a Chinese takeaway from scratch :)

If 'from scratch' means I make spag bol without jars I do, but I don't make the pasta myself or squash tomatoes or anything, haha!

Most of our meals are from scratch but they are very simple, such as chicken breast, rice and broccoli or chilli or fish, potatoes and veg.

My 'can't be arsed' meals include jacket potatoes, spaghetti carbonara, pasta with tomato-based sauce, chicken, mushroom or tuna risotto, eggs in a variety of ways, leftovers and stuff from the freezer that I made when I had more time.

I don't only cook from scratch. We'll be having fish and chips this week, and bought biscuits and stuff like that. But cooking from scratch isn't some amazingly time-consuming activity either.

"The key to cooking from scratch is having gadgets... "

I don't have any of those cookers. I steam rice in a pan on the hob. Don't like the look of slow cookers. Not sure how appetising anything is after 6 hours and am not comfortable leaving something hot sitting there unsupervised all day.

Don't even have a microwave. No space.

The key is confidence. Chop some stuff, add some seasoning, learn to taste and learn about flavour and things that compliment.

Oh yes Cinderella - we also have fridge surprise, which involves going to the fridge, taking all the meats, cheeses, dips, pate, and salady bits, rummaging for bread, pitta, crackers, and just making up plates of that. Sometimes I extremely CBA.

OP, you could also combine batch cooking with evening cooking - so make a slow cook tomato sauce, but make a vat of it. Portion it up and stick it in the freezer. Then all you have to do is defrost it and you have a base for all sorts of recipes,

And there's no prizes for not taking short cuts. I chop pretty much everything in my food processor with the slicing blade, I buy ready chopped pancetta and I keep frozen individual herbs and flavourings (ginger, garlic, lemongrass) in my freezer. That all saves time.

As others have said, it's just habit. I e always cooked every night, of course I use tinned tomatoes or frozen peas but I enjoy planning the weekly menus. Also if you do it all the time you get very fast and tend to collect the tools which make everything quicker. I also freeze a lot so if I can't cook I have a spare one in the freezer.

I just cook - surely it doesn't need a descriptor?

I work but am home by 3.30 in general.

Tonight we're having a tray bake - chicken, chorizo, potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, garlic, paprika- 20 mins prep, an hour or so in oven - easy enough to do amongst housework, delivering / collecting from sports.

Tomorrow pan fried cod, new potatoes and veg.

We eat a fair few tray bakes / stews.

It can only take 5 minutes to make a cheese sauce for cauliflower cheese / macaroni cheese. I don't like jars of sauce - don't like the taste but that's me.

I do use ready made pesto, sausages and fish fingers, posh burgers, ready made curry paste (sometimes - sometimes make my own), Yorkshire puddings (pure laziness I must admit!)

I eat leftovers for lunch.

I'm no superwoman but it's not that hard to cook, run round after kids, look after house etc etc

The only one of those gadgets I have is an oven.

Are rice cookers worth it? It only takes 10 mins to boil basmati?

we're having toad in the hole and veg tonight (half an hour)
Carbonara tomorrow (20 mins)
Lamb curry weds (will make kachumber and rice fresh cos curry is in freezer) i might make a dhal or a veg one to go with it and then freeze that for next week.
Roast dinner on Thursday (slow cooked chicken if needs be or rotisserie if you can't wait 90mins for it to cook)
Friday will be chicken and mush risotto with left over chicken.

So this week I'll 'cook' a veggie curry, roast a chicken and do some roasties with it and a risotto. The rest is just simple chucking stuff in a pan/minimal prep.

If my children ate mince we'd be in heaven. Actual heaven.

If I got home from work at 4:45/5pm, I'd be doing more than just cooking from scratch - I'd be baking too!

I don't cook from scratch every day - but a fair amount of the time.

Batch cooking is important - so big pots of chilli, curry, spag bol sauce, stews etc and freeze in 1 meal or 1 person portions. Lasagne freezes well too - either before or after cooking.

Lots of people swear by slow cookers - I'd love to but only have a couple of recipes that work as we are out too long in the day and it all dries up, or is a watery mess.

I often prep things the night before (after dinner as part of washup time) - peeling veg, slicing meat/veg, marinating meat, etc - so that I literally arrive in the door and turn on pots and pans with almost no prep needed then, stir fries and pasta dishes work well here, or the traditional "meat and 2 veg with potatoes" dinner. Sometimes I even have things already cooking in the oven on the timer - like a shepherd's pie or lasagna or chicken and mushroom pie or smoked fish and broccoli pie.

HM potato wedges, a steak and baked Portobello mushroom are "from scratch" even if not necessarily the healthiest (or at least, not what you'd want every night).

I often have HM stock in the freezer, that comes out for various dishes -but no way would I make stock midweek, that's for weekends and saving. If I have none in the freezer, I will use a stock cube or from a jar - and the meal may still be from scratch in my mind.

Lots of dishes are pretty quick to make - I make a carbonara sauce now, using leftover bacon (from bacon and cabbage night, can be frozen) or lardons freshly cooked, freshly sautéed onion, pasta, double cream, an egg (or 2), parmesan cheese and pepper, and using some of the pasta cooking water to thin it down a little.

And some dishes can be slower cooking but you can ignore them - the lasagna/pies in the oven; oven chips and chicken kiev; a midweek roast using small joints; etc - again, come in, turn on the oven, and then tootle off about other jobs for 30-60 minutes depending on what tonight's dish is.

"There a legal maximum of 48 hours, seriously? What about A and E doctors? Nannies work 12 hours a day easily . Dh works way more."

You have to sign an opt out form.

Doesn't everyone? I can't think of any job where I did not have to sign the form, even the part-timers who never got close that amount anyway.

My minimum standard hours are 45. It's easy to go to 50 hours just by working an extra hour a day.

I don't think you have to sign an opt out form if it's office work

Rice- 1 mug of rice 2 of boiling water,lid on ,don't touch,don't stir, NOTHING until water has been absorbed.

I'm one but it's nearly always quick cook
Tonight it's seared tuna steaks with sweet potato jackets stuffed with garlic mushrooms and broccoli as a side
Take all of 20 mins - we eat 7-7.30 anyway as I get in 6.30-6.45 depending on traffic

I work full time over 4 days so don't get home til 6.45 on those days.

I have no gadgets other than hob, oven, microwave and kettle and I'm definitely NOT superwoman. I also have an incredibly small freezer.

I batch cook in that I'll cook a big pan of something because it's no different to cooking a little pan, but I don't make six different things to freeze every weekend.

Pasta sauce cooks in the time it takes the pasta to cook. Veg and sometimes chicken stir fried while the rice cooks. Quick curry while the rice cooks.

Traybakes - I do a lot of traybake style dinners. Chops, Sausages, Chicken pieces or fish with potatoes, vegetables and seasoning all thrown together on a baking tray into the oven. Ovenbaked risotto works well too - same sort of concept!

I'm becoming that person to save money... plus homemade food is so much nicer and healthier as you know what's going in there!

I enjoy it! I find baking/cooking therapeutic

At the weekend I quite often make homemade soup (strangely becoming legendary and much looked forward to) and roast dinners which are easy. I sometimes make a roast mid week, in the slow cooker if its gammon.

Otherwise a mix of not from scratch and things like

• chicken baked in foil with boiled potatoes and steamed veg
• chilli or bolognaise
• lasagne or cottage pie (less often)
• pasta with fried onion/pepper/mushroom and cheese/ham/bacon
• beef casserole or madras

Not many meals actually take more than 30 minutes to make, just some take longer to cook, and some are easier to prep than others. All taste nicer homemade. I am speedy though. And don't do it all the time.

As a child growing up in the 70s I grew up eating a load of processed food. Finus Crispy Pancakes, frozen fish in breadcrumbs, chicken pieces in breadcrumbs - with oven chips. Some frozen peas or carrots - very dull diet. DH reports that his household was the same.

I hated it - so once I left home I tried to cook meals using real food. It did help that I worked in catering/bars so was able to learn how to make different dishes and cooking times, ideas for meals etc.

When I worked full time I would still knock up a quick dinner - maybe fish baked in foil, with a jacket potato and fresh vegetables. It didn't take me long. Other things such as casseroles, or chillis which need longer I would serve up at the weekends or when I had more time.

In recent years I have avoided packets/pre-prepared foods even more as have been on a diet most of my adult life - and I find it easier to judge what is going into my food if I make it myself.

Am now (mostly) vegan- so most prepared foods are out of the equation anyway.

I do think that cooking should be made more of at school - I know that there isnt the ti'me for a proper lesson now as there is so much more to cram in to the school day, but it is a shame.