To ask how you make your meals a bit more posh/fancy?

[WanderingWildflower]

We used to eat out a fair bit but our income has reduced due to maternity leave plus we are feeling the pinch of the cost of living crisis (like most I imagine).

So I'd like a few of our (mainly weekend) meals to be a bit more 'restauranty' as a compromise!

So I'm asking, what makes a meal feel 'nice' to you? Good wine, nicer condiments?

And how do I make a REALLY nice roast to match the ones you get at a posh pub on a Sunday 😁

Grow your own herbs. Then you have a cheap, plentiful supply to add fresh herbs to many dishes which feels ‘luxurious’. Obviously grow what you eat.
Fresh mint tea after meal

Fresh herbs definitely.

Yes to herbs. I put loads of different ones into salads.

The look of the food, whether on serving dishes or plates, eat at a nicely set table, and a couple of courses.

We've started doing similar a couple of nights a week as we're no longer eating out, so on Sunday we had stuffed mushrooms as a starter and pork saltimbocca with rosemary potatoes and a green salad as a main, starter on plates with a few salad leaves as a garnish, main plated up but with salad bowl on the table.

I'm planning tomato, basil and mozzarella salad with balsamic glaze and garlic bread then veg lasagne, h/m coleslaw and green salad for this weekend.

Lay the table so it looks pretty; flowers, candles, tablecloth, have some music on

Mealkits can be fun, I like Haar at home for something a bit different

Well the meals I cook are usually far tastier than any I eat at restaurants in the UK. I make japanese, thai, Spanish, italian, indian food. A lot vegetarian, vegan or pescatarian. I search for and follow a lot of food accounts on social media, save recipes and just follow the recipes.

Get a couple of those rings a la masterchef and serve everything like that. Rice? Smush it in to a ring, remove ring and hey presto, it looks posh! Then get a squeezy bottle and use it to create pretty blobs of sauce on said plate. It can be Tommy K in there but it'll look fancy 😉

As above. Plenty of fresh herbs and a handful of specialty ingredients in the cupboard. A lovely bottle of wine from the supermarket will be far cheaper than an equivalent at a restaurant. Cooking from a range of cuisines for variety and interest. Using the good table linens, glasses and crockery every day (or at least at the weekends). Always one or two candles lit, and once in a while a bunch of flowers too. I’ve got a lot of pretty little dishes, serving trays and platters and I use them all the time to create a bit more of a ‘special’ atmosphere for our meals.

If you’re talking herbs, most
kinds of casserole look posher sprinkled with some chopped parsley. You could buy wafers or cigarettes russes for ice cream!

On the roast, I’ve genuinely never eaten a roast at a pub/restaurant that’s better than the ones we cook at home...I think getting the best meat you can reasonably afford is the most important factor, after that it’s just a matter of getting it down to an art on timings so that you can relax about it and making the gravy/Yorkshire puddings/sides yourself!

I have a black thumb, all my herbs die except rosemary. But once a month or so I get loads of herbs from the market - big bunches, not weedy little supermarket sachets - and spend an hour prepping them for the freezer. They defrost in literally seconds when sprinkled over food - I always have parsley, coriander, dill, chives, oregano, and tarragon chopped and ready to to use. Basil goes a bit black in the freezer, so I usually have that whizzed up in oil in ice-cube trays instead. And if you have a persian/mediterranian shop, they sell great frozen mixed bags of herbs/spinach like this www.yektafoodsltd.co.uk/product/frozen-ghormeh-sabzi/

Fresh herbs definitely and other little finishing touches like garnishing with yoghurt, onion rings (not the battered kind), seeds etc where appropriate. Presentation is also key, think about the plate arrangement and use little tricks like moulding the rice with small bowls, lots of colour in salads. All just makes it that bit more of an event

I do restaurant style at home, unfortunately it's more TGi Friday than the Ivy. Cutlery brought to the table in a pot, napkins in holder. Condiments, salt and pepper in a wooden tray.

The secret to restaurant tasting food is a deep fat fryer. Proper chips, crispy scampi and battered fish.

Definitely garnishes, fresh herbs, toasted nuts, lemon wedges, selection of wafers, sauces, sprinkles etc for ice cream.

For me its all about time and taking care.

Prepping things like fresh veg/salad, uniformly, taking care to make them just look nicer.
Using ‘nicer’ plates or servers, including small bowls on the plate like you get for sauces/dips etc for restaurants. Arranging food on a plate rather than dumping it on, using herbs and seasoning and little bits of yoghurt/cream swirls on soups etc.

laying the table properly. Having a time set. Sitting after food with a glass of wine or a cuppa like you might in a restaurant. Makes a difference!

I read recently that research had been done that showed people paid more for food, thought it tasted better and thought it better presented if the cutlery was heavy 😂 so maybe invest in some high quality cutlery!!

Fresh herbs, present it nicely, cook different cuisines? But basic meals can be amazing too when cooked with love, don't forget that.

If time isn't your friend I can also recommend things like frozen lamb shanks or beef wellingtons which aren't cheap but a step up from pork chops

If you don’t want to spend too much on dinner sets/serving dishes/etc then eBay is a great place to look. FB marketplace, too, and your local charity shops. Plenty of lovely things to be had for not too much money.

I also have carafes for the wine, a bread basket with linen liner, lots of different things like that.

These are exactly what I'm after you guys!!

I like the idea of herbs but I also have a black thumb. Do defrosted herbs still taste nice and fresh?

Big pepper grinder!

I agree that a pub roast is never half as good as a home cooked one. Nor is a pub steak or lasagne or bolognaise or casserole or anything that's not deep fried in an industrial fried.

I would advise getting the Delia Smith Complete Cookery Course book, either the classic edition or the 3 book set. You can get it for about £12 second hand on Amazon and it will save you that in a few weeks. It's how I taught myself to cook 35 years ago. First follow her instructions for perfect roast potatoes and Yorkshire puddings. They will be far far better than anything you can buy in a pub or a packet and half the price. Frozen veg are also your friends. And a joint of pork is a fraction of the price of lamb, chicken or beef. I did a roast dinner for 6 the other day for about £15 all in. It was bloody lovely and we had leftovers for Monday.

once you've mastered the roast try some of her other recipes. They are great basics and once you are confident with the techniques you can start adding your own twists.

Balsamic reduction. Drizzle it on salads and pizza. It's amazing.

They taste fine, but in stuff rather than as a garnish. Soft herbs go a bit mushy

Thyme and rosemary both freeze very well. I just pop it straight into the freezer in the bag and when I need some, take it out and chop or shake from the bag into/onto dish. Sage also freezes well. I freeze tarragon in butter form, and as pp said you can also freeze the softer herbs suspended in olive oil. I generally prefer to use fresh parsley, coriander, basil and mint, though I usually buy one or two pots of whatever I need/want with my monthly shop (yes, I only go once a month!) and they stay pretty happy for a month or so and sometimes quite a bit longer if I really pay attention to looking after them. A cheat I’ve found is that mint sauce works pretty well in place of fresh mint in a lot of things, especially sauces/dips and even curries or other well-seasoned dishes that call for it. Ginger keeps better in the freezer and is easier to grate whilst frozen.

Homemade Yorkshires can then be frozen. So make a larger batch, and the other times they will only take 5 mins in the oven and less waste.
( I make terrible Yorkshires, live somewhere you can’t buy frozen. Mil used to come and make 48 and freeze for us)

individual cheesecake or tartlet moulds