To ask what you'd class as cooking?

[Mouldyfoodhelp]

Having a discussion with someone and their stance is: just getting a chicken breast out the pack and into the oven with a few potatoes is good enough cooking, doing the same with a ready meal, or buying a pie.

My stance is that whilst that's cooking in its absolutely most basic sense ( bar the ready meal), it's not what most people mean when they cook. Now I'm not being snobby we have more than our fair share of crap food but I say actual cooking has more processes like let's say a roast even though you're putting a chicken in the oven you're seasoning it, portioning it afterwards and you've got the veg to sort out, Yorkshire, stuffing etc. Other food ideals are for example a carbonara, shepherds pie, lasagne type stuff meals.

And even if some people do just put stuff in the oven I argue it's not literally just a plain chicken breast normally and they generally do some work for the meal.

It's more about expectations of results when each is cooking because I know they wouldn't be happy If that's all I did all the time as well.

Talking about crap food I just remembered this name change was because I originally ate some fridge raiders that were mouldy

Freezer-to-oven food is a CBA dinner for me (which I have rather regularly, no shame in this once or twice a week). I was gobsmacked to hear years ago that friends I knew via DD’s nursery had set a target of cooking a ‘proper’ meal once a week. Their staple diet was freezer-to-oven food.

Putting a chicken breast and potatoes is cooking, of course it is. It isn’t fancy preparation but it’s preparing a meal from raw ingredients. That’s cooking

Personally I think if more than half is pre prepared, so a ready meal or ready made pie, then it’s not cooking.

Different times call for different measures. I'm a keen and talented cook, but in a week we can zigzag between frozen pizza, to lasagne al forno with homemade pasta, to jacket potatoes with cheese, to enchiladas with homemade tortillas, to roast chicken with bread and salad. It all depends on the diary, the budget and how arsed I can be...

I would class putting a chicken breast in the oven, boiling a few spuds and some veg as cooking. Basic cooking, but still cooking. However, I wouldn't consider it cooking if you bunged a jar of bolognaise sauce in with some mince and cooked some pasta to go with it.

A bit odd really, as both require similar effort. I think I see cooking as doing it yourself, whether it is simple and basic, like the chicken, or more elaborate like a curry made from scratch (i.e. no pastes, jar sauces etc).

Anything from raw ingredients is cooking.

Anything like a ready meal is just (re)heating.

In one of Joanna Trollope's novels, a character makes a pile of bread and jam and gets jam on his clothes. Mutters "Sodding cooking".

I think putting a chicken breast in the oven, pealing some potatoes and cooking some veg is cooking (and I don't see how this is very different to your roast dinner suggestion)

Taking a battered chicken piece and some prepared potato shapes out of the freezer, and boiling some frozen peas is cooking, but very much an easy dinner, and not home cooking.

Phoning the local takeaway isnt cooking!

Bit like @devildeepbluesea, I mainly do “proper home-cooked” meals, making my own sauces etc 5-6 times per week.

Freezer tea, pre-made or jars are normally 1-2 times per week max.

It would probably make my life easier as I work 0.8 FTE in a pretty full-on job. But I really enjoy cooking.

Most friends will mainly do freezer/pre-made and might do a home-cooked meal once a week. I normally pretend we do more “easy” stuff than we actually do.

Use of 'raw' ingredients I think. Cooking a chicken breast or boiling potatoes is still cooking, even if the result may not not gourmet fare. Reheating something someone else made is not cooking, it's producing a meal.
Both versions, depending on your tiredness level, surrounding irritations or level of interest can be a ball ache and if I've had a fucker of a day and anyone suggested my frozen pizza lovingly served on laps in front of the TV was not cooking, I may not be responsible for my actions.

Cooking is the process of turning ingredients into a meal.

Heating up is using preprepared items to make a meal.

Its a fine line between the two... like using a pie from the butchers instead of a packet of chicken quarters for example. Veg/potatoes takes the same effort for both.

Just to be clear we don't use jar Bolognaise, we go for white sauces as a back up for lasagne that's about the extent of it

Agreed. Making a salad is cooking. Making toast is cooking. To be a good cook, you need to know about ingredients - what to buy, how to store it, how to cook it, what goes with what. It doesn't have to be complicated or take ages, but the end result has to be tasty and safe to eat, i.e. non-poisonous.

^ This

I said in my OP chicken and potatoes is cooking at its most basic level but they're of the opinion that's basically all anybody does at home and that it's suitable to have everyday/ time they cook - but I know they'd be unhappy if I done that for them every day as the main cook whilst doing other stuff for others

What you’re really saying is

When DP cooks they take the east way out every time. That means I can never take the easy way out when I cook if we want to eat well. It’s not fair.

You need an agreed meal plan or rota.

Anything which involves heat and cookware is cooking to me.
I despise cooking and if it can't be microwaved or air fried then I'm not cooking it.

If it’s raw, fresh ingredients, then to me it’s cooking - albeit maybe a simple meal of chicken and potatoes.)

A roast is hardly ‘cooking’, you just shove everything in the oven? Even if you have to peel the veg first, that not a huge step away from reheating a ready meal. For me, ‘ cooking’ must utilise the hob and raw ingredients. Otherwise you’ve basically done nowt

Really? You need a fair bit of food knowledge to put a decent roast dinner on the table. Apart from anything else, you need to be clear on the timings, and able to get everything ready at the same time. I don't use instant or ready-made gravy so I make gravy from the meat juices, and that's cooking.

Not exactly that, but sort of. We prepare a menu every Thursday for shopping and stick to it reasonably well, there's a few people cooking, but one decides they aren't going to try, that they can't cook and won't attempt something with any real steps. So we give them say chicken and chips with Coleslaw, but the coleslaw has to be ready made and moan if its a whole chicken as they have to portion it out.

Same if we give them sausages and mash they'll moan about mashing the potatoes and if we ask for some onion gravy its a big ordeal, and their retort that I' must have heard 500+ times is " normal/ most people wouldn't do this they'd just get a piece of chicken sling it in the oven and be done with it with some potatoes"

For me - Any food prep that involves heat - including making toast.

If you're making a meal that involves an oven or microwave, that's cooking.

😂