To wonder how people find the time and money to cook from scratch

[Mummyof287]

We sometimes have a roast, cooked from scratch or Jacket potatoes with toppings and salad.Everything else tends to involve something from a box/packet/jar.
That's not to say every meal is total 'junk food' and the meals are always balanced (protein, carb, fibre) but usually include something processed.
Here are some examples of what we eat;

-Salmon/smoked basa, rice (microwave packet rice) veg
-Quiche (good quality boxed) new potatoes, veg
-Sausages (butchers or supermarket good quality butchers style)
-Old el Paso Fajita kit using quorn chicken

• Burgers (from butchers) in buns with salad

-Pizza with corn on cob/salad

• Breaded/battered fish portions, homemade chips/wedges and beans
• Lasagne (using jar sauces) & veg
• Tortellini (packet) and sauce (ready made in pot/packet)
• Stit fry using quorn chicken

I find cooking really stressful and am not very good at it 🙈 My DH likes cooking and used to do more recipies from scratch, but since having our two daughters time is stretched especially on the days we both work, and when he has done recipes they don't eat it as they are really picky eaters, so feels like a waste of effort, half of it goes in the bin.

I want to stop using so many processed foods as know its not ideal health wise, but time and especially money are fairly short, and most recipies seem to have so many ingredients, it all gets so expensive!

Any ideas of recipies that are very quick, cheap and easy please??

Cheaper yes but not necessarily quicker. I buy frozen packs of individual mixed vegetables and rice - takes 3 minutes in the microwave. Also buy ready prepared boxes of fruit, jars of pasta sauce, bags of grated cheese and chopped onions.
My time is precious so anything which saves me time is worth buying imo.

If you can afford, it no problem but op was saying it was more expensive and time consuming.
Rice takes 8 mins on the hob or 5 in microwave and a big bag is cheap.Apples and satsumas and berries and bananas etc don’t need preparation apart from opening your mouth.
I buy frozen berries because they last longer and no waste but they’re not processed.

This book is an old one but easy to follow-

Jamie's Ministry of Food: Anyone Can Learn to Cook in 24 Hours

Or use Gousto- I dislike cooking, but this makes it easier.

Here’s my link to try Gousto! Use it to get 70% off your first box, PLUS 20% off all other boxes in your first two months. https://gousto.co.uk/raf?promocode=MUNMUN7663&utmm_source=iosapp

What a faff! I mean I've done it that way and its obviously the way to get your spinach in but normally I can't be bothered and it doesn't taste right either.

For those asking 'how long should I make my kid eat something', my son (16) has developed a taste for courgettes this summer, along with a few other things. He wasn't fussy, just not keen on some foods, like we all are.

In our house, you get served everything. You have to at least try the food you don't like, you're not forced to finished it, but give it a go. 4 kids and none of them fussy, but they do all have preferences. It's just never been a battlefield.

@Mummyof287 , I remembered the first book that got me into cooking was 30 minute cook by Nigel Slater. It was a revelation.

Your dinners sound a lot like ours tbh, but we do things that take a bit longer on the weekend like shepherds pie or a curry. I don't use jar sauces because they taste too sweet to me, but other than that it sounds compleatley normal!

my son (16) has developed a taste for courgettes this summer, along with a few other things.

Tastebuds change as we age usually. Plus we explore more cooking methods so can find that we don't like something done some way but love it cooked differently. Like I hated olives when I was young but now like them. Well some. Purely because I was given the cheapo coloured ones when I was young, dicovery of actual tasty olives was groundbreaking😁

@Seaside3 there must come a point where you stop making them try things though? I don't like bananas. If someone told me I still needed to try them because I might change my mind, I'd think they were stupid. I don't like them. I never have. I don't need to repeatedly try one to know that.

Why aren't children (not toddlers, but older children) allowed to do the same?
DS knows he can try the foods if he wants. Occasionally he'll nibble something. He licked an olive in lockdown. His face was a picture! If I make something new I'll put a bit on his plate to try. Sometimes he asks for more. Sometimes he says he'll eat it again if I use less of whatever he didn't like. Sometimes it's an outright no. He knows what he likes.

Just to be clear, I didn't use that approach when he was a toddler because we all know they can be fussy for the sake of being fussy and will eat something one day and not the next.

One thing I’d say, you need a really good knife to make chopping veg quick and easy. I like a serrated one, not more than about 15cm blade, that actually cuts dead straight - not veering to one side. Too many don’t - even an expensive one I bought not long ago.

My semi-veggie mince (with stock cubes, garlic, red lentils, tinned tomatoes, finely chopped onions, celery, carrots and (often) mushrooms) transforms into a bolognese sauce (added fresh basil and dried Italian herbs) or chilli (paprika, chilli powder, and red kidney beans, maybe tomato purée added.).

Unfortunately my ‘school dinner mince’ (beloved of dh) - ditto semi veggie but sole extra is Worcester Sauce, doesn’t adapt to anything else. 🙁

I find cooking from scratch to be very time consuming yes but actually a lot cheaper! Preparing in bulk is the key I find and just prioritising a bit of extra time is so worth it.

(Still nothing wrong with a convenience dinner though when the time calls for it!)

I didn't realise how great a skill cooking from scratch was. Prior to becoming the cook I am today, I would waste time on measuring, reading recipes ect. I can now cook a meal from scratch in 30 mins. It is easy and very possible (in the end). Start practicing here and there and you will get the hang of it!

I do cook Pakistani food though so it is considerable cheap and easy to cook. It's all one pot and I can just leave it whilst doing other jobs. I don't like faffy recipes anymore so I mostly cook Pakistani and Italian foods.

That is true. After a while you get an instinct for it. To make things cheaper - treat meat as a side or addition rather than the main event, use in season vegetables, don't be shy of tinned pulses and tomatoes.

Early autumn means we have a lot of cheap courgettes and peppers in the shops right now. I got a small amount of yellow stickered lamb mince yesterday. So today I fried that off with onions, garlic, bay, oregano and rosemanry. Added a small bit of cumin and smoked paprika.

I then added chopped peppers, aubergine and courgette and am now simmering it with a tin of tomatoes, a stock cube and a splash of white wine.

We will have it with some cous cous or rice sometime later this week.

I am not sure what it is - sort of a Greek style ratouille I suppose. But that doesn't matter - it is cheap, healthy and tasty.

If that worked for you, you fundamentally and simply don't have fussy eaters.

@GETTINGLIKEMYMOTHER

Can you link or recommend the knife you mentioned? I literally have one sharp knife in the house and the rest are either blunt or the ends have snapped off!

I work full time albeit until 4pm. I cook every night from scratch and I’m a big fan of quick and tasty so a meal involving 10 mins prep then 30 mins cooking is no effort ( spag bol, chilli, curry etc) I also want to eat and feed my family well so don’t want to use jars etc. DM did the same so it never really was an issue. On the odd time I’ve bought a jar it’s disappointing because I know homemade is better. So easy to make the base of the dishes above with oil, onion, garlic, tin of toms and some herbs/spices. I put the radio on and enjoy it. Decent meals, preparation, eating with family etc is very important to me.

DD 2 was fussy. I made some allowances( sauce separate to pasta etc) but otherwise we got by. She eats everything now at 19 and has done since early teens.

@43ontherocksporfavor - I usually don’t finish work until 6pm so cooking from scratch doesn’t happen. Thankfully we all like jars particularly pasta sauce. DT’s were weaned on jars and pouches!
When we were living in the UK we regularly had meals from COOK - we called them “cheating homemade “. I used them a lot when friends came to dinner.

I hate jar sauces they're absolutely rank and full of crap. You can make an easy pasta sauce in half an hour and it tastes so much better.

That’s not the point - we like them and I don’t want to spend a precious half an hour making my own.

I used to batch cook curry’s, chilis, stews etc but I’ve discovered it’s better to batch cook rice/blanch veg instead. Freeze in single portions.

Easier to do but still saves work when cooking dinner.

Lavash wraps - most be one of the quickest, easiest, most delicious dinners:

https://www.atoriasfamilybakery.com/mediterranean-lavash-wrap/

So many possibilities and variations..... Last night I coated chicken breast pieces in Dijon mustard, chilli sauce, salt and pepper. Pan-fried in olive oil.

In the meantime I made a salad of chickpeas, black beans, red and white cabbage, red onions, red pepper, celery, cucumbers and tomatoes.

Dressed in EVOO, lemon juice, balsamic vinegar, mustard and salt, pepper and a few chilli flakes. (I tend to make a pint at a time and refrigerate.)

Salad was also the fillings of the wraps, plus a few basil leaves.

Took 15 minutes and was truly delicious.

@Parker231 i don’t cook until 6. No harm in eating at 7/8.

Plus cooking isn’t all hands on. Get in, put ingredients together in a pan or traybake in the oven and go have a shower etc while it’s all cooking. Or slow cooker in the mornings and come home to a meal waiting for you.

Exactly - Nigella's tray-bake, a d variations thereof, are a favourite of mine:

https://www.nigella.com/recipes/chicken-and-pea-traybake

Eintopf style is the way to go for non faff dinners. One pot, easy peasy