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??

We just do cumin, smoked paprika and garlic salt for fajitas. Add to taste as your cooking. It’s mild but that’s what our kids like. It’s nice to be able to control the seasoning yourself and I always wonder what the preservatives must be like in those El Paso kits to stop the wraps from going off.

Agree, I used to love cooking but now find it time consuming faffy and annoying. I'm veggie and both DC's are fussy, I can't be bothered to try and think of meals that everyone will like and try and put them together every evening. As dc and H like chicken which I don't eat I leave them to it to have chicken curry etc in the evening and just cook something simple for myself like a massive pasta salad that will last me a while. Kids are teenagers now so "family meals" aren't such an issue as we all have very different schedules anyway.

Do a lot of jacket potatoes with various fillings, that's fine and just a nutritious as a lot of faffier meals. I do like making veggie curry/Dahl in the slow cooker but DS doesn't like it. I'm good at cooking but 17 years of family life has taken the shine off it, in fact to be blunt I now hate it! Enjoy being a bit more creative at the weekends making fritattas and tagines though sometimes but only if DC are away as they won't eat it.

No way am I spending my precious weekends batch cooking...I need the downtime to rest and do hobbies!

We do large batch meals that go in the freezer, then alternate between freezer meals and quick meals.

Our freezer batches include:
Spaghetti bolognese
Veggie chilli
Beef rogan josh
Chicken carnitas (to use in pitas or quesadilas or bowls)
Sausage casserole
Sausage pasta sauce

We will make at least 6 portions when we make them on a weekend but it's the only big cook we do a week and takes about 90 minutes.

We then have probably 3 batch cooks a week, and add in some quick fresh meals like stir fry, scrambled eggs and avocado, omelette, poke bowls, carbonara. All of those can be done in 30 minutes or less.

Also, if you’re going to do your own spice mixes I’d really recommend getting the spices from the world foods bit of the supermarket.

They sell the spices in larger bags and they’re not much more expensive than the jars, but you get a lot, lot more!

Here's a recipe for a slow cooker tomato sauce. I freeze it in plastic tubs. An easy mid week dinner with pasta & whatever veg are lurking in the fridge
https://www.easycheesyvegetarian.com/slow-cooker-tomato-sauce/

Look at websites specialising in quick meals. We all use a few short cuts eg canned tomatoes and roasted jarred peppers, canned beans so don't feel bad about them but otherwise everything I cook day to day is fresh and rarely takes more than 30 minutes. It's cheaper to scratch cook than by processed in most incidences.

Devise a go to list of quick meals that don't use ready made ingredients or minimise them eg use ready made wraps but make your own fajita blend (make up 4 and store the rest), lasagna from scratch is more time consuming but refrigerates well so make one whilst making a roast on a Sunday for Monday. Make a batch of rice up and freeze in the quantities you use. Make your own pasta sauce and serve with wholemeal spaghetti.

My favourite quick go to that's super cheap is dal - pan fry gently an onion, a red chilli, garlic and ginger, add lentils, curry powder (I use lidl medium but can separate spices) and a can of coconut milk (certain canned goods are essential), Whilst cooking pan fry aubergine, ginger, garlic and chilli, once soft add vinegar (I use cider vinegar) black mustard seeds and turmeric, take off heat add chopped coriander.

Serve dal with rice and the pickle. Whole meal takes approximately 25 minutes including cooking the rice. Cost per head is under £1, Iess if you don't make the pickle.

You need to get in to the swing of it and plan ahead.

I don't tend to get in from work until 7pm and don't start cooking until 8pm. So weekdays I go for easy stuff - last night we had a green veg and smoked salmon risotto - 30 mins from scratch. Tonight I have drinks after work so we will have penne puttanesca - that is essentially store cupboard stuff with some tomatoes that can be thrown together in about 10 mins.

Like others have said I tend to cook more of meals that take longer to cook and freeze some. That way there is always something wuick and homecooked available.

You also need to start building a store cupboard of essentials - buy a few extra a week and before you know it you will be there.

Things I always have - butter, tinned tomatoes, bay leaves, garlic, onions, lemon, oil, tinned beans, tinned tuna, olives, capers, some diced pancetta or chorizo, eggs, frozen peas, stock cubes, parmesan,soy sauce, miso paste, chilli, ginger, rice, pasta, cous cous. You can thow together a lot of meals with these items.

I hate cooking but I still cook everything from scratch. Would also advocate the BBC Good Food site - they have a quick and easy section.

DO NOT go for Jamie’s 15 minute meals. They take way longer than 15 minutes.

Oh and we love to have a "tapas" night on a Monday when we've had a cooked chicken the night before. We have the leftover chicken, chopped peppers, apple slices and peanut butter, couscous, cheese and olives etc. Always goes down well and takes seconds to throw together!

I have brilliant device from Lakeland the will cook smallish quantities of rice (1-6 portions), work as a slow cooker and even make yogurt. It's not huge on the worktop either. Chuck rice (52p a kilo in Morrisons yesterday) and water in, turn it on, then it's ready half an hour later and keeps warm till you need it.

Cook it the day before for a stir fry, then cool quickly and put it in the fridge.

For rice I use
https://www.ocado.com/products/sistema-plastic-microwave-rice-steamer-red-2-6l-86393011?ds_rl=1291540&ds_rl=1291426&ds_rl=1126321&gclid=CjwKCAjwyNSoBhA9EiwA5aYlb97_QMXEU1C9qG_Vfv4eoCC_mI2mxGSCa0wk7LXLExBvIlzZVzV-OxoCXLkQAvD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds
I like it because you can get on with other stuff while it's in the microwave and the cooked product will sit happily in the pot for a good 10 /15 mins if you want it to .
I started off weighing the rice then adding ,200 to arrive at the correct nos of ml of water.
And I give it 12 mins.
Like a lot of cooking, it's a bit of a faff the first couple of times but you quickly work out how to recognise amounts .

We mainly eat from scratch - the only saving we make is microwave rice (sometimes) and curry pastes as they are fresher than keeping spices ourselves!
We do salmon and veg, mac n cheese with quick cheese sauce (as in - whack milk, butter and flour in at once and stir), kimchi fried rice, sausages and mash, spag bol with quorn mince, tacos, bean chilli.
I personally think jar sauces are rank so if we have pasta - it'll be pesto (from a jar haha). Carbonara is actually relatively easy but the effort gives a result waaày better than the jarred version.

It's basically habit thought. Tbf, I work from home so whilst we have 3 kids, I know I can be cooking from 5:30 for a 6pm dinner. Its whatever you can manage though. Don't stress yourself by making all changes at once- just do little by little.

I don’t get why people buy microwave rice - unless money just isn’t an issue at all.

Ordinary rice is so easy to cook - I never understand why people say they ‘can’t’ cook rice, either.

How do you reheat it please? I've been looking on how to freeze rice and they're good with the first bit, cool it down quick, flat tray etc but never tell you how to reheat it!

I cannot understand how people cannot find the time to cook from scratch we both have demanding jobs and I cook every night unless we have planned to eat out. There are loads of meals that do not take long to prepare and are far better nutritionally than ready made. Omelettes with various fillings take minutes and a quick salad and new potatoes make a really good no fuss meal. Steaks can be grilled or fried in less than 10 mins again salad and new potatoes. Pasta can be cooked in less than 10mins and transformed into Carbonara with minimal effort. Slow cookers and air fryers are both really good to speed things up in different ways - if I know we will all be having to eat at different times I will do a beef in red wine in slow cooker and leave mashed potato ready to heat up as required or slice chicken breasts thinly which coated in breadcrumbs and spices can air fry quickly as needed. All it takes is a bit of organisation when shopping.

I tend to cook most meals from raw ish ingredients, but use some packet items

Its autumn so, I will supermarket shop and then make up 2/3 dump bags for the slow cooker: Chilli con carne, spaghetti bolognaise and a chicken casserole. So I put all the raw ingredients into a large food bag, ( I buy double the ingredients and bag up 3 bags for the freezer) Each day in the week I will dump the food bag into the slow cooker and when I get home we have dinner ready made - ok so put the rice on or make the spaghetti - which takes 10 minutes. Make up mash potato to go with the chicken casserole.

I will then possible make something like chicken kebabs, There are some great marinades to make online is you search for a recipe) salad and home made flat breads and then a freezer meal of fish and chips or pizza on a Friday instead of a takeaway - easy to make in either the oven or the air fryer.

Weekends I have more time to cook, so can choose different meals

Once you have a decent store cupboard of spices and rice etc its not expensive

What am I missing re rice cookers? How much quicker/easier can anything get than cooking rice in a pan?

I always fail at this @MiddleParking . And I find you have to be on the ball with timing and need to watch the pan .
It's no good telling me how deep to have the water in relation to the rice and cover it once it's boiled etc etc
Believe me I've tried .

The difference as far we are concerned is -

1. There's no watching the pan/setting timer etc. You switch it on and forget it.
2. The keep warm function. On very busy days where we just want to come home and sit down to a hot meal, we switch it on as we leave the house (Whoever is the last to leave the house) and it switches itself off when cooked and moves itself to Keep Warm and we come home and eat out of it.

We have had it for 4 years now and it's used about daily (I don't eat rice but my family are big fans!)

another vote for the Sistema rice cooker. Almost as easy as packets and you control what goes in. Saved us a fortune over the the years.

A friend asked me this the other day and it made me realise that I don't think I have ever properly thought there was another way.

I come from a culture which makes absolutely everything from scratch - our own yoghurt, pickles, flatbreads/rotis etc - and I think of myself as a bit lazy because I sometimes buy yoghurt from the supermarket.

I think basically I just expect to spend several hours a week cooking and don't question that.

Which is to say I think that to an extent there are ways to make cooking from scratch faster but to an extent you just need to accept it will take more time than not. That might not be worth it to you but it is what it is.

Me three. I find cooking beyond boring.

Planning ahead. We have 3 recipe books (pinch of nom, hairy dieters and Roasting tin) because I'm rubbish at cooking if I don't follow a recipe.
We choose 3 recipes then buy the ingredients in the Saturday morning big shop. Then Sunday evening we cook at least 2 of the recipes and batch them up to just heat up during the week. One evening meal will be cooked fresh on the night, usually salmon, roasted veg with new potatoes and a blob of cream cheese!
We both work full time long hours (leave home 7am get home after 6)

Before I met DH I couldn't cook at all. Everything I ate came from a jar sauce. He taught me to cook and I can remember the last time I ate a meal using a jar sauce. I enjoy what I eat now so much more and I know exactly what's in it.

We're fortunate that we have a good size kitchen diner with a tv in it so Sunday night cooking isn't a chore as we spend most of our time in that room anyway, so we chat and watch tv while cooking.

I don't batch cook, as I've got some weird thing about frozen and reheated food (I know it's irrational). But to save time I "double cook" meals. So... on a Sunday, we always have a roast. Mondays are busy, I work late, so we do enough roast for two days, and then everyone has left over roast on the Monday. If I do find time, sometimes I will grab a pack of ready rolled pastry and make a "roast dinner pie", as everything is there, all ready and waiting, and literally just needs the pastry chucked on top. Tuesday, I finish at a reasonable time to get home and cook properly again. Usually a veggie chilli or veg bolognese/veg shepherds pie, again, I will make enough for two days, and on the Wednesday (depending on what we made the day before, we will either have left over shepherds pie, or Bolognese on jackets Bolognese pasta bake, chilli wraps, tacos etc to mix it up a bit. The bulk of the meal is already made the day before, so it means a nice home cooked meal with minimal effort. Thursday is my day off, so I try to prepare a slow cooker meal, casserole or curry type thing, using fresh herbs, spices, beans, etc, and again, I'll do enough for a couple of days, and the leftovers can be eaten over a couple of days, so that's Friday sorted, (unless we go out for dinner and then the leftovers get used on Saturday) Saturday I'm at work late, so DH and the kids will either have the leftovers, or he cooks, and then back to Sunday, and it's roast dinner time again! This obviously isn't what happens every single week, but we try to stick to this sort of schedule of cooking as it means we're only "cooking" 3-4 times a week, but have homemade meals from scratch everyday. I find making a Bolognese/chilli/casserole sauce isn't actually that time consuming, much nicer than from a jar, and is my way of hiding in lots of extra vegetables, pulses etc, and when you know it's going to feed everyone over two days, it seems worth it. We try to eat together as a family a few times a week when DH gets home, (sometimes not until 7) so no rush to get food on the table for 5 like some families do, so that definitely takes the pressure off. I know that doesn't work for everyone though, and on leftover days, we eat earlier.

I've never got this either. I have a thing called a simmer mat - it goes on top of the element and you can just walk away and leave the rice, no checking on it at all. Not that I cook much rice, but I do like brown rice.