How many nights a week do you cook from scratch?

[Ceolas]

My DD (10yo) was saying yesterday that most of her friends' mums used ready made foods instead of cooking from scratch. It got me thinking about why we do it. We have probably 2-3 dinners in the month that aren't home cooked. Usually one take away night and 1-2 bought pizzas.

Mostly it's to keep the food budget manageable but it's also how my mum cooked and I suppose for health reasons too.

Don't want a judgey type thread, just interested in whether most folks do and why

Nearly all the time, I like cooking. But sometimes I get fed up and tired and then its a fishfinger day.

I am amazed at all the people that put everything in the dishwasher. I am very interested.

Somebody once told me that a) it would wash the non stick off the pans and b) it would blunt the knives. Were they having me on?

< fishes knives and pans out of sink and puts them in dishwasher >

7 nights.
The only thing I buy frozen nowadays are peas.

I try to cook as much fresh as possible to avoid as many of those e-numbers as I can

I cook from scratch 5-6 nights a week, and 5-6 afternoons, and 7 mornings (make my own bread, muffins etc). It is quite a bit of cooking, but I enjoy doing it.

Why do it? It tastes much nicer and is fun.

Earthstar - it sounds as if you have made huge progress in the last year. I agree with the others that speed, and an ability to wing it comes with practice.

We had lamb shanks cooked with onions, celery carrots, swede, a tin of tomatoes and stock for dinner on Monday. I chilled the sauce that was left. Then I mashed it a bit with a potato masher, today, added more stock, some pepper and a tin of some kind of beans (didn't actually pause to read the tin) and had soup for today's lunch.

It does help to have quick solutions for 3 nights a week, so if you have a roast chicken one night, you can have chicken and vegetable cous cous the next ...

Gah, that sounded really patronising. Sorry

Not patronising - redlentil - I found your post helpful and encouraging - thanks

HT COOKNG EVRYTHNG CMS FRM TH CHPPY OR MCDNLDS

depends what you call cooking from scratch - I don't think having a pie, or sausages, or gammon, or cod in breadcrumbs with potatoes and veg "home cooking". We have that maybe 2-3 nights per week (on my work days). On other days I have more time to cook so prepare more of it myself.

I am amazed at all the people that put everything in the dishwasher. I am very interested

what wouldn't you put in the dishwasher?

Our meal plan has us cooking 5 nights a week - whoever volunteers first, 1 night leftovers and 1 night "treat". That could be takeaway, going out (friends/Parents/ILs/restaurant) or making an event of the meal, ie doing something more elaborate together. The 'event' type cooking could be an entire Sunday making lasagnes for the freezer, for example. When taken out of the freezer they would count in the 5 days.

Admittedly this plan has only been going for 2 weeks but we haven't yet fallen off the wagon. Our repertoire is pretty reasonable, I think - this week it was veggie curry and grilled chicken Sunday (DH), salmon+veg+rice on Monday (me), seafood linguine Tuesday (DH), sausage casserole Wednesday (me), dunno about tonight but as you can tell it's his turn.

I would count pesto as a condiment therefore its use as part of a meal would not mean the meal overall was not 'from scratch'.

I cook from scratch about 5-6 nights a week, fri or sat nights are dh's turn and that is often shop bought! We dishwash most things unless it says on the pot/dish not too, they all are fine!!

I do mostly cook 'from scratch'. The more I do, the more I dislike takeaways, shame I used to love chinese, but now only like the crispy duck and crispy seaweed oh and prawn toasts. I like cooking. It is also much more affordable.

Sometimes we will have a pie from the farmshop cos they are scrummy. And nothing beats fish and chips. Also quite like the very occasional kebab after a long day out .

I tend to make large portions of meals and freeze half, so that is at least the convenience of a ready meal. Also our joint on sunday will form the basis for a few meals.

We have takeaway perhaps once in two months and pizza maybe twice a month, so safe to say, cook from scratch most nights.
As for washing up - well, my good friend the dishwasher takes care of that
Methinks that only things that won't see the inside of the said dishwasher are the large wine and champagne glasses and hand painted stuff.

I cook from scratch 6 nights out of seven as we will have pizza one night but it is bought in the shop. We never get food delivered and very rarely have any kind of takeaway.

I would say I cook from scratch most days in the week, but like others we do buy pizza from the frozen isle at the supermarket maybe once or twice a month, or even get a takeaway once a month for the days I'm shattered and can't be bothered cooking.

I cook from scratch 95% of the time I'd say. There is a LOT of type 2 diabetes in my family (including me) so what we all eat is very important to me. So cooking healthily from scratch means my DS's get decent food plus I get my DS1 involved (and my DS3 when he's older) so hopefully teach him so he doesn't leave home at 18 and live on takeaways - as I did, as I was never taught how to cook by my mum or dad.

What on earth would you not put in the dishwasher? I chuck everything in.

Cook from scratch every day. There are no ready meals or takeaways where I live in Spain. You literally go to the veg shop, the butcher, the supermarket etc...

I don't eat bread but if I did I would not cook from scratch I'd go to the bakery! That I have access too.

I eat tinned tuna sometimes.

Every night, if you count leftovers as cooking from scratch. We do various things that can reheated, incorporated in other dishes, a little bit of one thing combined with a little bit of another. We sometimes use frozen rice or veggies as a shortcut but that's about it.

So in a typical week I'll cook a couple of roasts, some kind of food in sauce (bolognese/curry/casserole), and something like a meatloaf. Will also do a batch of roast or baked potatoes along with the roasts, and a big tray of roast veggies and maybe a salad of some sort. The other meals are just a sort of buffet arrangement from what leftovers are kicking about, plus I usually keep things like bacon, crayfish/prawns, pineapple/mushrooms in the house that can used to make something like a fried rice made with leftovers a bit more interesting. One of us cooks something proper but not that time consuming every other day and it usually takes 5 minutes to throw together a meal together other times. Chop up a few carrot/cucumber/pepper crudités to nibble as a starter whilst the curry reheats.

Zombie thread.

I don't buy any premade food at all, we regularly have roast chicken on a midweek night and my slow cooker is never off. I make a massive meatloaf at the weekend, just pork & beef mince whizzed together with whatever herbs and veggies I have then oven for 1 and a half hrs and that does at least two lunches and dinners for 4. Ok so i buy frozen chips for my oh but that's because he is a fusspot with sides and doesn't eat veg. I also buy lidls polish and German sausages as they are super quick and have no filler ingredients so go a longer way than Richmond style and much cheaper than the British high meat equivalent. I love cooking though but I get why people buy ready meals, my mil is the worst. They are just packed with nasties mostly and I don't find they fill me up, even the micro rice she eats is mostly sunflower oil 😷

I cook from scratch everyday my little boy won't eat anything frozen he loves his vegetables fresh

Without getting into the technicalities of 'scratch' I cook from scratch most night. Curries, stews, salads, meat and veg.

Like you OP we have a takeaway maybe once a month and the odd freezer meal.

What % of the population does home cooked most if the week? Small, I bet. MN is not reflective of uk population on this, I don't think.