How often do you NOT cook meals from scratch in an average week?

[donburi]

Just totted mine up and is higher than I expected. I am not really sure whether we are overdoing the eating out. DS likes proper meals if we are out though other kids of his age are automatically ushered into Mc Donalds from what I have seen

ds's have fishfingers and oven chips once a week (we have some kind of baked fresh fish usually as I'm coeliac and can't have fishfingers!) and then once a week they have pizza and we have steak.

This makes it sound like we give them all the trash to eat and we get the good stuff . It's true - but it keeps us all happy!

The other days we tend to cook from scratch - even if it's basic tomato sauces for pasta, or jacket potatoes (does that count?!) or chilli/spag bol, sausage and mash pie (my favourite).

Nothing outrageously adventurous except we try to do one new meal a week, usually at the weekend. Favourites so far include lamb shank cooked in red wine and also, lemon chicken kebabs!

I see this thread descending into a discussion of what "from scratch" entails.

About once a fortnight.

We hardly ever go out for takaway or restaurant. Chips and chicken nuggets etc maybe once a week, the rest is pretty much from scratch.

We have a takeaway once a fortnight and we probably go out to eat once a month. Other than that, almost everything is cooked from scratch - if we need to be quick, I just do pasta.

Oven food about once a week but I batch cook so I always have a spag bol to pull out the freezer on days I an't be arsed.

Once every few months we'll eat out. Other than that never, packed lunches for all and too skint for ready made food.

I work really long shifts so use my slow cooker a lot, mine have "kids stuff" twice a week, usually fishfingers and pizza.
They would eat jackets, cheese and beans every night given the chance!

We don't really have take out, usually once every few months? Kids will have fish fingers about the same amount. Other than that I cook.

Well, we have Nando's every week as nr kids club and we may well have a pizza every fortnight. We probably eat out much more during the holidays. I have noticed that most parents bring packed lunches to museum trips etc and I do recall my parents doing the same. It would seem completely alien to us to do that but I have been considering how much money we would be saving if I enforced that forever more.

We probably get a takeaway once a month, if that, because a) I'm careful with the brass and b) we quite enjoy making our own pizza, curries that kind of thing. In fact tonight is Fajita Night... OK we're using a Sainsbury's box kit but the chicken, onion and peppers etc. will be sliced by our own fair hands :) Another one who batch cooks various dishes, freezes portions and wheels them out during the week when time is short.

Packed lunches definitely bring down the price of a day out. And it's obviously very fashionable because, last time we went to the Science Museum, we shared the picnic area with not one but two v trendy celebs doing the same thing!!!!

Right packed lunches are sounding even more attractive now!