Have you got OS friends?

kochi1

We had this discussion at work the other day, I mentioned that I'd cooked some meals ready for when I got back from work so just had to reheat them and got some odd looks, they didn't think they had time to do this, told them find 2 hours over a weekend and you can do it. One tried and managed it and said was better than frozen and realised it was because they cooked it from scratch! Mind you some of my friends just can't be bothered to cook - one lives on all day breakfasts out of a tin... yuk!!!! Being taught to cook by my grandparents and mum was the best thing!

gtx

penelopedee wrote: »

We've never cracked a good curry either and have to rely on the paste. I just add a lot of tomatoes, peppers and mushrooms to liven it up.

have a look at curryqueens recipes on the recipe collection thread - sorry i don't how to post links - they are just like from a take away but better because you know whats in them.

i cook from scratch and freeze but i'm pretty much the only person i know who does - i learnt from necessity, my mum was and still is a terrible cook, but we never had the money for ready meals so cook books and food tv became my 'bibles' now my dh loves almost eveything i make and my mil is very envious as she openly admits everything she makes is either froma packet, tin or box

gtx

Patchthedog

Most microwave ready meals are yukky but there are some things that are not from scratch that are really useful! Good quality pizzas, fish fingers, fish in batter, the odd ready made steak pie. Mumtaz curries are also nice (I add chickpeas to make them go further). These things come in useful when you don't have too much time. The trick is to serve things with other stuff that you have prepared such as salad, vegetables, boiled potatoes, rice etc.

Of course totally home made is better but it isn't always easy when you are working and then you might have to have tea quickly and go out again for something else.

One ready type meal that I think is delicious is Marks & Spencers gastro pub Moussaka. I've had it a couple of times when they do their dine in for £10 offer and found it to be yummy.

xxxx

Anna

brighthair

I'm 26 and I cook most things from scratch, batch cooking then freezing in individual portions. I love baking too. My Mum always cooked from scratch though, and I was brought up in pubs so food has always been around IYSWIM

uolypool

Lol I know what you mean , my now ex partner (thankfully) hated anything homemade ,it had to be out of a frozen box and as bland as possible for him to eat it.When we seperated everything slowly but surely became homemade,and the kids learnt how to cook from scratch.A few weeks ago one of my sons had some mates over to stay on a Friday night and they decided they wanted pizza for tea. I think they thought they would be getting pizza from a certain fast food chain D*m!n*s no chance ,my son admittedly made the pizza dough in the bread maker but he made his own tomato pizza sauce and chopped up loads of bits for the toppings.I thought his friends were going to die when they saw they had to assemble their own pizzas.Afterwards they all agreed that it was one of the nicest set of pizzas they had eaten in a long time.:T:T:T:T:T.I hasten to add he is only 15 .

ali-t

lucylucky wrote: »

I was surprised recently when someone I know said that a certain supermarket lasagne was much better than anything "anyone" could make themselves.

If she has a problem cooking then fine but I have yet to find a pre-made lasagne that come close to the standard and taste of those made by either my OH or me.

There is no comparison.

If it was Lidl's then it is fab, much better than I have tasted in Italian restaurants or anyones home made. But if you want to put that to the test feel free to send me some of your home made and I will let you know.

starjumper

My Mum is a terrible cook, if it wasn't covered in orange breadcrumbs we didn't eat it when we were growing up. When I left home and went to Uni with my OH I taught myself to cook and now about 90% of what we eat is cooked from scratch and is usually pretty darn good. I'm considered to be a good cook and people look forward to coming round for dinner (OH is a brilliant baker too).
I'm preggers now and basically tired ALL the time so we're on more takeaways these days and we had fajitas tonight and the spices came from a packet (horror) but it's a rare day we have a lazy cook tea though.

I hate ready meals though a few years ago I had a bit of a thing for tesco veggie sausage and mash with gravy, really delish is a plastic way but they stopped doing it, probably for the best or I'd be having them every night now.

FelinePrincess

I can't understand who would choose frozen readymeals over good hm food! These days, I'd rather go hungry then eat a readymeal and although I don't always cook completely from scratch (ready made bread, pizza bases and the odd jar of sauce here and there) the food I enjoy the most is food I have made myself.

I remember being amazed once when a friend told me her mum brought around cooked veg for her as she didn't know how to cook it, so I tried to explain how amazingly easy it is to cook and she had none of it saying she just couldn't do it!

Shysarah

This is a really interesting thread.

I am far from as good at HM food as I would like to be and do sometimes resort to easy options but am getting more and more adventurous. My mum always cooked from scratch when we were young, living on a farm meant meat and 2 veg was normal. She taught me to cook from a young age and I still love it. Thing is though pizza was an unusual food, pasta my dad would not eat till quite recently, chinese meant a takeaway and not a stir fry..

All foods I happily made when I moved out.

I slipped a couple of years ago and went to the frozen easy foods and ready meals especially working shifts and weekends. Now I am getting more into it again. Last Christmas I asked 'santa' for a wok and after my mum saw what I was making she got one and uses it herself now. But the irony... I have stopped buying ready meals and now my mum does!?!?!?!

My sister and her husband are a wierd combination, she loves HM food whereas he has to have pot noodles/oven chips/frozen pizzas/burgers. He was bought up in a house that lived on this sort of food and my sisters the same as me... not sure what baby will end up eating lol..

I gave my cousin some stew this week that I had made and her 9 yr old daughter did not know what it was, she loved it though so my cousin has been asking me for more cooking advice and recipes.. just a shame i never write anything down i just add, taste, stir, add etc

JulieGeorgiana

uolypool wrote: »

Lol I know what you mean , my now ex partner (thankfully) hated anything homemade ,it had to be out of a frozen box and as bland as possible for him to eat it.When we seperated everything slowly but surely became homemade,and the kids learnt how to cook from scratch.A few weeks ago one of my sons had some mates over to stay on a Friday night and they decided they wanted pizza for tea. I think they thought they would be getting pizza from a certain fast food chain D*m!n*s no chance ,my son admittedly made the pizza dough in the bread maker but he made his own tomato pizza sauce and chopped up loads of bits for the toppings.I thought his friends were going to die when they saw they had to assemble their own pizzas.Afterwards they all agreed that it was one of the nicest set of pizzas they had eaten in a long time.:T:T:T:T:T.I hasten to add he is only 15 .

Exactly!

Tell you what though... my son's friends come over and LOVE making their own pizza! One of them had my homemade chips... few days later my son was at his friends house for dinner... and his friend blurted out '**** Mum's chips are better then these'!! LOL Result!

Actually my son has one friend who insists he's allergic to everything I make! He wanted Chicken Nuggets... so I did home made chicken Gousions... and he said they don;t look right, I'm not eating that!

It's the parents to blame!

My son eats whatever you give him, and cooks once a month!