Do you ever get fed up cooking from scratch?

Sweet_Pea_2

I had to work full time for a few weeks to do some training a while back, so to make life easy, I bought in a load of ready/freezer to oven type meals. For the first week I quite enjoyed it, we hadn't had ready meals for so long, it was so easy, no one complained about it so I thought "why do I bother with all that cooking?" but by the start of week 2 I was craving my own cooking and a proper cooked meal. (Also all those ready meals were really expensive!)
I now always keep in a (shop bought) ready meal in the freezer to be used only when the takeaway craving comes upon me, as its cheaper to have a ready meal than a takeaway. I do get a real sense of satisafaction from cooking as many of our meals from scratch as I can though, and also, although I don't spend tons of money on food we still eat well.

Downsizing__for_sanity

I often feel like this - at least once a week! Since having some serious health problems and baby no. 2, I've decided that "life is too short" sometimes and it's better to just eat something, whatever that is, without having to stress about it. In our house, because we have the four chicks, that often means boiled/poached eggs and toast for tea! (OK, the chicks do not actually live in the house IYSWIM!)

Two main conclusions from me - firstly I think it's really important to build in an easy meal to your schedule, something everyone likes and you know you have the ingredients in - for us, omelettes, tuna pasta, baked potatoes & cheese & beans, etc.

Secondly - as someone else has pointed out, these ready meals are actually pretty disappointing when you get them out of the oven. (One notable exception is the Lidl curries - pretty large and no artificial ingredients last time I had one). I was chuffed to bits last weekend when we ate in a Brewers Fayre pub with friends and my husband said "I don't know what to have - I know you can cook everything on this menu better than they can and I know I'll be disappointed with my meal!"

Also- cost - a takeaway tonight would have been about £30 probably, whereas my OH decided he'd rather make cottage pie - progress! :money:By the time he'd been to T*sco and bought ingredients plus wine and a few bits it was £20 but we had a nice, healthy tea, enough left for kids tea tomorrow, nice bottle of wine and don't really need to go shopping till Mon now.

DFS

Mrs_Jojo

Like others say, pasta bake for a quick hit when you can't be bothered cooking and batch cooking so you always have something to take out of the freezer. This evening we had thai curry - there are at least 3 portions to freeze, maybe 4. This will be in the freezer, as individual portions so I can feed all of us or one of us in the future - out of the freezer in the morning, heated up for tea - couldn't be easier (even husbands can manage it!!!)

Gefjun

I've slipped out of the habit of cooking from scratch recently. I've just given up work to have our first baby and just can't be bothered to do anything at the moment - it is only the first week though.

Tonight's dinner was the lamb steaks I took out of the freezer yesterday. Just a lamb steak, nothing else. Oh, and some pancakes to fill us up a bit (which I refuse to buy from the shop since it is only flour, egg and milk after all).

We also have lazy dinner nights - mainly potato waffles, egg and beans or similar, with alarming frequency at the moment!

MumOf2Beasties

i found icel*nd chinese style foods quite tasty for a lazy treat or instead of a takeaway, i got the special fried rice £1.50, chicken chow mein, £1.50 and chicken balls with sweet and sour sauce, £1.50. served with some oven chips for me and the OH, total cost less than £5 and just a little bit of washing up!!

jcr16

i wouldn't say i get fed up of cooking from scratch because we a young family i feel it is important. however that doesn't mean i don't keep a pack of nuggets or fish fingers in freezer for a quick lazy tea.

however my fav lazy meal cooked from scratch is home made pizza.

i made the in the bread maker and the kids love making them, so they will do the rest . however i do also enjoying kneeding and rolling the dough, so i try to still do this. the dough take about an hour in BM, but doesn't involve me doing anythign except adding the ingrediant which takes a couple of mins and pressing a buttong. then from BM to oven is about 5 mins. simple quick and a really really scrummy meal for family. we usually have ham and pineapple.

JillS_2

Nothing wrong with having an occasional lazy day or 'junk food' meal. I always have a pack of fish fingers so I can have a fish finger sandwich (mmm-mm!) when I feel like it.

But I think you should teach your husband to cook. After all if you died or were bedridden for a few days or weeks because of accident or illness what's he going to do?

Get him doing it one night a week when you're there.

I got my kids cooking the evening meal one night a week each when they were 13/14 (separately NOT together). I'd be there and helping the first time they made a recipe, and there to answer questions the second time and after that they could do it on their own.

My son wasn't very keen on it, not because he disliked cooking but there was always something he'd rather be doing (playing footie with friends) and he never learnt more than about 4/5 meals (they weren't allowed to make the same meal 2 weeks running so they had to learn at least 2). The only one I can remember him doing is corned beef hash. But it stood him in good stead when he went to Uni -- he wasn't scared of recipe books and felt that he was capable of cooking anything.

My daughter enjoyed it - I don't remember any of her recipes because she cooked something different nearly every time. By the time she was 16/17 she was hosting 3 course dinner parties for her group of school friends (8-10 of them)

gailey_2

I think most people feel likethat especially if busy week,short of time and tired.

Im due any day with no3 soon so taking it much easier

wehave 2lazy days a week means
take away normally dominioes or fish andchips.
frozen oven chips with breaded chicken or fish and peas
Shop brought pizza or ready meal doesnt help that sainsburys had some fab meal deals on recently.
indian mealfor 4 -4indian ready meals,naan and poppodoms for 10quid.
In past have got takaway ina box as cheaper than takeaway.

I do try to have some simple quick recipies.

omlettes or frittas with chips
pancakeswith savouryfillings
jacket potatoes with cheese/beans
Make mini quiches normally chese and ham from jus rollpastry.

pasta a winner with fresh garlic bread take about 10mins
I like the fresh filled tortellini often on offer with spicy sauce normally on offer or shopsown brand highly reccomennd sainsburys.
then I just add grated chese,sometimes chopped hamor bacon/pancatta.

basic simple rissotot to add baconpeices at end
odd jar curry sauce to chickenfillets.
colmans/swatrz packet mixes.

I try to eat on abudget but healthy and dontbeat myself if everythings not from scratch I do most of time.

cooking-mama

Thanks for all the ideas guys...well last night i ended up having a right lazy night off,put the mince and pastry in the freezer and OH treated us to chinese takeaway,back to normal today with a brisket joint in the slow cooker..im working a 12hour shift tomorrow so this will cover dinner both days.
Regarding teaching OH how to cook,he is making progress,has finaly learned how to boil and mash potatoes,and produced a lovely "grill up" of sausage,bacon,beans,egg and toast for 4 this morning..Problem is him cooking the type of food i cook doesnt address the issue..the issue being my craving for junk, processed, frozen food every now and again...Tho he would quite happily cook that for us every day if i let him:rotfl:
wont be having hairy bikers potato/cauliflower curry until Monday now,but at least once again im looking forward to cooking it(especialy since OH has almost finished the kitchen today)

Pink.

Hi cooking-mama,

As you'll see from this thread lots of us get nights like that. It has lots of ideas for quick, cheap and easy meals:

What's your 'can't be bothered' dinner/tea?

I'll add your thread to it later to keep the suggestions together.

Pink