Only 1 in 4 meals cooked from scratch....

Living_proof

Other than in high summer when greenhouse tomatoes are available at home, courgettes in the garden etc. then tinned toms and bought courgettes will be used. I try to grow all pot herbs but these are not always reliable throughout the year.

I think the thing is we all do our best to make things as much from scratch as we can, bearing in mind our family size, work commitments and budget. What we should do is to force the Press Office of Kenwood (if they indeed funded the poll) to be completely precise about what they mean by cooking from scratch. For years I have made home-made bread but often use Wrights mixes to save time and washing up on measuring out ingredients. I can make ice cream and oatcakes but the small quantity required doesn't merit the effort. etc. etc.

I bulk cook at least once a week so we always have plenty of frozen home-cooked goodies at laughable prices - usually 50-60p per portion. 99% of vegetables are fresh rather than frozen or tinned, but the latter have their uses and shouldn't be ignored or slighted if used in moderation. It works for me because I have a fridge freezer and a chest freezer and a small household. I have sufficient funds to buy well-priced foods on offer in advance so don't live hand to mouth.

A lot of society will be quite different and can only very slowly make changes in their lifestyles. Rather than condemning their eating and purchasing habits maybe we should be more supportive in offering suggestions of small gradual changes they might make to turn their lives round.

SpikyHedgehog

bedpotato wrote: »

Well for lunch I just had some basmati rice, veg, and baked beans. Two out of three were boiled by me. The beans came out of a tin. So I guess that ticks two out of three (assuming boiling things counts as cooking).

Are we counting frozen or tinned ingredients?

I rely a lot on frozen veg and tinned pulses to make my meals. Does that mean I'm not cooking from scratch? Is this survey implying we should buy everything fresh?

I prefer tinned pulses to dried because the dried ones take AGES and AGES to cook! I've got low blood sugar, so when I need to eat, I need to eat NOW.

I prefer dried pulses, I guess because I can cook them to the consistency I like, so I buy 500g packs & soak & cook up to then batch up & freeze. If I forget to get them out of the freezer, it does take a bit of smashing up in the the pan as with last week's kidney beans for curry

Islandmaid wrote: »

Even my kids commented on this story this morning - the quote was 'Junk food - I wish, never get any in this house, why can,t we eat like normal people'.:cool:

You work your fingers to the bone, and what do you get - boney fingers:rotfl:

I,m sure they love the food really.....:D

I heated up a carton of supermarket soup from the freezer the other day & DS2 (the fussier eater) said 'I like your cooking Mummy, not this yucky stuff!' This is actually a major breakthrough as in the past I would do freezer meals (frozen vegetarian burgers or sausages, frozen potato product, frozen veg), he'd eat those a lot more readily than the lovingly home prepared meals I'd slaved over .

freyasmum

I don't buy ready meals - I don't like the [lack of] taste. I don't like the slow cooker either, everything comes out with the sames texture!

I wouldn't say cooking from scratch needs to go as far as milling your own wheat either - that would mean 25 out of 100 people in the uk trundle down daily to their own litlte grinding stone to mash up some grain to make flour :rotfl:

Oh, and scheming - I'm not stalking you, honest! - but I want some of that chilli

becs wrote: »

In an ideal world I would agree however unfortunately a significant number of todays children have parents that can't cook themselves so are unable to teach their kids. If we don't want the next genertion to be even less domesticated we do need to teach kids in school. Quite honestly I'd far rather see a child taught the nutritional value of a healthy meal and how to feed an average family for a few pounds when on a tight budget than learn trigonometry and algebra-neither of which I and many other adults have had use for since leaving school.

You're catering a party for 100 guests. You already have 56 plates, how many more do you need to make up the 100? 100 = 56 + x. x = 100 - 56. x = 44 more plates.

I have a member of staff. She's really very good - too good in fact for the daily wage she is paid :A I wanna give her a bit of a bonus to say thanks, but I've only got £150 to spare. I have to pay 20% tax as well though - so she can't have the whole £150 (booo!), so.... bonus + tax = £150. So, I work out that if I pay her £125, she gets her bonus, the taxman gets his £25 and I get to stick to budget.

That's algebra.

I'm thinking of decorating my daughters rooms - pink, of course, with some pretty little fairy lights and sparkly things as well It's a pretty bog standard 4 mtr square room, with 2.5mtr high ceilings. Gonna go to the B&Q, cos it's the closest. Their paint is £12.98 for 2.5L - I don't know is that's good or bad though? :undecided I'm a total n00b at this whole decorating lark too - how many tins will I need?! The tin says it covers 15m2!? :undecided Oh, hang on! Each wall is 4*2.5 = 10m2 and the lucky little sod has four of 'em, so that's 40m2. So I need three tins.

And that's geometry.

And - as much as I hope Mr J isn't reading this :rotfl: - they're actually pretty widely used in day to day life. Trig, admittedly is more widely used in the building, engineering, surveying, etc, industries.

I do actually agree that children should be taught how to cook - we are possibly onto the second generation who are unable, and it's just gonna get worse. Cooking isn't difficult, it's just that a lot of people seem scared of it.

sophistica

It is because so many people can't cook that they are running up credit card debts and then some may come to this thread and ask how they can make ends meet until the end of the month...and it turns out that their children will only eat frozen chips and chicken nuggets and the husband doesn't eat vegetables and the wife can only fry things and use a microwave (not indicating anyone in particular here, so please don't take offence. But learning to cook is the very best insurance against hard times, in my opinion.

scheming_gypsy

freyasmum wrote: »

Oh, and scheming - I'm not stalking you, honest! - but I want some of that chilli
.

Are you sure you want some? don't you mean you want to complain about it and tell me that you could make it cheaper using sawdust, a toadstool and a packet of dry roasted peanuts?

freyasmum

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

Are you sure you want some? don't you mean you want to complain about it and tell me that you could make it cheaper using sawdust, a toadstool and a packet of dry roasted peanuts?

Well I couldn't really, seeing as you're paying

But this toadstool theory..... do tell? :think:



I use this recipe, it's my favourite.

Mistral001

I consider myself a good cook, but I see cooking from scratch as expensive compared with a lot of the prepared food that you are able to buy these days. When I mean prepared food, I do not mean take-aways or M&S ready-meals, but supermarket own-brands.


Some examples (approx prices):

Baked beans: 15-25p
Tin of curry sauce 17p
Large jar of pasta sauce: 24p
Tin of sweet and sour sauce: 24p
Tin of rice pudding 24p
10 fish fingers: 50p

It is easy to have a go at people who eat prepared foods, but often they do it because they cannot afford to do anything else.

scheming_gypsy

freyasmum wrote: »

Well I couldn't really, seeing as you're paying

But this toadstool theory..... do tell? :think:



I use this recipe, it's my favourite.

i'll make the chilli then seeing as you use tomatoes _pale_



and you've changed your avatar as well............. :whistle:

valk_scot

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

You tell me, you just made it up.

All i said is that it'll do 8 - 10 adult sized portions and that's based on splitting the left overs into takeaway cartons. You can stretch if further if you wanted by the usual methods of not sticking as much on the plate of using more rice

Although people seem far too interested in how I cook chilli

I read your post three times over and I'm still none the wiser. What exactly am I making up? 8-10 portions is the same as 2-3 meals for a family of four, surely? And 2kg of meat = 200g a portion, which is twice the recommended portion size of red meat for an adult, let alone all the other ingredients. If your family is regularly consuming portions that are double the normal size, they must either be running marathons in their spare time or they're overweight. Not to mention all the other health risks associated with eating a lot of red meat.

Also, £50 for a pan of chilli =£5 a portion. :eek:

scheming_gypsy

valk_scot wrote: »

I read your post three times over and I'm still none the wiser. What exactly am I making up? 8-10 portions is the same as 2-3 meals for a family of four, surely? And 2kg of meat = 200g a portion, which is twice the recommended portion size of red meat for an adult, let alone all the other ingredients. If your family is regularly consuming portions that are double the normal size, they must either be running marathons in their spare time or they're overweight. Not to mention all the other health risks associated with eating a lot of red meat.

Also, £50 for a pan of chilli =£5 a portion. :eek:

Well for a start you said it's 2 - 3 meals for a family of four. I said it's 8 - 10 adult sized portions.
You've also claimed 2kg of meat. I used a beef joint and 1kg of mince. When the mince is fried it's no longer 1kg and I never mentioned a 1kg beef joint.
'if my family is' blah blah blah... you've just invented a family for me. Which is quite strange as I'm a single bloke and live alone, hence freezing portions.

and i also said 'heading towards £50' not £50.

fancy another go?