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

Buttonmoons

cooking-mama wrote: »

Buttonmoons,this is what happens at my 13yr old daughters school now,and its still only £1,last week they made chicken and rice,before that pineapple upside down cake..altho due to cutbacks/lack of resources or something the children pair up and take turns at cooking every alternate week..no foil containers tho,but often someone has a spare tub for those who forget,daughter usualy eats what she makes..especialy if its a cake or "puddingy" thing...she has a very sweet tooth and a liking for junk food!,lol

Well at least some schools still have some sense :rotfl: Shame they have to take it in turns though. I can't actually remember half of the things we cooked, but I do know if it was anything that required flour, you tended to have to use half white/half wholemeal, they had huge massive vats of sugar/flour/grains.

I did hate the sewing side too it, couldn't do it after I sewed my finger up on the machine - they did let me sit it out though as It was incredibly painful, not helped by the fact I kept my foot on the pedal in alarm

lostinrates

On another thread, just thought of some actual junk I buy rather than make.....crisps. They are not weekly thing by any means, but we like them ocasionally with dips (value tortilla chip are popular here) especilly when people come for a drink at no or short notice, and also I tnd to serve dh plain crisps when I cook Pheasant/game rather than making game chips.

dom300186

i love cooking from scratch most of the time probably 1 of my meals a week is a pizza from asda or something but i put my own toppings on them, i cant understand why so many people dont try???

Olokia

I try to cook my own meals from scratch but sometimes I don't have time so might use a pizza, frozen chips etc.

The only veg I buy frozen are peas and corn everything else has to be fresh, I occasionally make my own bread and will use jars of pesto and other sauces sometimes. (Like the blue dragon chinese sauce sachets). I will make my own chips soon but I am hoping I am going to get an Actifry for a wedding present otherwise we will buy one ourselves.

For example, last night I made

Steak
Frozen Chips
Fried portobello mushroom topped with garlic, pepper and chillis.

I call that meal cooking from scratch although I would have preferred the chips from an Actifry.

freyasmum

Firstly, I would just like to apologise for the length of the post...

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

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



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

Deal!

Pretty as they were, I couldn't recognise myself with the cupcakes :rotfl:

Gigervamp wrote: »

That just makes it complicated. I'd work it out the simple way- 100-56=44.

I hate algebra!

So does not

Total plates needed = plates already got + extra plates needed (100 = 56 + extra plates needed). You can't work it out like that, cos you don't know how many plates are needed until you do the calcuation.

Extra plates needed = total plates needed - plates already got (like the sum you did: plates needed = 100-56)

Extra plates needed = 44

No, you think you hate algebra - in truth, you really use it all the time... like in your calculation above

I say that hating (at the time) most of the mathematics I had to do at school but it sets you up for a lifetime of logical thinking - right, this is my problem, how do I fix it?

p.s. feeling rather nervous now that I know a teacher is reading my posts - albeit not mine! :rotfl:

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

18. Working on the basis that there'll be an equal number of male and female guests. an additional 18 plates will give a total of 74; that's 50 for the men and 24 for the women who will actually eat.
Of the remaining 26, 9 haven't eaten since they got their invite as they wanted to fit into the dress, and won't eat till the party is over and 15 are women who will insist on saying they're not hungry but will eat half of their other half's food instead.

Ah, but you forgot the women who will want a plate, but will push their lettuce leaf around it all night! I have to admit though, when I that first bit, I was like what?!!? Nooo, my answer was right, wasn't it!? :undecided

VJsmum wrote: »

Agreed - i teach building measurement and have to teach algebra and trig (remember SOHCAHTOA? ) and Pythagoras - it's amazing how many 18 - 20 year olds have forgotten all of that.

I do!!

Not saying I can remember what to do with them all, but I definitely remember! :rotfl:

lostinrates wrote: »

On another thread, just thought of some actual junk I buy rather than make.....crisps. They are not weekly thing by any means, but we like them ocasionally with dips (value tortilla chip are popular here) especilly when people come for a drink at no or short notice, and also I tnd to serve dh plain crisps when I cook Pheasant/game rather than making game chips.

I very, very rarely buy crisps or sweets or anything - my daughter must be the only one who doesn't have a constant supply of junk in her lunchbox! In fact, when she started school, one of the other kids told her she could now have at least (?!?!?!?!!! _pale_) three sweets a day - one at breakfast club, one a play time, and one with her lunch :eek:

Anyhoo, my point is (not that I wanna add to the contention, but..) the tortilla chips are nice with chilli for a change!

lostinrates

freyasmum wrote: »

I very, very rarely buy crisps or sweets or anything - my daughter must be the only one who doesn't have a constant supply of junk in her lunchbox! In fact, when she started school, one of the other kids told her she could now have at least (?!?!?!?!!! _pale_) three sweets a day - one at breakfast club, one a play time, and one with her lunch :eek:

Anyhoo, my point is (not that I wanna add to the contention, but..) the tortilla chips are nice with chilli for a change!

me neither. We don't have kids so don't even have to face any peer issues. I o like to have something that has nuclear age type sell by dates for visitors with fussy kids or as I say...to pull out in a last minute, ''oh, come in, have glass of wine'' type situations. we often have crudite before supper, bt not enough to put out for others, but replaced or supplemented with crisps or nuts or something....especially when people come in when the cupboards are otherwise bare and with not enouh notice to defrost something.....its handy to have soe stuff I wouldn't consider standard fare. And while I could make crisps, those spur of the moment times when people drop in I don't want to be in the kithen very much, and want to use a spare five minutes to tidy up!

scheming_gypsy

freyasmum wrote: »

Ah, but you forgot the women who will want a plate, but will push their lettuce leaf around it all night! I have to admit though, when I that first bit, I was like what?!!? Nooo, my answer was right, wasn't it!? :undecided

!

they're part of the 24 as they have their own food

anguk

I don't like shop-bought ready meals, the type you ping in the microwave, but I do use some ready-made stuff. For example yesterday we had tandoori chicken kebabs, the tandoori chicken was made from scratch with chicken breast, spices and yoghurt (bought yoghurt), the salad I made from scratch (just chopped it up) and the pittas were from Tesco. So would that meal be classed as made from scratch? :undecided

On Sunday we had pork loin chops with mash and cabbage, everything was made from scratch except the gravy, for that I used Bisto Gravy powder so I still had to mix it then boil it up.

I always have some frozen veg in the freezer that I can quickly steam, is that classed as processed food or cooking from scratch? It's very confusing and I guess every one of us uses some ready-made or processed food even if it's just something like tomato puree.

I also agree that it can be more expensive to cook from scratch, I always have some fish fingers in the freezer for a quick meal, plus we like them. Now I could make fish fingers from scratch and I have done in the past but the price of fish is so expensive now that I just can't afford to. DD and I were in Tesco yesterday I bought a few bits of veg, salad, sliced ham and some butter, it came to over £20, when we were walking down the freezer aisle we looked at the prices of the ready meals and worked out that it would be much cheaper if we just lived on those!

tigerfeet2006

freyasmum wrote: »

I very, very rarely buy crisps or sweets or anything - my daughter must be the only one who doesn't have a constant supply of junk in her lunchbox! In fact, when she started school, one of the other kids told her she could now have at least (?!?!?!?!!! _pale_) three sweets a day - one at breakfast club, one a play time, and one with her lunch :eek:

Anyhoo, my point is (not that I wanna add to the contention, but..) the tortilla chips are nice with chilli for a change!

Freyasmum, I get this from my brood when they come back from school " but so and so has this in their lunch box", "but so and so is allowed to have that in their lunch box". Does my head in. I tell them that I am not so and so's Mum and I make sure that they have all the right nutrients that will help their bodies and brains develop so they can be the healthiest kids they can be, because I love and care for them. Don't get me wrong, they are allowed sweets but in moderation. Everything is in moderation.

Oh! and Chilli with tortilla's, YUM!! Left over chilli in a shallow pyrex dish, cover the top with tortilla's and sprinkle with cheese. Into the oven (200 deg C-ish) for 10-15 minutes and serve, nom, nom, nom, nom!! See from nice and healthy one day to not quite so another

rinabean

If we're using "from scratch" to mean the healthiest, freshest, least preservatives/additives food, which I think many people seem to, then tinned tomatoes and most frozen veg beat their "fresh" counterparts any day. But that doesn't mean they're not processed. Processed doesn't always mean bad (just usually...)

It is so snobbishness. Someone actually came out and said ready meals are terrible but an M&S ready meal is different and not a ready meal. Completely ridiculous. Yes, it's tastier, has better ingredients, but it's still a ready meal. I think it's amazing how much bile is being spewed on this thread. You'd think the headline was "Only 1 in 4 children not beaten nightly" or something. I know that most of us here, myself included, are not living the simple life entirely voluntarily, and a little envy for those better off is to be expected. But no-one's going to believe that you are actually content like this if you can't hide your hatred of people who can afford ready meals every night for their families.