Make your own or buy pre done

catkins

I make my own sauces for meals like lasagne, curry etc. I make a white sauce by just putting flour, butter and milk in the pan and whisking it (Delia Smith recipe) as I can't be bothered whisking the flour and butter together and then adding the milk.

The few times I have tried bought sauces because I had health problems and I thought it would be time saving, both me and OH thought the sauces were horrible, even the pricier ones. Curry sauces, in particular, seem to have a very strange artificial taste. I like cooking, I like to know what is in my meals and I find the taste of most bought meals, sauces etc horrible

-taff

mollymoggs wrote: »

There are different "proper" versions of lasagne.

Sorry, should have said proper version from the north in Lombardy

Callie22

I always make my own sauces (apart from pesto, which I do buy unless I have a basil glut). It's cheaper, and just as quick as adding a jar. I really don't like the taste of jarred tomato sauces - they always have a weird 'gluey' flavour, I think because a lot of them have flour in them as a thickener. For savoury white sauces I'd always use a flour/butter roux as the base, but I do use cornflour for sweet white sauces. That's what I've always done and changing them round would be weird to me!

datlex

I make my own from scratch for all recipes (well I don't make passata or mince my meat or fillet my fish but other than that all fresh ingredients in my dishes.) I have to as I'm doing slimming world and then I know exactly what is going into it. Also I'm fussy so I can leave out things I don't like such as onions and peppers. I can also add extra veg to the sauces.

happy35

i cook nearly everything from scratch apart from pesto (only make HM about once a year) and sweet and sour sauce as I like Uncle Ben's and nothing else - we only eat this a few times a year though.

I am making lasagne this weekend for my family and this is from scratch, I make this about once a month and is enough for 2 meals.

I do make bread but they prefer shop bought in this house as only like HM on the day it is made and definitely not out of the freezer. I tend to buy Allinons High Fibre white or Sainsbury's organic wholemeal - not sure how many additives these have so will have to check

I work full time so never make jams or chutney etc as I just dont have the time, i do bake cakes though

Linda32

I make bolognese from scratch purly because I assume the jar part only takes the place of tinned tomatoes. With these being cheaper than the jar I just assumed it was cheaper to make from scratch.

When I do this I make a big batch of the bolognese part and freeze this in portions so its worth the time.
I make various mince type meals with veggies and use this as a base for other meals with pasta.

I do use curry sauces in jars as I've tried making curries and although they smell nice they taste really bland. With these I cook a full chicken and use a portion of this in the sauce to serve with rice.

I've tried making bread but I can't do it. I could throw it at the wall and it would make a dent :rotfl:

Homeagain

DigForVictory wrote: »

I do not make lasagne often. I don't use jars for it. It's slow, expensive (relatively), laborious, the chaps eat every bit and are complimentary without nudging.
I do make curries & sweet-&-sour dishes with jars as hungry chaps are difficult to live with.
It hadn't *occurred* to me to freeze them - does white sauce freeze well?

White sauce freezes very well!

Homeagain

What a great idea - will ask around for spare jars. I have a similar recipe but it includes carrots (5 a day and all that). Gives the sauce a really nice colour. Great idea - I'm on it!!

Homeagain

-taff wrote: »

One tip to make making lasagne more quickly is to make your sauces quite runny, and don't par boil the lasagne sheets.
Assemble it and the pasta will absorb the extra liquid.

Proper lasgane is quite dry, only the top has bechamel sauce, it's an amercianised version that we eat here, with the rich sauces etc, so if you want to cut back even more, just tell everyone you're making an 'authentic' version.....:)

I use the flour and butter roux for the sauce...

I find if you let the entire lasagne stand for about an hour before cooking it is perfect but that could be a problem with a hungry family ...... I agree, definitely make the sauce a little more runny. Have to admit I was quite 'famed' for my tuna lasagne! I also use the flour and butter roux method although my late Mother used cornflour.

Sequeena

I make it from scratch as much as I can. My son has a disability so there are some days when he's been very hard to handle I do resort to cutting corners or even get a takeaway I am getting better about this though and finding things to cook from scratch which don't take a long time.

My OH makes bread every now and again, I do prefer it over shop bought.