homemade v store bought

halogen

purpleivy wrote: »

Own soups. Far superior!
I make my own pizzas, always HM bread, cakes.
I make my own yogurt in my INstant Pot. It's fabulous either strained or as is.

:-) I buy soup- either fresh as a treat or cup-a soup. It's nicer and the tubs off the fresh ones make good plant pots.
I can make bread either from scratch or in the breadmaker but it's not as nice as bought and doesn't keep as long.
I don't buy cakes though as I rarely eat them and do enjoy making them.
As for yoghurt? I HAVE made my own in a thermos but it's not as nice and does rely on having milk which I rarely do.

YorksLass

Grumpygit wrote: »

I am in the minority as I make my own shortcrust and puff pastry. I use a Delia Smith recipe and it doesn't take long at all and is a lot easier than shortcrust (doing it by hand and not in a processor) Whilst quicker and easier, I just couldn't bring myself to buy any pastry

I'll join your minority - I actually enjoy making pastry!

pipkin71 wrote: »

Cost can be an issue when making from scratch as it can be much more expensive than shop bought products. That said, home made often tastes much better.

This week I made two 8" apple pies from scratch and, out of curiosity, costed it out. Mine worked out at £1.85 (for 2) against £2.20 (for 2) shop-bought. So, in this instance, home-made is a little bit cheaper. Other advantages: less sugar in mine and more (much more) filling! And the pastry trimmings made x6 small individual mince pies.

I't not just about cost though - time, convenience, inclincation, ability, all play a part in what we choose to do. As others have pointed out, it's horses for courses and it wouldn't do for us all to be the same.

splishsplash

Poppy1984 wrote: »

So many fab ideas in this thread! Can I just ask about the Greek yoghurt for the pizza base, do you buy the Greek style natural yoghurt or the actual Greek yoghurt because I find the geeek yoghurt to be very pricey and hard to get hold of whereas most places sell the Greek style natural yoghurt but guessing that won't be as good?

I use Aldi's Greek yoghurt but I think any Greek style would do just as well.

tiredwithtwins wrote: »

we make lots of hm pizzas, so im going to try this tomorrow! I got a bag of grated mozzarella cheese for £3 from an outlet shop today, so portioning it up into 250g bags to freeze and saving one bag for pizzas tomorrow

Let us know how you get on!

PollyWollyDoodle

This thread has been absolutely fascinating, I love reading about what other people make from scratch/wouldn't spend their time on, seems we all have our personal preferences. I love the idea of 'dinosaur pie', thank you DigForVictory, I think I'm going to adopt that!

Two things mentioned above that I've tried and never succeeded with, one is HM yoghurt. I've got an EasiYo but don't want to have to buy the sachets, I've tried numerous times, carefully measuring the temperature etc but it's always thin and watery. The other one is hummus. Anyone got a foolproof recipe they could share?

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Yoghurt - drain it through muslin = greek yoghurt. (and use full cream/UHT milk for best results). Use drainings to make flatbread with self raising flour, salt and some dried herbs (add mashed potato if you want potato cakes) or as a marinade for meat before bunging into a curry.

Hummus - tin of chickpeas, drained and rinsed. Grated garlic. Pinch of seasalt. Lemon juice. Good glob of light tahini. Blitz, adding a spoonful of water if it's a bit too thick - no need for any oil until you serve it (and it's optional even then).

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

Poppy1984 wrote: »

Thank you but does the Greek style natural yoghurt work for the pizza bases or only the fage? I shop in Aldi

Any yoghurt will work - it's the acidity that matters. 26p tub of natural yoghurt? That'll do it. Leftover cream that's going off? That'll work (add lemon juice to make sharper and a splash of water to slacken it off a bit), too.

I would imagine that you could make some sort of sweet bread/scone type thing with sweetened yoghurt as well - I just haven't tried it.

JIL

I make a soda bread with yoghurt, 350 grams flour, a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 125 gram yogurt, teaspoon salt, tablespoon of cooking oil and 280 mls milk. Mix together spoon into a greased loaf tin, bake in a moderate oven for 40 mins approx.

PipneyJane

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

Mash - don't buy little New Potatoes. Cut the spuds into chunks and boil. Drain and bung in a big blob of butter and a splash of milk. Bash about with a masher and you're done. To make them slightly more interesting, add sliced bits of cooked kale, Savoy cabbage or chopped up bits of Spring Onion and bash a bit more with a wooden spoon. That's fed an entire country and diaspora for a good couple of centuries.

If there's some leftover mash, mix it with self raising flour or plain flour and a little bicarb until it forms a dough, flatten it, and then cook in a pan with bacon for breakfast.

Gravy and stuffing - that's what the Good Lord invented Bisto and Paxo for.

Chips - oven chips are an abomination against nature. But if you must, get McCain ones, preferably thick cut, not nasty cheap own label ones.

Frozen Microwave Jacket Potatoes - just don't.

Pastry - nobody cares as long as it's pie. It's easy enough to do pub style pies in any case, just knock up a meat & gravy/veggie and sauce in a pan, chuck it a a dish and shove a disc of readymade puff on the top, splosh some beaten egg over the top, stab a couple of holes in it, in the oven for just long enough for the pastry to cook. For fruit pie, don't bother with the pastry, just cook the fruit and serve it with yoghurt/cream/ice cream.

Frozen peas are brilliant. Frozen sprouts are good. Frozen sweetcorn is good. Don't bother with vegetable mixes, as you just get the cruddy bits and two woody lumps of broccoli per bag.


Jam - can you be bothered? Do you have blackberry bushes taking over the back garden? Would your family eat jam every single day and never, ever stick a buttery knife into the jar? If not, don't bother. Same goes for lemon curd - unless you are guaranteed to demolish it within a few days, stick to the stuff from the supermarket.

Curry sauces - cook sliced onions for much longer than you would normally. Chuck in garlic, ginger and spices. Chuck in a lot of tomato puree and a tin of toms. Bubble away, throw in some mango chutney once the meat/veggies are cooked, plus some coriander. The two ingredient bread works better than spending on Naan breads here - to make it three ingredients, chuck in some Nigella or Cumin Seeds. You can cook them in a dry frying pan if you make them about an eighth of an inch thick. If you have bread and particularly if you have cooked spuds (which are brilliant for just chucking into a sauce), you don't need rice. If you leave the spices out or vary them according to what you have in mind, the generic onion, garlic and tomato covers pasta sauces, pizza sauces, casseroles and if you blend it, soup.

Pasta. Just buy it. It's not worth the hassle when you can get a bag for pennies.

Veggie soups. Make them. Cook veggies and blitz with stock. You don't need to add milk or yoghurt if there's a spud somewhere in the mix.

Yorkshire puddings - if you can make them, you can make them. If you can't, just thank the Lord for St Auntie Bessie. Depending upon your position on this ecumenical matter, either make or buy Toad in the Hole.


Beans and pulses - if you are incredibly organised and patient, soak and cook them because they taste better. If you're a human being, just open a tin and rinse the gloop off in a sieve.

Frozen pizzas are foul. Make the base as previously described or buy a flatbread from the supermarket and chuck what you want on top (tomato sauce therefore becoming optional). It will taste a hundred thousand times better than the frisbees in a box.

I am actually quite a good cook - but you choose your battles. One is that a bit of spud bashing is good for the soul - and the other is that precooked pizza is the work of the devil.

JoJo - you took the words right out of my mouth.


As others have said, you pick your battles. But you don’t have to fight them all at once. Prep in advance and planning make a big difference. When I have time, I will fry that extra onion - or two - before portioning them out and freezing them. (I use takeaway boxes.). One tub of this “base” plus a tin of chopped tomatoes, half a teaspoon of sugar and another of dried basil = “instant tomato sauce”. Just simmer for however long it takes to cook your pasta and serve with grated cheese on top.

I am someone who’ll soak and cook dried beans, but I batch cook them when I have time. I do it in stages. It takes seconds of effort to soak 500g-1kg of beans overnight, about a minute to drain them in the colander then bag them in a large freezer bag - your ladle is your friend - and shove in the freezer until I have time to cook them. (Freezing at this stage also decreases the cooking time.). When I have time to cook them, I’ll wriggle the frozen lump off the freezer bag and dump it in my pressure cooker, pour over a kettle full of boiling water - which will help break up the lump - add a little more water to cover, put the lid on, bring up to pressure and cook for half an hour. If you don’t have a pressure cooker, then bring up to the boil, turn down to a simmer then put the lid on and cook for about an hour or until soft. Once cooked, drain, divide into 500g portions - the equivalent of 2 cans - and freeze whatever you aren’t going to use that day.

Re making jam, etc. The hardest part, for me, is using it up. I would never buy fruit for jam making. We have a rose bush, so I make rosehip jelly. The rest, I forage. You haven’t lived until you’ve eaten Cottage Smallholder’s Crab Apple Chilli Cheese. The jelly is really nice as well. We use both as accompaniments to savoury dishes or spread on the bread in cheese toasties.

In September, if you see two golfers pausing on their round to pick sloes, that’s me and my friend AJ. I’ll make sloe gin, then use the flesh of the gin soaked sloes to make Sloe Gin Truffles. AJ gets a bottle of sloe gin and a tub of truffles as a thank you for her help.

The whole thing about making ketchup and pickles is about preserving the glut from the garden and not wasting anything. I’ve never made ketchup: when we had a glut of tomatoes last year, I made “Tomato Base” (fry onion with garlic, add chopped tomatoes and a splash of water, cover and gently simmer down until thick. Portion into takeaway tubs and freeze until needed. NO, I didn’t peel the tomatoes). Two years ago, I made green tomato chutney because a lot of tomatoes didn’t ripen. Last year, they all did. The thing is, you’ve put enough effort into growing the damn things, so don’t waste them.

Shortcrust pastry is easy to make, even if you don’t have a food processor: 100g fat to 200g plain flour. Cut the fat up, then rub into the flour until you get a consistency of bread crumbs. Add a couple of tablespoons of water and, bingo, you’ve got short crust pastry. (Scone dough starts the same way. If you can make scones, you can make shortcrust pastry.). I freeze any excess pastry and will use the leftovers, when there’s sufficient to make a quiche base. (Just defrost in the fridge, overnight, then kneed well to join the separate lumps into one.)

- Pip

Pollycat

JIL wrote: »

I make a soda bread with yoghurt, 350 grams flour, a teaspoon of bicarbonate of soda, 125 gram yogurt, teaspoon salt, tablespoon of cooking oil and 280 mls milk. Mix together spoon into a greased loaf tin, bake in a moderate oven for 40 mins approx.

Hi
what sort of flour do you use, JIL?

purpleivy

halogen wrote: »

:-) I buy soup- either fresh as a treat or cup-a soup. It's nicer and the tubs off the fresh ones make good plant pots.
I can make bread either from scratch or in the breadmaker but it's not as nice as bought and doesn't keep as long.
I don't buy cakes though as I rarely eat them and do enjoy making them.
As for yoghurt? I HAVE made my own in a thermos but it's not as nice and does rely on having milk which I rarely do.

But MY soup is better according to the family! We probably have a better variety of soups as well by making it at home. For those that haven't had satisfactory results with tomato soup, mine is a recipe from SustainableCooks, formerly Frugal by Choice, Cheap by Necessity. I just use whatever tins of tomatoes/passata I have, as can't get the Marzana ones that she uses. She reduces the acid taste not with sugar but with 1/8 tsp of bicarb at the end of cooking. Genius!

Our bread is made from a malted grain flour which comes from a mill near to my parents. We have only found one that is better in the shops, but not prepared to pay the price. It's this one. https://www.ocado.com/webshop/product/Marriages-Malted-Seeded-Bread-Flour/270617011?param=malted+flour&from=search

I keep whole UHT in the cupboard for yogurt, then it's always there.

I didn't mention before, but we prefer our home made hummus (my favourite is with roasted red peppers - jars from Lidl,) guacomole and tapenade. That's really yummy . I get lots of compliments when I make those for a party.

This is one of the most interesting threads!:j