Be honest...how many meals cooked from scratch?

nabowla

I make 6 out of 7 evening meals from scratch (I eat out at a cheap pub or restaurant once a week). Lunch is where I fall down, I start the week with good intentions but often end up buying pre-prepared food at lunchtime due to general disorganisation. Needless to say I'm working hard at preparing more made-from-scratch packed lunches!

tru

I've hardly seen my kids since they broke up for the hols They're far too busy with their mates to bother spending time with me, when they do decide they want to eat at home, they rush in (with a couple of mates :rolleyes: ) and shout "WE'RE HUNGRY, WHAT'S FOR TEA" then tell me not to bother, they'll get their own. They end up eating beans on toast or a pizza, then I embarass them by telling them to eat some fruit as well.
The only thing they've eaten that's homemade is spag bol.

maryb

I agree that tinned tomatoes and frozen peas should really count as ingredients but it does raise an interesting question about how they calculated that 8%. If they interpreted it really strictly then it's not surprising it's only 8% and the real figure for what any reasonable person would consider proper home cooked food would be much higher.

But where do you draw the line - I would never use frozen carrots for example when it's so quick to peel them and cook from fresh, you can buy them all year round and they keep in the fridge all week, nor would I use dried onions. But I do use dried porcini mushrooms and sun dried tomatoes for special pasta dishes.

ashmit

My breakfasts are made from scratch too - I make a variety of Bircher Muesli (soak oats and raisins overnight and mix with chopped apple, chopped kiwi fruit, chopped nuts [chopped fresh each morning - today pecan, walnuts, hazelnuts and almonds] and sprinkle with cinnamon and nutmeg) prepared fresh each morning!

I make sandwiches for my lunch most days - the only problem is that we have takeout for tea rather too often as hubby works next to the nicest pizza place EVER (they do vegan pizza *dies of happiness*) so that's prob once every two weeks. So.... what does that work out as... 41/42 meals prepared from scratch - GOD I'm such a show off

raeble

It varies from week to week, as I'm by myself I sometimes get lazy and buy food. But some weeks it can be 90%, other weeks it can be 10%.

nicki_2

If you count tinned tomatoes, beans and frozen veg as ingrediants then I suppose (excluding the crisps / biscuits I buy for OH to take to work and have at home during his rare time off) I think about 90% of our meals are made from scratch. The only "convienience" food I use :
- gravy granules (never been able to make my own gravy successfully )
- instant custard (OH only likes Birds custard and I can't be bothered to stand there and make it )
- Sliced bread (don't have a breadmaker ... yet ... so all loaves need to be made from scratch and baked in the oven which is not as cost effective as buying smartprice bread)
- Prepacked sliced sandwich meat but I'm thinking of making my own boiled ham like you get from Delis if I can figure out how
- Mayonnaise
- Sausage

We rarely eat yoghurt so I buy them. Other more rare treats include sausage rolls, scotch eggs and pork pies (although I do sometimes make my own sausage rolls) and not forgetting chocolate. If I spot some convinience foods greatly reduced (we're talking less than 50p here) then I MIGHT buy them. We grow our own tomatoes (waiting for them to fruit/ripen), lettuce, Strawberries (waiting for fruit/grow/ripen), garlic, mint, basil, chives and I've also planted carrots and parsnips. I'd rather know whats going into my food, especially since I'm currently reading "Not on the Label" and I'm shocked at what goes into some food.

crazyhazy

I think it really depends what you count as cooking from scratch to be honest. I certainly don't buy ready meals, with the exception of pizza every couple of weeks. But I do still use some jars/sachets of sauce, for xample schezuan chinese sauce, faijita mix and curry sauce. Although I am going to have a go at making my own curry from scratch this week for the first time, so we'll see how that goes. Based on that I'd say nearly all our meals are cooked from scratchish. Am actually struggling to think what we don't cook, only things I can think of are the obvious take away (which is quite rare), pizza and asdas chicken & choirizo paella (cos that's yummy and haven't found a good recipe to try myself yet!). We try to take our own lunches most days, although I do this to save money it's also cos our work canteen is rubbish! Usually take things like, salads or soup and have just got myself a food flask so going to try some new things in that this week.

nabowla

Having had a bit more time to think about this thread I'm intrigued about what counts as 'from scratch'. I think the OS 'crowd' is far more strict in its definition of meals made from scratch. Many of my friends seem to think that assembling a lasagne made with pre-cooked pasta sheets, ready-made white sauce, ready-grated cheese (yes, really!), and ready made bolagnese sauce constitutes cooking from scratch. Admittedly this is a bit extreme but I do think that the average person on the street would call a sandwich made at home with shop-bought bread 'cooking from scratch'. I'll have to see if I can track down the Observer article to see what they say.

ashmit

I feel that I should come back and say that I don't make bread - although I used to make it by hand - none of your cheating breadmakers for me!!!! I also buy crisps and biscuits, but they aren't meals - I'm not counting snacks which may be cheating

I should also point out that I don't eat meat or dairy products (although I do eat fish and eggs) and DH is allergic to garlic, and that we have to cook a lot from scratch to find stuff we can both eat

Mr_Proctalgia

Depending on your definitions - I cook everything from scratch, I do have a freezer full of meat and veg, but due to my personal choice of buying (only Bogofs and offers) it has taken a while to get a "balanced" pantry together. I have never bought a ready meal, but, do obviously possess frozen veg and have the usual selection of tinned stuff.
Having a breadmaker, pressure cookers, bain marie, deep fat fryer, large butchers block and a range cooker helps - Although when I have been to the catering butchers it can look like armageddon has occured and the neighbours look askance when you cart a half pig into the house (cut to Mr P mopping up blood on the kitchen floor)
The difficult bit is cooking for one - Its harder than I thought it would be so I tend to batch cook now, somehow it tastes better for being frozen too.
I'm not exactly Hugh Fearlessly Eatsitall, but will try most things (once) The one item I cannot eat is tongue 'cos you never know when you have finished it!

All in all - being single again has been a venture I'm glad has happened, you don't know what you can do until you have to, Oh the kudos from my mates in the pub too! There are more divorced people than you realise, and the hush that decended when I admitted I owned a sewing machine and had made curtains and stuff with it :j So yes I make all my own food one way or the other - even if sometimes it is homemade bread into homemade toast. :rolleyes: