Do you cook from scratch?

It is actually very reasonable to go out for a meal if I don't feel like cooking in this part of France- the menu at many of our local restaurants is about 7.50 Euros with coffee included, 10 Euros with either starter or pud, and 11Euros50 for all 3 courses, with coffee (we live in Switzerland but right on the border- so it is easy to pop over and much cheaper).

Not snotty- they are just not available here at all... perhaps I'd be more tempted if they were- now that it is just the 2 of us. But as said, just such poor value and I like to know exactly what is in my food- additives, sugar, salt, monosodium whatsits, etc, which is much easier if you live in rural area and cook from scratch- Yesterday I had 'nothing' to make a meal- but on inspection I found 3 medium potatoes and 1 fennel and 3 eggs and a bit of left over cheese. Frittata in a jiffy with a salad made with the 1 left over chicory and 2 carrots- and Bob's your uncle in 10 mins and no effort.

I bought some when I was going to be convalescing after an operation, and the surgeon suggested that I wouldn't want to stand around cooking, as he put it. They came in useful then, but I have never been tempted to repeat any of them. None really performed well... little 'Yorkshire puddings' that resembled hockey pucks on which teeth could have been broken, come to mind...

I'm not snotty about ready meals bags. If they weren't such poor value for mediocre food, I'd love to use them sometimes. I'm happy to pick and choose ready made elements of a dish if they are of a good standard to make my life easier.

True, bags. Makes you wonder who actually buys them!

It's quite amusing how we are all so snotty about ready meals

Frozen has nothing to do with cooking. Frozen peas are not cooked until after you've cooked them from... er... raw scratch.

Acti-fry. --- I have had mine for about four years - there were three of us when we bought it and I got a very good price in Costco at the time - just over £100. It certainly does cook chips with only a small amount of oil - I experimented using different ones and the oils we like the best are olive or sunflower some of the others such as light healthy ones we did not like. Takes about half hour to cook them. You can do wedges and flavoured with herb chips too.
You can in theory cook other things too such as chicken and beef dishes. The chicken ones work fine but I found the beef was not good. I now tend to only do chips in mine as I then just wipe it out with kitchen roll and pop the pan and central thing in the dishwasher every few uses.
I am not sure that I would spend the money they now are on one just to use it for chips as we do not have them often enough to warrant the cost but the chips are far superior to oven ones and not at all greasy like they can be in a deep fat fryer.
If you are passing on holiday in Dordogne call in and I will make you some!!!

Sorry for hi-jacking the thread Ana.I was just responding to roses Glad it got back on track !!

Jane I can't stand those pathetic looking "ready meals" with a few sparse strips of "chicken" floating in an unappealing "white sauce". And you spotted it - they are all made in the same factory with different wrapping slapped on. I have this on good authority from someone who worked in one of those factories, there were fairly makeshift partitions between the sections for the various chains, but it was all one factory. (I'm sure there are exceptions, some of the chains may have their own factories).

I always try to cook from scratch and freeze any thing left over for another meal,yesterday from 1kg of beef mince I did spg bol/chilli con carne/rissoles all put into containers for meals in the week then just top up with fresh veg during the week also do all our baking and keep DGCs supplied with when I do stews I use the mix to make pastry topped pies or cottage pie.We are also partical to M&S meal deal but not very often only really when it includes a whole uncooked chicken as I can make extra's with what is left.

Bez I'm interested in how you get on with Active fry too. I'd assumed it was too big a gizmo for just us two who don't eat big portions.

Having virtuously said I cook from scratch, I have to own up to buying supermarket mash to keep in the freezer when it is on offer along with one particular cheese sauce that is gluten free and better than the one I make! And I use frozen peas!

Bez are active fry chips as good as deep fried?

Mamie you make your own pasta, that's impressive.

Grumppa home made potato wedges are just as easy, after all its just a potato cut into 4 or maybe 6 large chips! I chuck them on the baking sheet and half an hour later, voila.

Frozen peas are allowed if you cook from scratch.

Funny this has come up - DD1 has just complained on FB that she's having to order in a load of ready meals. Her kitchen is being altered/renovated and it's taking longer than planned (of course) and she's running out of the freezer meals she'd prepared.

We cook from scratch (My cooking must have become jaded as DH took over when he retired), and our DC all cook from scratch and have trained their partners. DS has just bought and is getting to grips with a new food processor which includes a sausage making attachment. Food processors and freezers have changed our world.

Of course 'from scratch' has changed somewhat. The receives my DMiL left me involve mincing suet, and washing and sieving dried fruit to get the stalky bits off, and what cut of meat to ask the butcher to mince.

Potato wedges are for people who feel guilty about eating chips.

Yes to frozen peas Grumppa and we also keep frozen prawns in stock. We freeze a lot of our own veg from the garden. I don't know what potato wedges are so no to that, sauerkraut is sold on the butcher's counter in the supermarket, we keep dried pasta but mostly make our own. We have a stock of tinned tomatoes and also keep tins of borlotti, cannelloni, haricot beans and chickpeas because we find the dried ones lose flavour after a few months.
We buy horseradish, mustard, bacon, suet, and some of the more esoteric spices in England.
We both love food and cooking, especially Italian, Indian, Middle Eastern and Spanish. Not much French cuisine oddly but a few English favourites like roasts and steak and kidney.
We find we can't digest fried food any more (apart from Sunday breakfast which is being cooked for me as I write!)

I too cook from scratch - not a lot of choice anyway here in rural France - the only take away I know is a pizza place. During the winter I make a lot of soups and usually enough for at least two days and whenever making pies, quiches, lasagne etc make enough to freeze some. I still make family size pies and cut the remainder into portions, wrap in foil and freeze.
As far as possible we now eat our main meal at lunchtime and something lighter I the evening. When we began doing it I found we could not eat too early or we were searching the cupboards by about 8-30!!
If I go out and need to leave OH to feed himself at lunchtime no matter what I leave he usually makes himself a peanut butter and jam sandwich! If I ask what he would like for a meal he asks for egg and chips which he loves but I have an active fry so use little fat - neither of us like bought oven chips. A fast meal for me to prepare is omelette and salad and we both love it.
Sometimes when staying with family in UK I buy something from Marks to make cooking easy - I hate using someone else's kitchen.

How do you define cooking from scratch? Where do frozen peas and potato wedges, shop-bought pasta, tinned frankurters and sauerkraut in a jar sit in the scratch spectrum?

I usually make a some extra gravy with them, but meat and suet crust are excellent.

<makes note of Waitrose kate and sidneys> Thanks, flick

I cook from scratch because I cannot be bothered with bought ready meals that are inedible unless you spend time improving them.

As a family we prefer casseroles and stews to lumps of meat and I have always cooked at least twice as much as I need and freeze half. It means an instant meal is always available if needed. However, Waitrose steak and kidney puddings are unbeatable, great comfort food on a cold miserable day, or when feeling under the weather as are some salmon and broccoli fishcakes I buy from my fish man.

I always scan any newspapers and magazines for recipes that might be of interest and probably try something new every week. It is not that I enjoy cooking, it is that I have always enjoyed food, new tastes, new flavours, new combinations.

Yes, I cook from scratch at home. On archery Saturdays, though, we visit Greggs while Minibags has her riding lesson. I like their sausage and bean bake, MrB likes their steak bake, and Minibags says Greggs sausage rolls are "the best in the world". We buy her two of those for her post-riding treat. Greggs coffee and tea is good too.

I hate curry.

Everything from scratch, but we buy a takeaway curry on the day we travel back here from England.
My DH cooks about four of the main meals to my three though, he always does the breakfast and makes all our bread, soup and stock. I am the curry queen, though.
My DD works full-time, but still cooks everything from scratch as do my son and DiL.
It took me a while to realise that the French version of takeaway food are the ready prepared meals in the butcher's shop or the charcuterie; things like veal in cream sauce, the French version of shepherd's pie and even lasagne. One day they had cooked pigs' ears and there was a huge queue and much excitement.

I usually make enough for four even though it's just we two. It's not much extra work and I can either freeze half or have it another day. Always home made and I love trying out new recipes.

The long list of ingredients in pre-prepared dishes puts me right off. The cost is an issue too - a big pan of home made soup is lovely and costs so little.

But if I ask OH what he'd like the answer is always the same. Corned beef hash. I swear he would live on it and probably will after I'm gone.