Poll: The lost art of cooking?

[Marita40]

I still work and am not married. Even with full time work and house maintenance, I still manage to eat mostly non packaged food. I keep things simple and ready to go.
Breakfast: eggs fried in a little butter with spinach. Glass of homemade kefir with berries and flaxseed.
Lunch: easy to pack salad: salad greens, tuna or cooked diced chicken, a little dressing or mayo
Dinner: stir fry veggies (cut up on weekends) with steak, chicken, or fish. Or a crockpot chili. Or grilled meat and veggies on the George Foreman. Or a pasta dish made on the weekend.
If it is tasty I generally have no problem eating the same meal several days in a row. So cooking something in the crockpot, or a lasagna or the like, on the weekend, then freezing it in portions, works well for me. The key is to always have something ready to whip out of the fridge when I come home tired and cold from work. I can have dinner ready in about 20 minutes.

 

[WhoDaresWins]

I said "1" meal per day but maybe that is a stretch.

Breakfast at home is almost always cooked cereal (oatmeal, cream of buckwheat or cream of wheat) topped with manuka honey and either fresh or dried fruit.

Lunch is generally a salad (greens, olives, jarred artichokes/roasted red peppers, avocado if I have it plus Italian tuna packed in olive oil or Portuguese sardines or diced leftover chicken or turkey). I make my own simple dressings but also like Good Seasons zesty Italian. Sometimes I just have a can of Progresso soup or a Lean Cuisine (my fave is stuffed cabbage roll with whipped potatoes) or Amy's frozen entree (tofu vegetable lasagne). I also like plain yogurt topped with fresh fruit and manuka honey.

I do cook my solitary dinner a couple of times a week and make enough for leftovers. Favorites are shrimp/veg stir fry with steamed rice, broiled fish with rice and kimchi (kimchi is store-bought), omelets or a baked potato topped with sour cream and a spoonful of caviar. I am on a bean kick right now and one of my favorite recipes is a pot of Rancho Gordo beans simmered with sauteed onion, garlic, a tomato, carrots, celery and herbs. I ate lunch out in Pittsburgh today at Curry on Murray (pumpkin curry) so tonight I think I will have a tuna sam and some Prosecco while I watch the evening news.

 

[pb4uski]

I answered 3 because we do cook a lot. But I probably should have answered 2 because we sometimes eat out and also sometimes are lazy or in a hurry and bake a frozen pizza or cook up a bag meal for dinner.

 

[24601NoMore]

Wow! I bet no one else has thought of that idea!

Ummm..not sure what your point is. OF COURSE many people open restaurants. Duh. The POINT is that National Chains are often horrid, and there's a LOT of money to be made coming up with a better product.

 

[24601NoMore]

T

We also went to a Red Robin recently - heck, I thought their burgers were very good. Again, just a simple burger, not 'fine dining', but I don't think they claim to be anything but. I'd definitely go back, though we don't go to places like that often.

-ERD50

Agreed. The one or two times we went to a Red Robin, it was decent. Not Ruth Chris, but not Olive Garden either.

We love eating out. I just wish there was more "decent" / worth it than the swill that seems to be the norm nowdays.

 

[24601NoMore]

From a RE perspective, learning to cook halfway well can mean ~$240K in your pocket over 10 years. ($50/dinn, 4X / month * 10 years). AND, you'll eat a heck of a lot better in our experience..

I love to cook and am glad we can keep our expenses down in RE.

 

[FUEGO]

Virtually everything from scratch. Though I guess we do use some processed foods (spaghetti sauce, noodles from a box, canned/jarred olives, condiments, already made hummus instead of chickpeas and tahini, etc).

Menu today:

Brunch: leftover homemade pizza (homemade dough, homemade pizza sauce, store bought pepperoni, sausage, sliced onions, olives from a can, grated whole milk mozzarella).

Dinner: Pho (water, pork shoulder blade bone plus a good bit of meat, reconstituted dried mushrooms from the Orient, pho cubes, hoison sauce, beef paste, tadang chili paste, thai chili paste, srirachi, fresh (then frozen and defrosted) lime juice, home grown kafir lime leaves, thai basil, cilantro, rice pho noodles)

We spent much of the day at the indoor water park, so I packed the kids a light lunch of PBJ on wheat and mandarin oranges (aka the easy to peel baby oranges).

Snack later? Maybe brie, it's about to go bad. With wheat thin crackers and whine (till the kids go to bed, then wine).

We'll occasionally buy frozen packaged food if it's substantially cheaper than making from scratch and it looks interesting (on clearance at Aldi for example). Otherwise, it's almost always something cooked from scratch at home. Sushi, pasta + red or white sauce, tacos/enchiladas/burritos, pork bbq, curries, stir fry, pho, pad thai, and salads are all pretty typical meals here. "American" food is relatively rare but we also enjoy it, just not as much as all the other stuff.

Most of our restaurant spending is on 2 things:

1. pizza from a chain, usually Domino's or Papa Johns and usually at a price of $0-6 per large pizza by using a couple of deals stacked up. It's just not that much more expensive than the ingredients themselves ($2 worth of cheese, $1 worth of pepperoni, $0.50 worth of dough ingredients, $0.25 worth of sauce, say $4).

2. Chinese take out from the buffet a block down the street. $5 gets a steaming tray full of pot sticker dumplings that would cost at least $3-4 if we bought them frozen and cooked ourselves (and those aren't as good as the ones from the restaurant, though I'm 99% sure they come frozen in a bag and not homemade). That's enough to feed DW and I if the kids are at school or away. $11-13 gets a plate slammed to near-breaking point with rounded piles of chicken, steak, and potstickers to feed the whole family. While one of us walks up to get the take out, the other is in the kitchen making some stir fry or steamed veggies and fresh lo mein, and the rice is already cooked (rice cooker). We get the expensive (and greasy!) meat and dumplings from the restaurant and make relatively healthy rice, noodles, and veggies at home (without much of the oil).

FYI I don't consider myself a foodie at all (and in fact think very little of the species). I just like to eat food that tastes good with bold flavors. Skip the garnish, fancy names, and just give me the main dish so I can eat.

 

[NW-Bound]

We eat only 2 meals a day, and we make them ourselves.

No, we do not raise our own chicken for eggs, or cure our own bacon. And I do use canned tomatoes for cooking as they are picked ripe for immediate canning compared to the fresh tomatoes that are picked green. I also do not make my own pasta, and my wife uses frozen philo dough, or frozen pie crust, etc...

However, I do grow a small fraction of the vegetable and herb that we consume.

The above said, in the pantry I do have a few cans of chili, Campbell soup, and even ramen noodles for the times I do not feel like cooking. But you will not find any frozen microwaveable meals in our fridges.

 

[NW-Bound]

And speaking of the "lost art" of cooking, I do not think it is true. Same as book reading, some people read a lot of books, while others read none. One can see on the Web and on youtube so much info and so many recipes and blogs about cooking. So, there are still many foodies who are into cooking, while many others eat out or just microwave packaged meals. Society just becomes more polarized.

 

[Nemo2]

We just finished, (about four meals worth), a batch of vegetarian burritos I made, (although a lot of the ingredients, beans/tortillas/tomatoes, etc, are 'preprepared').

One thing we make, a couple times a month, is our own pizza....(although we don't mill the flour):

 

[NW-Bound]

Uh oh! Your pizza photos remind me that we do eat frozen pizzas once in a while.

My wife has made pizzas a few times, and I have to say it's nothing to brag about.

 

[Midpack]

The one or two times we went to a Red Robin, it was decent. Not Ruth Chris, but not Olive Garden either.

Red Robin is decent. Lucky for us there are two local gourmet burger places at the sane prices, that have better food, service, atmosphere and clientele than RR.

 

[splitwdw]

2 meals because that's all I eat. If I eat lunch I can't eat dinner. Breakfast during work week is oatmeal (not that instant stuff) with pecans and some kind of fruit and on weekends it's eggs or French toast or pancakes. I was laughing about the Bisquick comments, as someone noted it's just flour, fat, salt and baking powder. That's basically my pancake recipe with an egg and some milk added. It's so easy, why don't people make pancakes from scratch. French toast is easy and by adding spices, flavors, liquors, herbs you can change up the flavor. Dinner during the week is seafood, fish or chicken with a cooked veg or salad because all those foods cook up fast. Weekends we go out to dinner or get takeout or we have a spaghetti night with neighbors, we take turns buying fresh pasta and one neighbor makes the sauce, another makes salad and bread. I do have emergency rations in my pantry like canned soup, canned tuna fish, dried pasta, ultra pasteurized milk. I also like to bake yeast bread and do that quite frequently.


Forgot to mention, for the pancakes, my mom will add veggies to the pancakes. She cuts veggies small, puts little piles on the griddle, cooks briefly, then pours pancake batter over the veggies. She uses sweet corn, peppers, carrots, Vidalia onions, asparagus.

 

[Midpack]

If I had more cajones, I'd open an amazing restaurant in Retirement. National chains wouldn't scare me one iota, as I'd be serving (actually edible) food at a good value..

Wow! I bet no one else has thought of that idea.

Ummm..not sure what your point is. OF COURSE many people open restaurants. Duh. The POINT is that National Chains are often horrid, and there's a LOT of money to be made coming up with a better product.

Something like 4 out of 5 new restaurants fail within 3 years, 3 of 5 in the first year. But you can bet 5 out of 5 were certain they were opening "an amazing restaurant." Surely you've been to a few before they failed - those owners thought they were going to "make a KILLING if [they] opened a restaurant" too.

Most people on the outside underestimate what it takes to develop and sustain a successful restaurant, or most other businesses for that matter. It's way tougher sledding than any 40 hour workweek, like double that. And even if you have a successful formula for a restaurant, you'll work ungodly hours to get it to more than five years.

http://www.restaurants.com/blog/why-do-restaurants-fail/#.Vns2p69OKrV

 

[M Paquette]

I generally cook from 'scratch', using basic ingredients to build meals. I'm following a restricted sodium diet (less than 1000 mg/day) and that's about the only way to do it. I do buy loaves of sodium free bread and occasionally 'no salt added' packaged marinara and broth. There are a few other items that require specialized equipment or skills to make that I'll buy, such as tofu.

The most interesting thing I've noticed is that this raises my fiber intake substantially over buying prepared goods for the same meals. I find I typically have a 45 g/day fiber intake.


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[tmm99]

After just a few posts, it's clear that everyone has a different idea of what "from scratch" means.

I agree. We had carnita (mexican pork stew like thing) last night (which I cooked) but we had soft corn tortilla with it and I certainly didn't make tortilla from scratch. We had Spaghetti meat sauce for lunch and I made the spaghetti sauce but I used canned diced tomatoes as the base and added veggies/garlic/wine to cook it down with some spices...And oh, pasta was store bought too. Some days it's totally from scratch, like 3 nights ago with - fish and broccoli (I didn't grow the broccoli).

I did vote more than 4 however since I am home cooking all the time (we don't go out to eat much), and when I say cooking, I don't mean popping something in the oven or microwave, or heating ready made food in the sauce pan. I don't use pre-packaged spice / flavor mixes of any kind.

Wait...Did I answer I cook 4 times a day?? I only cook 2 times a day..I already answered the poll...

 

[ERD50]

Originally Posted by RetireSoon View Post
If I had more cajones, I'd open an amazing restaurant in Retirement. National chains wouldn't scare me one iota, as I'd be serving (actually edible) food at a good value..
Quote:
Originally Posted by haha View Post
Wow! I bet no one else has thought of that idea.
Quote:
Originally Posted by RetireSoon View Post
Ummm..not sure what your point is. OF COURSE many people open restaurants. Duh. The POINT is that National Chains are often horrid, and there's a LOT of money to be made coming up with a better product.

Something like 4 out of 5 new restaurants fail within 3 years, 3 of 5 in the first year. But you can bet 5 out of 5 were certain they were opening "an amazing restaurant." Surely you've been to a few before they failed - those owners thought they were going to "make a KILLING if [they] opened a restaurant" too.

Most people on the outside underestimate what it takes to develop and sustain a successful restaurant, or most other businesses for that matter. It's way tougher sledding than any 40 hour workweek, like double that. And even if you have a successful formula for a restaurant, you'll work ungodly hours to get it to more than five years.

Why Do Restaurants Fail?

Exactly. I'm surprised the comment was not understood.

That said, I've always been curious about the economics of the restaurant business. If you go to a nice restaurant, there's a wide menu, and they generally serve up anything on it in a reasonable time. And some of those items require some cooking time. So I assume some things are par-baked, and just finished when you order (roast duck for example)? How long do these keep? Are they vacuum sealed?

It just seems waste must really be high, but I never worked in a restaurant, so I don't know how it works.

Many entrees are understandable - in a typical upscale Italian restaurant you have the pasta base, and they can quickly cook up the sausage or chicken or fish to go with it. And scallopinni dishes are thin slices, so they cook fast. But what about the lasagna style, or eggplant parm (DW is allergic to eggplant, so I sometimes order it when I'm out)? Those take some time to cook?

Again, just curious. - ERD50

 

[harley]

From a RE perspective, learning to cook halfway well can mean ~$240K in your pocket over 10 years. ($50/dinn, 4X / month * 10 years). AND, you'll eat a heck of a lot better in our experience..

I love to cook and am glad we can keep our expenses down in RE.

50*4*12*10=24K. Just saying.

 

[Sue J]

One of my favorite quotes from Carl Sagan -

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch......

I make most things from scratch, but I do use fresh vegetables already in a steaming bag or frozen vegetables at times. We also use the triple washed, ready to eat spinach and salads. Of course, after reading the e-coli Chipotle thread, I may rethink eating those right out of the bag!

 

[EastWest Gal]

+1
Can't define "From scratch" anymore than I can "clean food", "real food", or another 12 cute phrases passed around in food bloggers blogs.

For us we try to buy foods that are like what our Grandparents would have recognized. Ingredients that an average fifth grader would easily pronounce. As I started reading ingredients I discovered all the garbage I didn't know people still eat. Bisquick, good old fashioned bisquick has transfat! That garbage is in all flour type products you don't need to add fat to. Right next to bisquick is a brand that doesn't have transfat, but you have to add oil. If you know that it's a no-brainer to know what to buy.

Actually I checked the product label on Bisquick and Bisquick Heart Smart online. Both say zero trans fat. I'm not sure where your information comes from.

I do virtually all the cooking in the family. Many things are from scratch. Not everything. Perhaps if the cooking were shared in the family, more would be from scratch. But one of DH's faults is that his brain simply doesn't function in the kitchen and doesn't appreciate the "from scratch" element very much so it isn't as fun as it could be. DS is already a better cook than DH.

After 30 years of bringing home the bacon and cooking it too, I want a break.

I'm more creative on the nights when I cook for myself, though. I experiment with herbs and spices and different vegetables.

I don't do too much with bread and baking though because of the carbs.


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[MRG]

Actually I checked the product label on Bisquick and Bisquick Heart Smart online. Both say zero trans fat. I'm not sure where your information comes from.

I do virtually all the cooking in the family. Many things are from scratch. Not everything. Perhaps if the cooking were shared in the family, more would be from scratch. But one of DH's faults is that his brain simply doesn't function in the kitchen and doesn't appreciate the "from scratch" element very much so it isn't as fun as it could be. DS is already a better cook than DH.

After 30 years of bringing home the bacon and cooking it too, I want a break.

I'm more creative on the nights when I cook for myself, though. I experiment with herbs and spices and different vegetables.

I don't do too much with bread and baking though because of the carbs.


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You're correct the label says 0% trans fat. As I understand the label if there is less than .5 grams it's rounded down to zero. Read the list of ingredients as I recall bisquick has partially hydrogenated soybean oil. That is trans fat as I understand the bizarre labelling system we have.

 

[ERD50]

You're correct the label says 0% trans fat. As I understand the label if there is less than .5 grams it's rounded down to zero. Read the list of ingredients as I recall bisquick has partially hydrogenated soybean oil. That is trans fat as I understand the bizarre labelling system we have.

But is an occasional fractional amount of trans fat a problem? IIRC, it only takes a very tiny amount of trans fat to keep peanut butter from separating, but all this trans-fat -phobia drives them to not have any on the ingredient label.

I like the 'natural' PB I buy, but I wish the oil would not separate.

...

After 30 years of bringing home the bacon and cooking it too, I want a break.
...

Off topic, but this reminds me of one my favorite post-feminist 80's satirical comments:

A woman says: " Before the feminist movement, we took care of the family, and cooked and cleaned. After the feminist movement, we held a full time job outside the home, and we took care of the family, and cooked and cleaned. "


-ERD50

 

[MRG]

But is an occasional fractional amount of trans fat a problem? IIRC, it only takes a very tiny amount of trans fat to keep peanut butter from separating, but all this trans-fat -phobia drives them to not have any on the ingredient label.

I like the 'natural' PB I buy, but I wish the oil would not separate.


-ERD50

The FDA is taking action to further reduce trans fat and it adds no value to my food so why not eliminate all I can? It's not a hardship to add a fat of my choosing to any dough I'm making. I know what your saying about PB, Smuckers Natural PB great stuff but it separates.

There's a lot of little things in our diets that add up to large amounts of undesirable(at least for some) additives to our diet. I'm recently off of two different BP meds so I still watch my sodium. A few different choices through the day can make 1000-1500 mg daily difference.

http://www.fda.gov/Food/ResourcesForYou/Consumers/ucm079609.htm

 

[iac1003]

We eat dinner out 2 nights a week. All the other meals - breakfast, lunch and dinner - I make from scratch. I grow my own culinary herbs, that's it.


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[audreyh1]

I have been on a strict elimination diet for six months now, with a limited food list and a strict 4 day rotation. So that has required that all meals be made from scratch and no eating out either.

I don't expect to continue the strict regimen past six months, although I will probably maintain a food rotation and make most of my meals from scratch.

I couldn't even eat store brought chicken broth because they all contained caramel coloring (malt), so made stock occasionally. But I admit to the occasional corn tortilla as none of the ingredients flagged as a problem. That is honestly the only prepared food I used these past six months.