Reply With QuoteWhen I am home from offshore I do most of the cooking, veg from the garden , meat from whatever I have shot, I can't remember the last time I had processed food.
Is this a priority in your family or do you stuff yourselves with whatever you fancy? My cooking skills are limited to baked beans and toast but the boss spends an inordinate amount of time in the supermarket examining ingredients before buying. I know I should be grateful and dread to think what my diet would be like if I were on my own. Very few pre packaged meals.
Is yours a food fussy household?
When I am home from offshore I do most of the cooking, veg from the garden , meat from whatever I have shot, I can't remember the last time I had processed food.
We cook from fresh most nights, but, it can be a faff…. Planning, shopping and cooking
We do hello fresh 4 days a week…. It can still take 20-30 mins to cook something, but, you don’t have to think/ plan or shop, so, worth it’s weight in gold
The biggest nunpty on the planet could follow the cooking cards
Cooking isn’t a chore for me…. I enjoy it
A fresh meal and family around the table without phones is something I insist on…. Plus it’s much healthier
We always cook at home even for the next day
Problem is ingredients and where to get them from
Anything non seasonal that looks awsome stay away
Even worms wont touch preservatives
I/we have the time to shop for fresh food, never or incredibly rarely processed eg a tin of baked beans as a treat, and the time to prepare it well at home, I enjoy the cooking, trying new things, and the meals and very much value this simple but rewarding aspect of my life.
Good, wholesome food used to be more widely seen as one of lifes simple, inexpensive and available luxurys imho, nowadays for too many it's convenience this and pre/prepared that hence the rising rates of obesity, diabetes etc.
Sadly even here in the Med the modern trend seems to be taking over according to the latest reports.
Last edited by Passenger; 23rd March 2019 at 10:13.
Mrs W and I split the cooking on a roughly 50:50 basis, we cook almost everything from fresh. Try to keep the fat and salt content down but that’s about it, we buy decent quality food without going overboard. Our weakness is portion size, we do like a full plate!
One thing we are good at is not wasting food, virtually nothing gets thrown away. We make home-made soup from veggies that need using up, and if we’ve cooked too much for a meal we pack the leftovers up and eat them for lunch next day or freeze them.
I cook every night, unless I'm going out but then there will always be a home-cooked meal in the freezer for those left at home.
We have organic meat twice a week, fish twice a week and the rest veggie.
Saturday morning I'll draw up the week's 'menu', then go shopping to fit around wherever the kids need to be that day.
I left home at 17 so had to learn quickly but I did eat a lot of crap back then as well. Cooking and ingredient decisions kind of grew with age and becoming a parent. It's frightening the amount of dirty fried meat people consume round here and just generally. Bad for the body, bad for the soul and bad for the planet. But so ridiculously cheap I can understand why people are drawn to it.
I'm fortunate enough to be able to feed my family properly and I don't begrudge a penny. I like to cook with the kids as well so they don't go out into the world clueless.
We (she) cook most meals and over the last couple years we have moved towards organic produce and have pretty much cut out meat (sometimes we have organic and not mass produced meats), and all dairy. It's more work but like others scan the ingredients carefully before buying anything processed.
We are what we eat so it's something we're more conscious of, especially with increasing health issues over the last few decades..
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Everything cooked from fresh - never have off-the-shelf meals.
Meat free several days a week.
Try to limit the carbs.
It helps having wife who doesn't work and likes cooking :-)
Pete
Im on a low fat/carb, no sugar diet as I have just been diagnosed with High cholesterol and at risk of type 2 Diabetes
Luckily Im only just in the at risk range, on my last blood test. The doctor wanted to start me on tablets but I really want to avoid this.
The missus cooks mostly and has now got me eating Black rice! full of anti oxidants and iron. I'm eating more fruit now as i have cut down alot on cakes, biscuits and desserts which I do miss as I have a sweet tooth.
I eat very little processed meat, only lean cuts of meat ,very little pasta and more veg than before ,hopefully this will do the trick with another blood test due in 2 months.
So glad to read this thread. This is an area I am desperate to try and improve me and the wife have 5 kids and we are constantly using processed meals and eating out. We need to cut this Down and eat and plan better.
If my grandma was alive I’d be in big trouble she grew most of her own veg and cooked everything from fresh.
I’ve made a start by buying a greenhouse and some potato bags to grow my own. I’ve invested in a soup maker and are trying more but we lack ideas!
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I always cook from scratch, never use sauces etc; only raw/dried spices, fresh herbs etc, whether it’s curry, chilli, meatloaf, etc. Tonight for a relatively naughty treat we had home made burgers flavoured with Dijon mustard and topped with crispy Pancetta. I’d have to say it was better than GBK or Byron too. Worth the effort every time.
Like others here, everything cooked from scratch. Would be delighted to eat prepared stuff more, but there’s such crap in food these days, and eating out and processed is pretty much loss of control of what goes into it.
Shop at farmers market, and buy organic and/or from people we know well, and can chat about where their produce comes from. Buy fattier and more unusual cuts of meat (shin, tongue, heart etc), eat nose to tail as much as possible.
The above sounds like a hassle, but is dead easy and second nature once part of routine. The only thing s we try to avoid are anything “created” or unnatural - e.g. HFCS, seed/vegetable oils that kind of thing.
It’s not a militant thing, and will eat whatever I fancy when we’re out, but reason if we can eat decently 95% of the time, we’ll hopefully do okay
Out of interest what is your burger recipe? I'm on the hunt for the perfect homemade burger. Last lot I made was 80% braising steak and 20% sirloin with confit onions, dijon musturd and Worcestershire sauce. Found them a touch dry.Originally Posted by yumma
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I think you need to add some breadcrumbs to the mix, to break up the ‘bulk’ of the meat?
I must admit to buying ‘some’ sauces, and like the convenience of some Costco Lasagne/Cottage Pie/ Curry - in the freezer.
Otherwise - I cook from scratch. Always got lots of herbs and spices in the kitchen.
I make Spicy Lentil soup - around 10ltrs at a time, and freeze. Takes a couple of hours - and costs pennies.
The real benefit to cooking from scratch (other than cost/chemicals) - is that you get the amount of salt and sugar that you want- not what the manufacturers want.
We cook from scratch apart from being a lot healthier it is a lot cheaper i cannot believe the cost of take away Pizza for example
My farmer mates son who is 10 now has sent his first pig off to the abattoir, had the sausages back and is selling them, got 3.5 kg of lovely local sausages for £22.50 this morning, order put in for side of bacon and a one of his lambs when they go off next week!
Making (eg) pasta sauces and things like cottage pies, fish pies etc is just as easy as your lentil soup and all of the same advantages apply. When I come to the UK my stepdaughter always asks me (nicely) to make a big pot of pasta ragu and the same of chili which then get portioned and frozen. I get the satisfaction of knowing she is eating some home cooked food in between the takeaways and ready meals.
Mrs follows Joe Wicks lean in 15 meal plans so she’s cooking from scratch morning, noon and night.
There are some excellent recipes in his books too.
We swear by a mix of pork and beef - result is far more juicy and tender
To be fair you'd probably find mine a touch dry, it was literally 12% taste the difference mince 250g, a generous pinch of Maldon sea salt and course freshly ground black pepper and a very heaped tea spoon of Dijon mustard. Roughly formed into burger shapes, tossed into seasoned flour (yet more salt & pepper) then fried over a medium heat in generous amount of olive oil until a crust forms and still juicy in the middle.
I do not often cook by hard and fast recipes, I have bulked them out before using breadcrumbs and an egg to help bind, but I quite like the more meaty burger experience. My local Butcher who sadly closed recently made lovely burgers, they were literally ground Chuck Steak with salt and pepper, that was all.
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