More Expenive to Buy Premade?

[Deleted]

I use the pillsbury pizza dough. It works great for me.

[Deleted]

I have a bread machine and I never use it. I really do not like the way the bread comes out when I bake it in there.

I will have to go check out the bread recipes! Thanks for posting them.

[whoisjohngalt]

SF,
I remember many many many moons ago you posted your tomato sauce recipe (it was on ex-ex YM boards). Can you do it again? I would also like to see the recipe for pizza dough, even though, I don't know if I am skilled enough to make it.

Please!!!!

Lena

[donkeyontheedge]

I agree with DramaQ -

I don't cook because it is cheaper, especially with the price of groceries going up the way they are. I cook because I can control the quality of the ingredients and what is in my food.

Cooking from scratch is a full time job if you have a family and are diligent. I wish I were that prepared but I have to make compromises so that everyone gets fed and I don't go crazy.

[cronewitch]

Use modern appliances and the old fashion methods and cooking isn't a full time job. I was in college in the early 70s at night while working days and we didn't have a microwave or crock pot. I got off work at 4:30 and had to be to school at 6 but still cooked home cooked meals every single night.

My ex got home about 3-3:30 from a dirty factory job and had school at 6 too. He would put whatever was on the top shelf of the frig in the oven on 250 and if a pot of water was on the stove he would turn it to simmer. He would then take a shower and change clothes before I got home.

Weekends I made enough food for the week and froze it and we only had a refrigerator freezer. I had enough corning ware to make dinners for the week. So just pulled one a day to put on the top shelf for him.

We were poor since we paid cash for college so food wasn't fancy but I could make chili, spaghetti, hot dogs and other quick to make foods so we didn't starve.

[olderburgher]

Homemade is cheaper, healthier and taste's better. However, if you never keep ingredients in the house, cook only rarely and view, cooking as a chore, you are doomed to eat pre-made foods. I feel sorry for you.
We made two new recipes in the last week - both great and good for you from a health and taste point of view. I made a fast omelet for breakfast and roasted red pepper humus yesterday so that we had snack food around if the mood for a snack hit us. My DW made couscous, flounder and peas for dinner last night to go with the salad and wine. Yummy.
Do we eat pre-made? A take-out Pizza or at a restaurant are fun but that is for a day off or just variety and usually we can fix food as well as these places can just not the same things.

[The J]

Jan 17, 2011 19:53:08 GMT -5 @angel33 said:

I have a bread machine and I never use it. I really do not like the way the bread comes out when I bake it in there.

I will have to go check out the bread recipes! Thanks for posting them.

Use the bread machine to make the dough and to do the first rise. Then take it out, shape it, let it rise again for an hour, and then bake. Comes out much better.

[thyme4change]

We cook at home almost every night. We mostly use ingredients, but do have quite a few short-cuts we use. For example, I don't make homemade spaghetti sauce, chili or sweet and sour sauce. I have, I could, but I don't. I don't find that the extra effort is worth it, for my world.

I also don't cook-and-freeze. I don't think it tastes that good, but I appear to be in the minority on that one. I'm not a big leftovers person, although as the kids get busier, I'm finding that one night a week is usually a crap-shoot, so it is good to have a few things in there that we can "clean-up."

I believe pretty strongly in just-in-time inventory, although a logistics professional will tell me they have a new name for it. I think that if you cook in large batches and save it, you are more likely to have waste or spoilage. Either someone in the family will look at that giant double-batch being cooked and eat an inappropriate portion the first day, or it will get lost in the back of the fridge or freezer and will have to be tossed due to age. Maybe other people have more organized freezers (mine is a black-hole!) But, if you fritter away 15% of what you cook and save, you may have frittered away your whole savings. I guess it depends on what your alternative is. In my case, I would just cook something else, but if our alternative was to go out for a sit-down meal, then maybe the 15% toss-rate would still be cheaper. (Yes, I've done cost accounting in a manufacturing environment. Can you tell?)

As far as baked goods - I'm not much of a baker and we rarely keep sweets in the house (due to an overwhelming lack of control on our part) so, Oreos are a treat, and we just go with it. I don't think I could make anything homemade for <$3 anyway.

[hcj]

It depends on the quality of the ingredients and how you shop for them. There are a number of packaged/processed foods that are really inexpensive, but but they are filled with junk. My mom is a diabetic and I make all her meals. When she first came to live with us I tried to find things that were quick and easy. There isn't a packaged food she can eat. We moved her into an apartment withy my niece two blocks away, so now I cook up large batches of several things each weekend and much of the menu is centered on what the great deals at each of the markets were for the week. It costs half as much to feed her than when I was buying and making individual meals that didn't take a lot of time. When I was doing all the caretaking I didn't have the time or energy to do it this way. For example, I used to buy turkey burger patties at Trader Joe's. Now I see lean turkey meat on sale 2 packages for $5 so I bought 6 and made turkey meatloaf and turkey burgers and froze the rest.

The one bright side of her dementia is that she can't remember that she's had the same thing for dinner 4 nights in one week! My niece, who is now her primary care giver, doesn't always eat. She'll nuke a frozen meal if it's there, so I buy these for her. There was a special on Lean Cuisine's for $1.49 and then Marie Calendar's for $1.49. I bought a number of them at that price. This week budget gourmet's are .69 cents. Mom can't eat that and I wouldn't, but my niece will so I bought a ton of those. There aren't a whole lot of things my mom can eat where the meal ingredients are only 69 cents.

[Urban Chicago]

Just a suggestion:

Read Cook's illustrated magazine and watch its PBS show, America's Test Kitchen.

They are really good at sorting out what is better to make from scratch and what just is not worth the hassle (canned vs. fresh pumpkin for example).

[cronewitch]

I bought a 90oz frozen lasagna last night for 9.99. Homemade would taste better but everyone likes the frozen and it is in a pan in a box frozen already. I can take it to my brother's house for a Sunday card game dinner put it in the oven then when we want food we can make a salad and garlic bread. I don't like packaged salad or premade garlic bread but they like premade garlic bread and it is easy.

Not a health food but from scratch isn't either and it cost more and takes time and dirty dishes to make.