Leftover homecooked counts as it's still made by you. Things like "pop open a can and heat it up" doesn't count. I'm talking, actually PREPARING a meal, not a frozen entree, not a completely boxed meal...

I just read somewhere today that American kitchens have the most kitchen appliances, but Americans cook the least number of meals in home compared to other "like" countries....

So, where do you fit in the spectrum?

Melissa

only way to save money!

duplicate sorry!



Melissa

And I should probably ask, do you think CCers are less like the rest of the public when it comes to cooking more in general? Or are baking/decorating too separate from daily cooking duties?

I think for me, there are several reasons I cook. First, is that it tastes better than prepared meals (store bought) and second, is that I get some satisfaction from taking care of my family in that way. I enjoy the creative process of putting a meal together and I love the process of getting it all together in a timely manner with all items still piping hot. And, it's just too expensive and fattening to go out to eat or have carry out that often.

Probably once or twice a month we do pizza or chinese, but that's it.

Melissa



Melissa

We are really trying to save money right now so we might eat out if we are traveling back from seeing the family but I even make pizza now so we don't have to order that out! It's funny-it's easier than I thought to make some of that stuff!

It's true! I know when DH and I were first married we bought a few prepackaged things like flavored couscous or a mix to make a garlic sauce for pasta, or even a taco meat flavoring packet, but... for one reason or another we didn't have these on hand and i made it with what I had (I have all sorts of spices) and guess what? It tasted better! And at least for me, once I have something taste yummy, I prefer the yummy over convenience.

We'll order pizza or Chinese when we are busy workign on a project (we are doing some home improvement stuff) when we don't want to add to the dishes/workload.

For days that we are just too busy and in a rush, I pull out the frozen meals I have for emergency needs!

Pizzas are so simple too. I buy (keep a stash frozen too) whole wheat pitas. Make my own pizza sauce with a can of tomato sauce, some dried basil, oregano, pinch of sugar and a couple cloves of garlic. I don't even have to cook it as they cook in the oven. Top it with sliced onions, green pepper (or whatever else we have handy) and top with shredded mozarella cheese and perhaps a bit of grated parmesan.

I keep a pretty well stocked larder/pantry so making meals on the fly is usually pretty simple!

Melissa

We make dinner Sunday through Friday and usually pick something up on Saturday nights. We usually make pizza, steak hoagies or something simple on Fridays and crock pot meals on Sundays. I also like to have a few meals in the freezer for those really crazy days.

I'm always looking for good crock pot recipes and recipes that freeze well. If anyone would like to share any that would be great!

I think eating a home cooked meal as often as you can is a very important time for family bonding. We raised 3 girls (now 31, 26 and 1 I remember when Dani (the oldest) came home from school once (she was a senior in high school) and she was upset. She said in her Home Ec class they did a poll on who sat down at the dinner table and ate dinner with their family - and she said there were only 2 (she being one of them) out of 20 kids that held up their hands......it just made her feel so sad to know that so many others were missing out on what our kids know is an important part of family life.

I enjoy cooking for my family ~ and have always done so. Our youngest teases me all the time about even when I say that I need to go to the grocery that we could live for a month on what I have stocked up!

I get the sale flyers out each week and plan what meals I will be making for the week from that. If something is a good buy, I buy a lot of it and put it up. I have a collection of over 200 cookbooks here also, and they are very used to having new dishes tried on them! Our girls have never been "picky" eaters for that reason - there has always been a variety of foods that they have had to at least try.

I have to say I do have an advantage, I have a home based day care so I am here all day long. I am thankful that I didn't have to leave home every day to go to work. I tell the working mothers all the time that I do not envy them one bit.

One more "cute" thing from our 7 year old Grandson - if for some reason we eat dinner at a restaurant - he INSISTS we did NOT eat dinner yet, because we didn't eat at home at the dinner table!!! That just goes to show you how important this family time is to even a 7 year old boy.

OMGoodness, that is so sad about the eating dinner together. Even when there's been so much public push to get people together at dinner?

I understand that sometimes schedules make it difficult for the entire family to sit down together, but still!!!! My DH doesn't get hom until 7 pm, so twice a week, we eat without him as my son has Tae Kwon Do and should eat before going, but the remaining three sit down at the dinner table and when he comes home, I sit down with him so he has company - no TV on either.

I grew up eating home cooked meals, but we always sat in front of the TV. We were together, but still... why is that necessary? We have only once or twice eaten in front of the TV and that was because somethign special was on, we needed to eat as we were leaving and we didn't have a way to record it. Now, we record something if it's on during meal time (which is only Jeopardy as DH is a Jeopardy nut).

Melissa

I knwo they say teenagers are less likely to get in trouble if they eat a regular sit-down family meal. I've been working on making more home-cooked meals since they are healthier for us. Besides sometimes what it costs to go out to eat, I could have bought something to make dinner with and still had leftovers.
Tonight I am going to try to make Chicken Tetrazini for the first time.

That sounds wonderful Mouse! I know when I make it to where they are "involved" with making the meal, it is more fun for them too. (just like when they were little!!) My baby (who is now eighteen) loves to cook, so once a week, she plans the menu and fixes dinner. I just ask her what she wants to make when I make the grocery list.

I cook meals and we eat together every night (except my DH who is usually still at work) It means a lot for me to do this for my kids since I grew up not really doing this. When I was really little we all ate together but once my mom started working (when I was 7) she hardly ever cooked and it was survival of the fitest at our house. I honestly think that's why I'm so crazy about the kids having a sit down meal and nutritious food to eat eveyday. Their friends can wait when it's family time.

I usually cook 2 meals on Sunday to last a few days during the week since I work full time. I'm really organized so this works well for me, because I am a good planner. But it's really difficult without the planning. Also, sometimes its tough because DH doesn't really like leftovers. We usually eat out only on Saturdays, by the end of the week we are eating quick foods but we they are still prepared by me at home.

I usually cook about 5 or 6 days a week. Usually we only grab something if I don't feel like cooking or we're out and I won't have time to make anything before the girls go to bed. My rule for dinner time is that we ALL sit down and have a family meal at the table. Even if we eat out or order a pizza. We still sit down at the table. My DH had fits about this when we first got married because he used to sit and watch TV in the living room while he would eat his dinner. I told him that he needed to come join us at the table and be a family. When we eat dinner there's NO tv. You can't even see it from the table. Ever since then we always eat at the table and we always will. Plus my couch and carpet are so much cleaner this way.

I nearly always cook dinner at home and if my husband doesn't make it home on time, my daughter gets to start early as her bedtime is 8 pm with lights out. 7pm is her cut off time for dinner. She (9) gets a warm lunch in her school canteen, but she is the first to complain, if I don't cook in the evening. At least this way I can also ensure that she gets a proper well cooked meal daily. We only ever go out on weekends, if I'm too knackered to cook, which is seldom. Sundays we are all in the kitchen cooking together, we all enjoy that a lot.

I guess I voted in the majority. Most of the time I cook home cook meals. But Spaghetti I open a few different kinds of sauces a tweek them. So I count that as homemade. Taco seasoning from a packet I counted (I wasn't sure on that one). We are a busy family so it depends on time of year for us. I cook more in the winter. Summer time is alot of sandwich type of meals. I do box mixes on scout and dance nights mostly. But unfortunatly we don't get to sit down together often. My DH works overnights and sometimes he is asleep when kiddos need to eat to be able to go to bed to get up for school. So it is a challenge for our family to sit down together. We don't eat out much at all. Money is a huge factor on that one. And I am a big twice cook type of person. What I mean by that is I cook off chicken or a roast the first time. And freeze the leftovers for stews or noodles and such. I hope that makes sence. If I make steak left overs get cut up and go into stir fries or added to mac and cheese or ramen noodles for a quick meal. All kinds of posabilties(sp) Just the way I have always cooked. I don't waste much and anything we don't eat the dog gets LOL saves money all around

Except for when I have a cake to do, I cook almost everyday. But when my kitchen is full of cake and icing and equipment... out come the take-out menus!

But we always eat together at the table... it's a special time, and we all enjoy it.

Earlier my girls were a bit fussy and would eat only a few specific dishes, other than our regular Indian food. But now, as they have grown, they are willing to try new flavours, so I cook all kinds of food. They are my taste-testers when I am fine-tuning recipes for my web-site.

Karen

I cook 7 days a week. Being that we live 40 miles from the nearest town, the take out etc is not available to us. We save a lot of money not living in the city and having take out all around us. Plus, I shop in bulk which also saves a lot of money. The main reason I cook 7 days a week is for my hubbies health. He has heart disease and high cholestoral so the types of food he can eat are limited and has to be watched and over all it makes us healthier.

I prepare dinner and supper 7 days a week. We do not eat much in the way of breakfast, unless it is for supper. I don't mind going out to eat, but I am pretty picky on where we go. I enjoy cooking, its just the two of us, all the kids grown and gone. I think familys need to sit at the table more often, I know we still do, and we did when the kids were home. Seems like the best time to get everyone together and talk about the day or what may be coming up, or just plain having conversation.

Well, my husband wishes my answer was 7 a week, but there are always a couple days in there where it's frozen something or pick up something quick. I work full time on top of everything else I do.

As far as sitting down as a family, we do that EVERY night for dinner. Even when my husband had surgery, and we re-covering in the basement and couldn't get up the stairs, I would make supper and bring everything down there and we'd eat as a family. My boys are young now, and I realize as they get older and more involved in activities, it may be difficult, but it's certainly something my DH and feel is important and we will try very hard to contiue it.

I am a chef and cook dinner 5 nights a week at work and 2 nights a week at home. But I almost always feed my DH, just bring home dinner from work. Does that count as cooking dinner every night?

cheftracy, I'd say it counts. You made it!

Since I quit working full time we always eat dinner at home. We're trying to lose a few pounds and this is the only way we can know exactly what's in the food we're eating.

With us both working full time, (he works extra as security on the weekends, too) it's hard. But ohhhhh so much better and cheaper!

What I do is try to freeze up almost a weeks' worth of meals on Saturday or Sunday. I put them into those Lock N Lock containers, or those tin-foil baking pans and wrap 'em up good. For example: I'll cook a turkey (whole) on Sunday morning/afternoon. Then I'll mix up homemade stuffing. Before I bake the stuffing, I'll put a pan full into a tinfoil baking pan and freeze it. I'll split the turkey in half, place it into a zip-lock bag with a sliced lemon, sprigs of rosemary, ground pepper, and garlic minced.

Then, if I'm not home, all he's got to do is empty the thawed, raw, marinated turkey half into a baking dish and cover it with foil. Bake 1 1/2 hours on 400. 40 minutes before done, put the tinfoil pan of stuffing into the oven, too.

So---when I get home at 10, dinner's cooked and homemade! If I'm on mornings, then I do dinner from scratch. I pretty much follow that pre-season & freeze routine all the time. Once you get into the habit of planning for it, you save a LOT of effort and time. Not to mention the money thing again. On the weekends, or when I'm caking or too tired---we eat out or takeout, too.

We do spend time together, but time at the "table" is very rare. Usually on holidays. Sometimes I use mixes, like Hamburger helper, etc. But it sure does save cash to eat at home, that's for SURE!!

--Knox--

Oh please! My husband is married to a caterer ..... so of COURSE we live on fast food! hahahahaha!!!!!!!!!

Seriously, now that I no longer have the full time job and my cooking/baking passion IS my full time job, I can make my made-from-scratch beef-n-noodles, my chili and chicken-and-potato soups (guaranteed to make ALL my kids show up at my house for dinner!), chicken and dumplin's (and no..... you don't pronounce the "G" when talking about MY chicken and dumplin's!) When I make these, my 14 year old will BEG me to make her stop eating because she luvs them so much .... she has eaten so much of them that it's made her throw up. (uh...sounds weird, but it IS a compliment to me!).

But during the busy bridal season .... April thru October ..... we pretty much keep the KFC's and the pizza places in business!