A Twitter friend just asked people, "how many nights do you cook a meal from scratch at home." She said chicken nuggets and fish sticks don't count. What's your answer?
I cook a complete meal from scratch (protein, carb, veg, and a salad) five nights a week. And I'm hating life right now. Last night, I was thinking envious thoughts of people in New York City who do not cook at all and use their ovens to store their sweaters. I am THAT sick of cooking.
UPDATE: Megan McArdle outs herself as the "Twitter friend" and continues the discussion at The Daily Beast.
Apt. 11d 
Five nights a week? Do you never have leftovers?!
If we’re not counting fish sticks and things, then I would say I cook from scratch 3-4 nights a week, with the other nights being leftovers, things like fish sticks or boxed mac/cheese, and a rare delivery/restaurant night once or twice a month.
LikeLike
I have little interest in cooking from scratch for vegetables. I can’t really tell the difference between fresh and frozen for most.
LikeLike
Including leftovers, we eat food cooked from scratch 6 to 7 nights a week. Some weeks get hectic, thus at times we might eat out once or twice a week. It’s episodic, not predictable.
Protein, carb, veg, and a salad??? Are you n… wow that’s a lot. We do Protein and a veg _or_ a salad many nights. Other nights we do pasta and salad, or all veg (which might include couscous or rice.) I love recipes which have meat and vegetables in the same pot. Cuts down on the cleanup, which is a significant part of cooking labor.
I prefer spending time cooking to spending time grocery shopping. I always appreciate I recommend Martha Stewart’s Everyday Food (magazine, website, books.) In the magazine, there’s often a “grocery bag” feature, which lists ingredients for five nights of meals. http://www.marthastewart.com/359236/grocery-bag
I have started doing something similar by using Ziplist.com. You enter recipes. By clicking on the recipes, the site creates a shopping list. Enter 4 or 5 recipes, and you have a shopping list for the week. It cuts down on time spent shopping.
I got into the habit of cooking from scratch because I read labels due to my children’s food allergies. Most packaged food items have additives. They taste good due to added fat, salt and sugar.
I go through times when I don’t want to think of cooking or food. It took me years to figure out it was Seasonal Affective Disorder. Using a happy light for 30 minutes to an hour in the winter months made a huge difference.
LikeLike
Including leftovers, I cook from scratch 6-7 nights a week. As comment above, I don’t do protein + carb + veg + salad all the time. But some rotating selection from those things. Limit pasta and white rice to 1x per week each. In the week, I cook mostly vegetarian/vegan (meaning no mac and cheese or pasta alfredo type things, but rather lots of legumes) and do some meat on the weekends.
I get home from work at 6 and try to have dinner on the table at 645 or so, so I do some prep on weekends. I cook greens like kale, quinoa, millet, brown rice, squash and freeze those things. Use frozen veggies with abandon.
It is kind of a commitment, but I don’t really enjoy going out to eat on week nights.
LikeLike
This is a huge guilt issue for me right now. My husband & I both work FT, and we have a two year-old who needs to eat around 5:30 which is much earlier than he or I would like to eat. And she is HUNGRY when we get home – as in, needs food NOW. Thank God for Trader Joes, who makes frozen salmon + rice, and enchiladas, and other healthy-ish meals.
In all honesty, I only cook from scratch once, MAYBE twice per week. And one of those means cooking pasta and sausages, and throwing it in a pot with pesto and frozen broccoli, which isn’t exactly HomeMade. Still, we’ve managed to avoid the fish sticks, chicken nuggets, and fast food trap. But yeah, Laura I wholeheartedly applaud you.
LikeLike
So, my answer is almost never, especially by these high standards of cooking from scratch. This week has been take out Thai, Chinese, prepared food from a Whole Foods equivalent, and pasta (I’m guessing boiling pasta & purchased tomato sauce doesn’t count as scratch, and that’s the closest we got).
The kids have activities that limit dinner time on every day but Tuesday, Sat, Sun. My goal is to eat dinner together on those days (which we did this Tuesday). My next goal would be to have semi-scratch (i.e. not take out, but I’m willing to supplement with prepared foods including from whole foods) those three days. The other days, I’m good if we manage to get everyone fed with protein + veg with no meltdowns.
I never feel guilty, though, because my standards really low.
LikeLike
PS: By limit dinner time, I mean, one or other of the kids goes straight from school to an activity that doesn’t end until after 8:30. That means “early dinner”, kind of like a snack lunch or being taken out somewhere in between activities.
LikeLike
My husband is taking a class 2 nights a week this year, so since September, I’ve been cooking from scratch 4-5 nights a week, but it used to be 5-6. Not only that, but my picky eaters often require something else, so I’m often also throwing a pot of pasta on the oven, or chicken nuggets in the microwave. It makes me frickin’ insane, especially since I usually don’t require any large portion of food and am often content with a bagel and cream cheese and a salad for dinner. In addition, I cook meat only once or twice a month (chicken, sometimes steak if I’m having a craving). I make mainly pasta with vegies, some sort of Mexican (enchiladas, taco salad, or the other night I made the most amazing sweet potato/black bean burritos), or some sort of tofu-based dish. Right now I’m looking into lentil soups because my husband is having gum surgery today and will be eating only mushy foods for a while.
LikeLike
What counts as from scratch? I think that leftovers are still from scratch. Nothing magically changes in the stew, soup, lasagne, or braised pork chops just because you put them into the fridge overnight. But then again I”m thinking in terms of quality and cost. Certainly its a time saver on weekday night to be able to just heat up yesterday’s meal again (we do it about 4 nights a week).
LikeLike
Does half-assing enchiladas count as cooking from scratch? If you buy the sauce, that takes most of the work out of it. I wouldn’t count pasta with jarred sauce as “from scratch” unless there were meatballs or sausage. But by the time you broil the chicken breasts for the enchiladas, maybe that’s enough.
LikeLike
There’s no rule which says mom has to do all the cooking. I’ve started delegating salads to the teens, when they’re home. Our youngest enjoys watching cooking, and I’ve started letting him help. A child can peel vegetables, prepare beans, watch a pot, etc.
My husband cooks as well, so he takes over when I’m late coming home, or tired.
I think home ec would be a very valuable course for students. I learned much of what I do through experience, as my mother does not like to cook or keep house. Simple things like planning recipes several days in advance help tremendously. It’s a shame Home Ec is disappearing from schools, probably due to its association with women.
LikeLike
We pretty much never have frozen or prepared or processed food, so someone (more often my wife, but sometimes me) cooks from scratch maybe five nights a week. We have Chinese takeout or pizza or go to a restaurant maybe twice a week.
The foregoing is subject to a lot of qualifications. I’m counting reheated leftovers as cooked from scratch, provided that they were such originally. I’m counting frozen peas as cooked from scratch, since they are just as nutritious and just as tasty as “fresh” peas from the store, which would actually be two days old and starchier and less sweet than the frozen ones. Peas from your own pea patch would be better, but that isn’t feasible in NYC. I’m counting dried pasta as cooked from scratch, so long as the sauce is made from raw ingredients. And I’m counting French bread from the local store, although we didn’t bake it ourselves.
LikeLike
I agree about home ec being a good thing. I think it’s disappeared not just because it’s associated with women, but because schools have become academic pressure cookers (and an activity that doesn’t contribute to college admissions, like cooking) is unsupported by parents (at least in our environment).
LikeLike
“I can’t really tell the difference between fresh and frozen for most.”
I’ve heard many times that frozen veggies are generally higher quality.
LikeLike
Eh, I live in NYC, and I still cook from scratch. I like cooking but still, more often than not, this image comes to mind.
LikeLike
We cook a new dinner from scratch 3-4 times a week, and eat leftovers or semi pre-made twice a week. Married, both of us work, no kids.
LikeLike
ianqui – totally
According to the twitter friend who started this conversation – leftovers count and dried pasta counts as long as the sauce is homemade. I say that frozen veggies count.
Last night, I peeled and chopped a squash, which took about 30 minutes. Then roasted it. I made frozen peas and corn for the boys. We had salad, leftover rice (two kinds), and steak on the grill.
I’m trying to eat as few carbs as possible, so that means Steve and I need to eat A LOT of vegetables. We like to eat a lot of funky vegetables with lots of spice. The kids won’t touch it, so that’s why I end up with such complicated meals.
LikeLike
I’m try to eat as few carbs as possible
I just ate a whole pizza for lunch.
LikeLike
This week was 4 nights–but a lot of leftovers. We had frozen pizza last night. I made soup and lasagna and had leftovers from both. Much of the time, cooking is relaxing for me. I can shut out everything except the meal.
LikeLike
Last night, I peeled and chopped a squash, which took about 30 minutes. Then roasted it. I made frozen peas and corn for the boys. We had salad, leftover rice (two kinds), and steak on the grill.
Could you have used frozen chopped squash instead? The boys could take care of their own vegetables, if they object to yours?
Our kids don’t have sensory issues, so I’m a dictator when it comes to refusing to prepare separate dishes for separate people. I started catering to my first child’s wishes, but then we had a friend over to dinner. He grew up in a family with 7 children. He pointed out that it’s a meal at home, not a restaurant.
I try to vary the meal plan, so no one has to put up with a least favorite vegetable all the time. I also remind them that people with allergies have to be willing to eat a variety of foods, even foods they don’t like, as they cannot eat so many foods.
If we have leftover vegetables, they’re allowed to heat up and eat them instead, or make themselves a salad. I regard culinary skills as essential life skills for everyone. Some families encourage their children to make dinner. That calls for planning, instruction and supervision, but it could help to spread out the burden of meal preparation.
LikeLike
We definitely have the short order cook problem around here, and not just because of the kids. Eating out a lot exacerbates the problem, because when you eat out, you do get to pick your dish.
I do think that when any activity starts to feel to onerous, it’s a reason to change things up and re-order priorities. Otherwise burnout & unhappiness results. I do agree that happiness isn’t the prime goal of life (long term satisfaction and meaning, which is what eating healthy is about count, too), but figuring out which things are most meaningful to you are worthwhile, too.
LikeLike
I loathe with every fiber of my being doing dishes, so the deal is, I cook and my husband does dishes. I am ok with that. When we were childless, we had a deal where we traded off cooking every night, and takeout didn’t count (like, you couldn’t replace your night with takeout–you had to cook the next night anyway).
“dried pasta counts as long as the sauce is homemade”
HAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Sorry, I’m just not making homemade sauce. Never. Ever. I guess it doesn’t count as homemade when I make a baked ziti with dried pasta, jarred sauce, pre-shredded mozzarella, and frozen spinach? That doesn’t seem quite right.
I have a delish roasted squash-chickpea-tahini dish I make, but I refuse to peel and chop a butternut squash if I can help it. (When we have stuffed acorn squash, I make my husband cut the squash and scoop out the seeds.) I know it’s more costly, but I buy pre-chopped fresh squash. Also, the sweet potatoes I used to make sweet potato/black bean enchiladas the other night were already julienned for sweet potato fries–I just chopped them into cubes. Thank you, Stop and Shop.
Home ec was my favorite class ever in HS. I had a good group and we had *so* much fun cooking together.
LikeLike
Even though cooking is onerous at times (it’s much better with a glass of Chardy), eating is a priority around here. We like good food. We like to eat together at the table every day. So, cooking chores aren’t going anywhere.
My kids are actually pretty good eaters. They eat a wide variety of foods from all major food groups, but they don’t like it when those foods are mixed into one dish or if they are too heavily spiced. I’m not willing to eat boring foods. So, we make adjustments.
I’ll steam a whole cauliflower and serve it to the kids with a little salt and pepper. I take half of that cauliflower and saute it with hot pepper and curry powder. (It’s awesome.)
Another pro tip: I’ll cook a box of couscous with a boullion cube for the kids. Then I’ll saute an onion, add chickpeas, add cumin and curry, and add a portion of the couscous. The couscous is tastier and isn’t just a blob of carbs on the plate.
LikeLike
I cook from scratch 6-7 nights a week, though my standards may be a bit lower than yours, Laura. I will start with a jarred pasta sauce, then blend it with some fresh basil and parsley and a can of stewed tomatoes, for instance. And I’ll do breakfast for dinner once a week, things like that. Some nights I really hate cooking, but if I can decide what we’re having by noon each day and do some prep work while I make and eat my lunch, it’s not too terrible. And it’s ultimately very rewarding for me, because family dinner is a big priority for us too. (Well, minus my husband because he is never home before 8:00 pm.) I love to sit around the table, enjoy the food, quiz the kids about school, look at the globe we keep on the kitchen table, and read some scripture with the kids. (I realize this probably seems very weird to most readers here.) One or two evenings a week one of the four kids is away at an activity, but there are enough of us that we can still enjoy a family dinner without them.
By the way, Laura, if you simply chop the squash in half and roast it FIRST, it’s really simply to scoop out the soft roasted flesh afterward. I can’t imagine peeling and chopping butternut squash (which we love and eat a lot.)
LikeLike
Someone in my household (self, husband, 22-year-old son) cooks from scratch all but 2 or 3 nights a month (allowing for reheating of home-cooked meals). We sit down together on Saturday to write a meal plan (including breakfasts and lunches) and create a shopping list. My husband shops, my son cooks a little over half the meals, my husband most of the rest. I’m the only one working full time, so I insisted they take over meal prep a couple of years ago. I have been teaching them to cook the recipes of mine they enjoy eating, that I used to make when I made most of the meals. 🙂 I miss cooking, I enjoy it very much, but for medical reasons I have to eat dinner basically when I walk through the door at 6 pm and so don’t usually have time to cook.
We don’t make our own bread, ice cream, pasta, condiments, or bratwurst and the like, and we count frozen vegetables as “from scratch.” But really we mostly start with raw ingredients and cook them into food.
LikeLike
My mother raised us on Lean Cuisine, so I’m a convert to cooking Real Food. Forgive the zeal. She doesn’t like to cook, and doesn’t understand how anyone would want to cook.
I am shocked when I see how much people are willing to pay for certain prepared items. Pancake mixes, bread mixes, etc.—if convenience is an issue, it’s basically flour with leavening agents, salt, etc. added. I make my own mixes. If I make pancakes on a weekend morning, I’ll make 2 batches of the dry pancake ingredients, use one batch and set the extra batch aside in the cupboard for later. I do buy bagged salads at times, when we want a mix of lettuce, and I don’t want to deal with leftover leaves. We don’t dress our salads before serving, so any leftover salad can be used the next day.
I find the first time through a recipe is the most time consuming. Repeated recipes are easier, as I know what to expect. I can get other things done while cooking, once I know how much active prep work a recipe needs.
It is very freeing to have basic meals one can pull out on the really bad days. Sandwiches, cold cuts, etc. Having a fallback option helps me resist the temptation to buy prepared food. I know it’s a very popular option for many people–certainly the prepared food sections of the local supermarkets are large. We live far enough from restaurants that going out to eat doesn’t save time, once we factor in driving time.
I recently began outsourcing ironing dress shirts. The cleaners iron better and more quickly than I ever will.
LikeLike
“I recently began outsourcing ironing dress shirts. The cleaners iron better and more quickly than I ever will.”
After my husband got tenure, I went one step further and started buying wrinkle-free dress shirts.
LikeLike
“I am shocked when I see how much people are willing to pay for certain prepared items.”
My husband made homemade pancakes a few weeks ago because we ran out of mix and WOW. Homemade is so much better. So basically, I endorse this comment. 🙂 We also make our own bread now, too, though we’re not big sandwich people so we don’t need that much, plus we have a bread machine.
LikeLike
“I am shocked when I see how much people are willing to pay for certain prepared items.”
Ditto restaurant vs. home, for instance IHOP vs. home versions. My husband made French toast for dinner a few nights ago and I expect the total cost was somewhere around $4 for four people (approximately $2 worth of bread, $1 worth of eggs, $1 worth of milk). There should be more to dinner than just French toast, but it’s a very good start. Also, the ingredients are basic staples that should always be at home.
We normally eat at the college cafeteria for $4 a head during term (it’s a faculty/staff perk), so the three week Christmas break leaves us wondering once again what it is you do with that shiny thing with knobs in the kitchen.
LikeLike
I would say we average 5 to 6. Usually Friday nights is take out Mexican or a take and bake pizza. Twice a month we go to a real restaurant (brew pub, Mexican, Chinese, Thai)because it’s payday.
The rest of the time, it’s a protein – chicken, fish, turkey – and a couple of vegetables. I do lots of vegetable soups in the winter. I had meatballs for the meat eaters. It’s mostly from scratch though I will get a Whole Foods roasted chicken on the night I work late.
We only eat simple carbs once a week. I usually make waffles or these awesome blueberry buttermilk pancakes. We have heaps of bacon and all feel indulged and full for another week.
LikeLike
I eat food cooked from scratch about 6 nights a week, though close to half of that is leftovers, and sometimes I use tomato sauce, greens, soups, lentils, etc. that I’ve cooked and frozen (I’m in a CSA and try to make big batches of things when there are good vegetables around). But I’m single, so it’s easy.
LikeLike
Non-American, FWIW: we eat out maybe once a month, get pizza once more. The rest of the time I cook dinner, 7 days a week, husband cooks lunch and it’s chicken nuggets/eggs 50% of the time. All my neighbors also cook like this (from scratch, no canned/frozen beans, very little buying cakes or cookies, at least one meal a week is full-on multicourse with guests.)
LikeLike
Interesting. To add my data: we both work at a university, so our hours vary. When we get home, I cook while he walks the dog. No children yet. We eat from-scratch food 6 nights a week; I try to make enough for leftovers to have on busy nights; and I nearly always cook one-pot meals, concentrating on the vegetables. We’re trying to cut carbs down. I am unwilling to make little separate piles of protein, carb, vegetable, and salad. Too many pots and pans and prep work. We live on soups, curries, sautees, etc.
We both work at home through the evening, too, so frankly the dishes often sit untouched until the following morning. I find the clean-up more onerous than the cooking.
When we have children, we plan to raise them the way we were raised, with family dinner a priority. However, life will undeniably get busier, and I’m sure that something will have to give. It will be interesting to see WHAT.
LikeLike
My kids’ high school (I’m in Australia) has Food Tech, which has replaced Home Ec, as a compulsory subject in year 7, ie the first high school year here. It’s a combination of book-larnin’ about nutrition plus hands-on lessons on basic cooking techniques. I think it’s fantastic. The teenage boy would rather someone brought him stuff on a plate, but I know when push comes to shove he knows a few things about cooking from scratch.
I second what people have said about one-pot meals, so you can have the protein, carbs and veg all in one. Also, pesto – it’s like a basil smoothie, really. It’s a great easy standby.
LikeLike
I like your site. It brings back memories. Keep up the good work!
http://www.medzsupply.com
LikeLike
I try to only eat at home, since restaurants around me are overpriced and not that great. We eat pasta a lot (3-5 times a week), between my partner being Italian and us being grad students. I also do a lot of veggie stir fries and roasted vegetables, and sometimes omelettes or fritattas. We also eat a lot of beans & legumes in chili, lentil soup, or uninspired ‘Mexican’ food. I cook very little meat because it’s expensive, though I’ll get bacon to flavor vegetables. I’ve started cooking a lot of frozen fish because it’s cheapish at our fancy supermarket, and occasionally I’ll splurge on chicken. My partner gets pancetta and ground beef from the cheaper supermarket not near our house to make ragu. I also bake a decent amount, but usually nothing fancy, mainly biscuits, corn bread, cookies, brownies, and quick breads. We split cooking fairly equally, with my partner being in charge of pasta and pasta sauces, and me doing the rest of the cooking, baking, and usually meal planning, but him serving as sous chef when I need it.
I grew up baking a lot and helping my mom cook and making simple dishes by myself, and I also started cooking on my own at 15 when my mom stopped making regular meals, but I was on the meal plan in college and didn’t cook for two years when I lived with my ex-husband’s parents. I have decent cooking instincts, know ingredients pretty well, and got over the phase of making truly atrocious food as a teenager, but I don’t have a huge repertoire of recipes down and I don’t necessarily enjoy cooking every day. I do love baking, but I don’t have much time to really do a whole lot of involved stuff. If left on my own, I would eat a lot more bread and cheese or chocolate cake for dinner, but my partner has very strong feelings on what counts as dinner. We also do our best to bum free meals from the university, which isn’t that hard between dinners for guest speakers or nice receptions. Some weeks we can get a free meal 5 days in a row, and other times its weeks between free food.
LikeLike