What Food Item Do You Almost ALWAYS Make From Scratch??

Parent Cafe
81

<p>DH and I clean up the kitchen together. It doesn’t usually take that long. As for the rest of the house? I do pay someone else to do that. :)</p>

<p>I think it’s true - I like to cook and find it relaxing and I have a pretty discriminating palate, so most store bought stuff, tastes too salty or too preserved.</p>

<p>Cook’s Illustrated magazine has another method for cooking scrambled eggs that takes for ever. (Cook on high briefly then really slowly - with half and half.) I tried it once, luckily I actually don’t like their version better.</p>

<p>(BTW the fact that I subscribe to Cook’s Illustrated proves I’m a food nerd. :smiley: )</p>

82

<p>Awwww @gosmom, how cool that you like that recipe!!! I’m sometimes hesitant to post it because most people believe you have to use tahini , but like I said this is my moms way of making hummus and she is from Morrocco , so legit Mediterranean ! </p>

83

<p>Tomatillo sauce to go on my mostly-from-scratch brown rice/black bean/chicken enchiladas. I don’t make my own tortillas and use low sodium black beans from a can. Also make my own barbeque sauce.</p>

<p>I would love to try making my own peanut butter. My beloved peanut butter brand has had its second recall due to listeria in three years recently, and I have given it up and switched to another brand I do not like as well. </p>

84

<p>Popcorn. In a pan, oil, butter, salt. No microwave popcorn in our house!!! :D</p>

85

<p>I didn’t think about popcorn. We make ours with corn oil and flavocol with a whirlypop kettle to make imitation movie theater popcorn. We don’t bother getting popcorn at the theater anymore because it is not as good. If I turn my nose up at movie theater popcorn I can’t imagine what I’d think of the microwave pop secret I grew up on!</p>

86

<p>In no particular order, we make our own matzo balls, whipped cream, spaghetti sauce, mashed potatoes, latkes, soup,salad dressing, chocolate chip cookies, banana bread, brownies, popcorn,we do buy pizza dough at Trader Joe’s, use almost zero processed or prepared foods and so on…</p>

87

<p>^^Never microwave pop corn–do as you do JM. Pot, corn oil–then salt and butter.</p>

<p>I enjoy cooking and I find it relaxing–so does my H. We really enjoy high quality food so we spend a fair amount of time shopping for ingredients and coming up with menus. Most of our serious cooking is on the weekend. We share cleanup. During the week, I do more of the cooking but we always have food that I prepare from scratch. We almost never have take-out. If we don’t eat at home, we eat out, but tend to be picky. I hate going to a restaurant where the food is not as good as what we make. My H buys every cookbook he can and many gadgets. When we built our house we put in a big kitchen with lots of bells and whistles.</p>

88

<p>I will admit to an obsession with caramelizing onions. The method I use takes about two to three hours, but the only time you have to pay attention is when you’re cutting up the onions. On nights when I’m unsure what I’m cooking for dinner, I always start by caramelizing onions.</p>

<p>I start by chopping one or two large yellow onions, preferably local and preferably organic, into chunks about 1/2" on a side. (Once they’re chunked, you can can freeze the chunks. Sometimes I go nuts and do five or six onions at a time and freeze most of them.) </p>

<p>I coat my largest saute pan, which has a lid, with a thin layer of olive oil and throw the onions in and toss them in the olive oil until they’re pretty much all lightly coated. Then I put the gas burner on the lowest setting, put the lid on, and leave them alone for a few hours. About fifteen minutes before I want to start the rest of the meal, I take the lid off and turn the heat up to medium (more or less, depending on how much liquid the onions have produced). I stir occasionally while I’m prepping the rest of the meal. When they’re golden and most of the liquid has evaporated, they’re ready to use. (You can freeze them at this point too, but they don’t last as long.)</p>

89

<p>

A friend of a friend had the kitchen removed from her home after she retired. I can’t even imagine!!</p>

<p>I make most of our meals from scratch. It’s so easy to grill the meat (sometimes marinated, sometimes not) and fresh veggies, and add a side salad (usually store-bought dressing, but sometimes homemade). Stir fry is another easy meal made from scratch with many variations possible. My family loves my home-made lasagna (with or w/o meat, or a spinach version), although I do use boxed pasta and store-bought sauce, so maybe some would not consider this to be from scratch. Cooking from scratch is definitely on a spectrum. Think frozen lasagna that you throw in the oven , to my mostly-from-scratch lasagna, to lasagna with home-made sauce and pasta.</p>

<p>Whenever I make cakes, muffins, or brownies, they are from a box.</p>

90

<p>DH makes most dinners from scratch. But I make my weekly steel cut oats from scratch! Does that count?</p>

91

<p>@Pizzagirl‌…have you made homemade hummus? (The one from gosmom is my recipe too). I’ll never go back to store bought. I like being able to tweak the fat content by using less and adding more lemon, from my Meyer lemon tree in my back yard. Soooo good with warm pita bread, mini bell peppers, or even with grilled chicken. If you love hummus, try the recipe mentioned up thread by gosmom.</p>

92

<p>I’ve gone gluten free so I made most desserts from scratch. Almond cake with marzipan from scratch is pretty easy.</p>

93

<p>My D needs to be gluten free so I buy desserts at a gluten-free bakery. I wouldn’t be confident enough in my ability to do it myself and the time/effort ratio just isn’t worth it for me. But if people enjoy cooking / baking, more power to them! Just didn’t inherit that gene! </p>

94

<p>I make granola bars once a week. DH takes them to work every day. Also make hummus. My favorite thing to make is soup. I make a pot of soup once a week in the winter months. I cook dinner every night but one per week. I don’t buy processed foods…no crackers,chips,cookies, canned foods (with the exception of low sodium beans). </p>

95

<p>Rice pudding, potato salad (with cooked dressing), meatloaf, scalloped potatoes, stuffing, ham salad, chicken salad, chicken noodle soup (with corn), split pea soup, chicken croquettes, and mashed potatoes.</p>

96

<p>@dmd I do the same thing. :slight_smile: Always have caramelized onions in the freezer, and end up adding them to so many things. I also make and freeze pesto during the summer with basil from the garden. And marinara sauce. </p>

<p>Biscuits and pie crust, too, but we don’t have those that often. </p>

<p>Salad dressing with wonderful oils and vinegars from the specialty store is something that we’ve just started doing in the past five years or so. It’s so easy and so much better than bottled.</p>

<p>I’m also afraid I probably under-salt most things I make. D’s doctor told her that she needs to make an effort to get more salt in her diet and drink more water to get her low blood pressure up so she doesn’t get dizzy when she stands up quickly. (I guess the problem is not uncommon in tall teen girls.) </p>

97

<p>We’re big on fresh, local, and organic, so we make most meals from scratch. Some favorites: arroz con pollo, baked beans, Bavarian apple tort, beef-barley-kale soup, biscuits, breads (some), cakes, casseroles (some veg, some meat), butternut squash soup, cassoulet, chicken broth, chicken marsala, chicken parmesan, chicken pot pies, chicken noodle soup (except the noodles), chicken wild rice soup, chili, cioppino, clam chowder, cookies, coq au vin, corn chowder, creamed spinach, crepes, Cuban black beans, eggplant parmesan, feijoada (Brazilian black beans/pork/sausage casserole), French onion soup, fried rice, gravies, hash browns, jams, jambalaya, latkes, meatballs, meatloaf, Mexican beans (pinto and black), Mexican rice, moqueca de peixe (Brazilian seafood stew), minestrone soup, muffins, mushroom stroganoff, omelets, paella, pancakes (American, Swedish, and Finnish), pasties, pea soup, pesto, pies, pizza, pot roast, pumpkin bread, pumpkin soup, quiche, red beans & rice, risotto (various), roasted potatoes, roasted vegetables, salads, salad dressings, salsa, scalloped potatoes, scones, Senate bean soup, shrimp creole, spinach-dill-rice casserole with feta, stir-fry (various), stuffed cabbages, stuffed peppers, tabbouli. zucchini bread.</p>

<p>Oh, and mashed potatoes. And of course a variety of grilled, roasted, broiled, and pan-fried meats, chicken, fish, and shellfish, and mostly steamed or sauteed vegetables. and eggs boiled, poached, fried, or scrambled, the latter with or without additional ingredients (e.g., huevos a la Mexicana with onions, chilis, and tomatoes, coupled with refried beans, tortillas, and salsa).</p>

<p>Some things we consume regularly but don’t make from scratch: beer, butter, cheese, corn chips, dumplings, falafel (we use a mix from our local food co-op), ketchup, mayonnaise, mustard, olive oil, pasta (so I don’t count any pasta dish, though we make many), pickles, pita, sauerkraut, sausages, tortillas, wine.</p>

98

<p>Bread. Making it from scratch allows me to modify flavors with mixing different flours, ferments, and liquids (milk, butter, coconut milk, etc.). </p>

99

<p>I always make cranberry sauce from scratch. Actually, DS was put in charge of cranberry sauce when he was about 6–its very easy, colorful, and fun when they start popping.</p>

100

<p>Cranberry sauce is sooo easy to make from scratch and is much better than anything canned. The difference is huge.</p>