General Chat

Read a letter in today's Telegraph from a Lady( the titled kind) who said does no one have a Sunday Roast,served cold on Monday,rissoles or burgers on Tues,Shepherds pie Weds.
Most weeks we have a Sunday roast,cold on Monday,and one of the above and a nice sandwich with a salad on Tues..I find it economical and OH doesn't complain.
I make scones quite a bit as they are so easy,and I don't measure.OH has taken a fancy to banana bread as well.
Never buy ready meals,and always use the stock from chicken for a good broth with loads of veg.
I too like my slow cooker also my pressure cooker.
Meat and potato pie is a favourite with my grown up grandchildren(and my little g.grandchildren,)but these days I cheat and buy frozen puff pastry.
Made a lot 2 weeks ago for 17 of us at a family celebration on the day they arrived as they all came different times,and it is something that doesn't spoil.
Most had 2 helpings.
There is nothing like home cooking.

Jean -- thanks for that idea. It never occurred to me to put cauliflower in the macaroni and cheese. Duh. I do make it occasionally (high-fibre, lower-carb whole wheat macaroni ...) and always wonder what I could do with it to follow my One More Vegetable rule -- and that is absolutely perfect! Next on the list of what to spend my Saturday morning filling the freezer with, that is.

If you're counting carbs, a great substitute for potato is cauliflower. You can mash it with cheese and sour cream and also "rice" it in the food processor for curries, chillis etc. Sometimes it's really hard to tell the difference.

I also use soy beans for peas and strips of summer squash for noodles for Stroganoff

Rose

Ann of Green Gables,

I'll have a cutting of one of your appendages please...a mastectomy last year has left me rather lop-sided.

Dee
:(((

If only I could donate some to you hun I would, believe me - please god I never have to have a mastectomy or I'd certainly have a very severe list to starboard!! And good on you Dee for retaining your sense of humour about what must have been a most traumatic experience - you have my undying admiration, really you do

Ann XXX

[by the way someone else has pm'd me asking for some cuttings!!]

this thread has given us all some excellent culinary tips by the way [I did say tips and not tits!!]

Hello Jean,

I make home made pies, lasagne, soups, casseroles,chips,fishcakes,burgers, meat balls, quiches,anything really, love to cook and love home made.


I do lots of veggie stuff,


Caz xxx

I think I was the only one in my flat at uni who actually did proper cooking in the last two years - everyone else seemed to live on dehydrated pasta and sauce just-add-water meals and takeaways and cup-a-soups and Pot Noodles.

But I used to do things like oven-baked fish with mashed potatoes and peas, or braising steak or chicken casserole. Even made my own bread sometimes and I know I had a go at scones and trifle now and then.

are you allowed to say that these days!!!!!

good for you Kate - obviously well brought up by your Mum!!

I think I must have been, Ann - like I say, my flatmates were baffled as to why I was prepared to cook a meal from scratch every night (although sometimes I did - very occasionally - go to the chippy if I had a lot of work to do) and I was baffled by the fact that they didn't.

There was one night when they did cook on a big scale though - decided to have a dinner party for about eleven people and didn't tell me until half an hour after I'd put a casserole in, then wanted to know how long I'd need the oven for!

I think maybe we take our approach to cooking from what we grow up with - my mum always made meals from scratch and my paternal gran did, too - Dad said they used to go to Mass on a Sunday, come home then Gran made the dinner (for two adults and six children), they went to Benediction and then out to visit my grandad's elderly aunts in their nursing home. So I don't think there's much of a "fast food" approach to cooking in our house!

I am one of the old school (70 +) and do love cooking and baking Its just the way things were We grow most of our vegetables fill the freezer with excess summer produce so do have stuff on hand Baking Muffins Bisc Cakes Own Bread( but cheat with breadmaker)
Not the need to bake often but I love nothing better than a big bake up for family or stalls etc I did do baking in Health food shop for 10 years and always said Id have done it even if werent being paid!!! I loved it most days
Margaret

nice cauli cheese,add thin sliced bits of onion,handful of peas,sliced tomatoes on top and bake in oven,,,nice with fish or chicken, or ham cold or hot meat &jacket spud,,,, chunk of crusty bread,,,,,,,,,,(I dont like chicken)

I did a nice bit of gammon on Sunday (soaked then boiled with some chopped veg then drained and finished off in the oven wrapped in foil with pineapple slices). We had it hot with veg and parsley sauce (home made).
Yesterday I was out for the evening so quickly warmed through some spare cooked potatoes and we had them with some of the cold gammon and quickly microwaved veggies when I got back.
Tonight I cooked some vol-au-vent cases and made a filling from chopped gammon and mushrooms. they were nice with cornish new potatoes, courgettes
and carrots.
I think I can get another meal with the gammon left overs but might have something different for a change tomorrow and save what's left in the freezer to add to an omelette or something another time.

I make a lot of stuff from scratch and try to freeze portions for when I have to be out and get in late.

I make soups, casseroles, toad in the hole, chicken pies, fish cakes and all sorts but we do sometimes have ready made frozen foods like turkey steaks.

We hardly waste any food.

Sue

really easy and tasty

carrot and corinder soup

i don't weigh i just add what i think but the proper receipe is

1 1b of carrots
1 large onion
tablespoon of cooking oil
teaspoon of coriander
2 pints of vegetable stock


roughly chop carrots and onions


fry carrots and onions add stock bring to boil, simmer until carrots are soft blitz in food processer

i'm naughty and add a pot of single cream .

try gammon cooked in coca cola and covered in brown sugar heaven

i just chuck cubed potatoes, sliced leeks, i peel carrots or slice um with the peeler, in slithers, and chuk um in a pan of water with stock cube, and some gravy granuels to thicken it,
they like that kind of soup,

i used to make chicken pie when kids were little from sunday left over chicken, slice up chicken, make white sauce with lemon in it,
and poor in homemade pastry, hubby moaned after while he didnt like home made pie,
me thinks he fibbed

I only ever use wholewheat pasta and brown rice although sometimes I add in a handful of the multicoloured pasta, tomato, spinach and plain one, the twisty one.
I made a huge batch of savoury mince on Saturday, got some lean mince reduced cos of use by date, and added tins of chopped tomatoes, dented tins so reduced, a reduced dented tin of chopped mushrooms, and same of carrots, some frozen chopped onions and same of peppers( always handy to have in freezer to add to omlettes or anything really) and hey presto, dinner for Saturday and two lots to freeze for another meal.
Really good to come in and defrost that while cooking pasta for a quick and filling dinner. On Saturday I added some left over spinach leaves to the mince at the last moment.
I always make sure we have our 5 a day or more.
My downfall is granary bread and potatoes, I love boiled new pototoes.
Lizx
Lizx

I too have hot hands and can not handle pasty.
Not an excuse, but a professional dilema :))

Deb

I make most of my own food. I know what goes in it then and it tastes much nicer. Tonight we are having chicken and sausage rissotto. Very tasty. Usually I will make a bit extra and freeze it.

My son is at uni and he seems to be the only one that cooks his own meals and does not use ready prepared meals. He reckons it is a lot cheaper and much nicer. He says the smell of home cooked food gets his flat mate jelous.

Jane