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Post by scrapmaven on May 25, 2016 22:28:01 GMT
My grandmothers were "from scratch" cooks and bakers. My mother was a little less so, but still mostly from scratch and she really baked wonderfully. I prefer from scratch for myself, but I will use jars of sauce, too. I've never canned anything, but my mother canned jams anytime she could get fresh berries. However, my baking is always from scratch. I refuse to use a box.
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Post by Karene on May 25, 2016 22:31:28 GMT
My mom was a good cook. She always followed a recipe. She was great at organising family togethers that lasted a few days. We always had homemade cookies and cakes. When I was younger, she used to use some packages like Minute Rice and Kraft Pizza, and I never cared for rice or pizza until I had the real thing later (almost in my 20s). We also used to have very standard vegetable like peas, corn, carrots, (frozen mixed vegetables, Yuck!). I didn't get cauliflower, broccoli etc until my 20s either. It was just popular to eat those in the 70s. But she had some great recipes that I treasure and make regularly.
My mother in law never followed a recipe and makes delicious stuff too. She is German and cooks as she learned. Most things are fried, but good. To her, feeding her family is showing her love so she always wants people to eat up. Unfortunately, that is way my husband has always been overweight.
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Post by birukitty on May 25, 2016 22:39:16 GMT
My Mom is German, came to this country when she was 20 years old. So she cooked a lot of German meals. She also has ADD, so her patience, well let's just say she has very little. Because of this she never taught me how to cook or even wanted me or my sisters in the kitchen with her. It was always, "I can do it faster myself". To this day I'm trying to get some of her recipes for German foods down on paper to keep and she won't write them down, but will invite me into her kitchen and will now say "watch me while I cook it" and I'll write everything down then.
Anyway, so I learned to cook on my own. From a book. One of my father's great lines is "you can learn to do anything from a book". It's true. I've seen him do it over and over again. He built a 12 foot wooden sailboat in the backyard that sailed beautifully from a book. It started our life long love affair of sailing.
I learned to cook from a few basic books like Betty Crocker and have expanded greatly since then. 3 or 4 years ago when I began my journey to healthier eating I got rid of processed foods and began cooking almost everything from scratch, not using any mixes, pouches or pre made things like taco mixes or cake mixes. I cut out recipes from the Real Simple magazine, followed the 100daysofrealfood blog and got more recipes off the internet. I think that's when I really became a better cook. Once I became vegan 2 years ago and started cooking out of the Forks over Knives cookbook that skill really came in handy. I always make a recipe as it was written once, but afterwards I now tweak it to better suit my taste (less spice and so on).
Debbie in MD.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 25, 2016 22:39:48 GMT
If it wasn't frozen, canned or in a box, she pretty much didn't know what to do. Her meatloaf was almost always dry and burnt. Grilled food was usually bland. Shake and bake was her go-to for pork. The only thing I think she got right was her chicken fried rice. Even then, she used canned chicken.
I'm somewhere between from-scratch and completely box/can, closer to from-scratch than canned though. Our freezer is pretty bare save for a few back ups and food that teenage boys like. I don't have a lot of canned goods or box mixes in the cupboards.
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Montannie
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Jun 25, 2014 20:32:35 GMT
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Post by Montannie on May 25, 2016 22:50:43 GMT
My mom was an indifferent cook -- she learned from another indifferent cook, my grandma. Both preferred reading to cooking. Mom was a stay at home mom, and was a much better baker -- the cookie jar was always full. Also, my dad was adverse to trying anything exotic, he was strictly a meat-and-potatoes guy, with the occasional serving of canned green beans, corn, or saurkraut. Oh, they did like the "chinese" food in a can with the crispy noodles, also sold in a can. And the occasional pizza, which we thought was yukky (they were sly parents). We kids began eating "exotic" food in junior high when we moved to public school from catholic elementary school and began eating "hot lunch." We were exposed to tacos and pizza there. Our menu at home expanded accordingly, as mom relinquished occasional dinner cooking to my sister and I. I am an adventurous, if mediocre, cook. I tried to master chicken paprikash all winter. My mom still bakes at nearly 91, and she bakes gluten free for me. ![:)](//storage.proboards.com/5645536/images/MNrJDkDuSwqIMVw33MdD.jpg)
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jayfab
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Post by jayfab on May 25, 2016 23:03:34 GMT
My mom was a pretty ok cook but a super baker, and she really enjoyed making dishes for holidays or events. She cooked a lot of what I consider comfort food. A lot with no recipes and I learned a ton from her. She could be adventurous sometimes too.
I have to give her credit since she worked in a Chevy plant full time while raising 4 kids and cooked every dang day. She did a pretty good job. We never had a washer or dryer growing up so Saturdays were spent at the laundry mat. I can't even imagine.
I spent a good amount of time growing up with my Auntie. She was a very basic/old fashioned cook, but boy, her garden was awesome. Just good homey food. She canned a bunch and made bread every Friday. She taught me a ton!
Nowadays I'm pretty adventurous and can cook or bake anything. I can make up a dish without a recipe no problem. Most times recipes are just a suggestion.
fun thread!
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Post by mollycoddle on May 25, 2016 23:16:59 GMT
Definitely scratch. She made applesauce, bread, cookies, pies and cakes from scratch. She was a very good cook, although a bit bland for my tastes now.
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gsquaredmom
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Jun 26, 2014 17:43:22 GMT
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Post by gsquaredmom on May 26, 2016 0:12:24 GMT
A not very good one
But she made a great pie crust
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Post by joblackford on May 26, 2016 0:59:50 GMT
Mum cooked every night (we very rarely ate out) and it was usually mashed potato, some frozen veg, and some kind of meat. Sometimes the veg was different - cauliflower hidden under cheese sauce or something like that. I hated all of the veggies regardless. My father didn't like to eat rice or pasta more than once a week (but he'd happily eat mashed potatoes every night! I don't understand that). Mum liked it when we finally had access to convenience foods like powdered mix for beef stroganoff or scalloped potatoes. She didn't have the time or the energy to be very creative, but she was brought up with good old fashioned cooking and baking skills. She knew how to make jam and stuff like that, but it was something she did for fun, not on a regular basis every year.
Dad was a more creative cook, but he didn't have to do it every day. He would walk in from a long day at the office and expect to have a hot dinner to eat (in a nice way - that was just their agreed upon division of labor). He would dabble in the kitchen and make delicious things for weekend meals. His food was much more to my tastes.
I'm a decent cook, sometimes more creative, sometimes I just cook simple food because we have to eat. I hardly ever eat mashed potatoes though! I can eat rice twice a day every day but I feel like I had my recommended lifetime allowance of potato before I turned 25.
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Post by lisae on May 26, 2016 1:06:08 GMT
Mother cooked dinner 5 nights a week from a rotating group of menus of very simple things. She didn't use recipes except maybe for her meatloaf. When I left home over 30 years ago, she dropped off cooking dramatically and now might cook once a week in the winter. I cook for my parents at least once a week and otherwise they go out. In her defense, they ran a business that was open over 60 hours a week and it was just the two of them so cooking was not something she could spend a lot of time on if she wanted to and she didn't.
If she baked it was something from a mix. My mother never made a cake from scratch until just a few years ago, has never baked a cookie in her life and still makes pies with bought crust, jello pudding mixes and Cool Whip.
She has many talents. None of them require a stove.
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perumbula
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Jun 26, 2014 18:51:17 GMT
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Post by perumbula on May 26, 2016 1:10:36 GMT
Pretty average. She did mostly from scratch but with lots of recipes involving cans of cream soup. Church cookbook kind of stuff. She did a good job of what she did, but it wasn't too adventurous. Mexican food was either tacos (mostly store bought shells as I got older) or enchiladas made with a packet and flour tortillas. Italian was lasagna made with canned Parmesan and cottage cheese or spaghetti made with cheap canned sauce. She was pretty good at stir fry though. Always done with fresh veggies from the garden and no deep fried meat like the cheap Chinese restaurants do. We didn't have a lot of money and we had a big family so we filled up on starches: potatoes bought from the farmer, rice bought in 50lb bags, store brand pasta, etc. She canned her own veggies every year from the garden. My dad loves salsa on everything so he would make about 50 quarts of that every summer and use it throughout the year. They grew a huge garden. (which is why I hate gardening today. They didn't have time to work with us, we were just assigned a certain number of rows to weed every day. It was boring and painful.) One of the most unique dishes my mom made was what she and my dad called oyaku domburi. Which I have found isn't much like the real thing. They cooked julienned onion in a lot of chicken broth made with cheap bouillon cubes then served it over white rice. Sometimes they dropped an egg into it. We got the onions for free because they fell off the back of the farm trucks near our house and mom would send us out the gather them up. That was the end of the month meal. ![(rofl)](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/rofl.png) She's always been pretty good at baking but isn't very adventurous there either. What she does make is great though.
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Post by k8smom on May 26, 2016 1:13:26 GMT
My mom could whip up delicious meals out of thing air! I wish I was a tenth of the cook she was, she was incredible!
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Post by txdancermom on May 26, 2016 1:25:02 GMT
my mother and maternal grandmother were so so cooks, just the basics, but nothing fancy - if either did a cake it was from a box. My other grandmother was a from scratch cook.
I like to cook from scratch, but I rarely take the time. My ds is definitely a from scratch cook, he loves being in the kitchen and trying all kinds of things. dd likes to try new recipes and is adventurous, but not as much as her brother.
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mlana
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Jun 27, 2014 19:58:15 GMT
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Post by mlana on May 26, 2016 1:34:47 GMT
I wonder what my girls will say about me. I'll admit I am not a great cook these days. I could be but my DH is so particular about foods and what he will eat and not eat, no leftovers, no frozen foods, nothing too spicy, everything covered in gravy, he prefers stuff like canned soup to homemade, etc. He won't discuss what to eat until half an hour before dinner so I can't really prep either. I get no pleasure or satisfaction from cooking. NONE. It is a massive source of stress in my life these days. I do whatever I can to get something in their bellies that doesn't create a lot of mess (because I have to clean up everything too). Sucks because I used to love to cook. OMG!!!! Our husbands MUST be long lost brothers!!!!! For 26 years, this was my husband. We fought constantly over food - him because it was a control issue, me because I had 2 kids to feed and a budget to stick to. He wanted to eat out every night because he liked deciding what he wanted on the spur of the moment. He loved loved loved frozen dinners from the grocery store, but turned his nose up at food I had cooked and frozen. My kids thought he was ridiculous and told him that a lot, but he didn't really care. When our last child left for college, I offered him half the money I had budgeted for us to eat on each week and the freezer over the garage fridge to keep his food in. At that point, he wasn't paying any attention to his diabetes and I was just so damn tired of the fights, I just didn't care anymore. He was delighted! Couldn't have been happier. That lasted less than 3 weeks. Then he came home to find I had a pot of red beans cooking and he wasn't invited to dinner. LOL A night or two later he came home to my homemade chicken nachos - again, no invitation to dinner. By the time he walked thru the door to the smell of chili, he was ready to talk compromise. I wasn't; I was really enjoying being able to cook whatever I wanted or not cook at all since I had a freezer full of homemade frozen dinners. I held out until he'd eaten everything in his freezer, had spent all of his money, and had realized he couldn't even make a PBJ because he had no bread.... I made him the same offer I had made him and the kids years before (the kids had taken me up on it, he had not). We made a list of meals I could make that we knew he liked. From this list, we would choose four meals each week; the fifth meal would be a new recipe and he could decide whether we added it to the list after he tried it. He was welcome to send me recipes he found that he thought would be good. We didn't assign a meal to each night; instead, I prepped the ingredients for each meal on Sunday or Monday, then I could ask him that morning what he'd like that night. We both agreed that he didn't have to eat the same meal within a 2 week period, but he would eat leftovers that I had frozen. This worked really well for us. Eventually, we worked out a pattern of each week's menu containing 1 pasta meal, 1 beef meal, 1 chicken meal, and 1 stew or soup. After a couple months and one particularly fine batch of red beans, rice and sausage, DH discovered he liked leftovers! Once I got him on a regular schedule of eating at home, I started making the meals more diabetes friendly, with less salt and prepackaged ingredients. We usually have weekends' breakfasts out, but he will gladly eat leftovers or frozen dishes for lunch and dinner. Would any of this help you and your DH come to an agreement? Would he be willing to compromise if he got to help pick the menu and you had things prepped so you could put the meals together fast? I can tell you that doing prep once a week is a huge timesaver. Even if you don't know exactly what you'll be cooking, having onions, peppers, etc., as well as some meats cleaned, cut and ready to go makes a huge dent in how fast you can get a meal on the table. Or you could give him his 'share' of the food budget and set him free. I think the fact that I stopped catering to him and went my own way had as big an impact on my DH changing his mind as did the smell of his favorite dishes. there was just something about knowing that I hadn't asked his opinion and didn't care to hear it that made him realize he really did want 'family' meals. Good luck. You have my utmost empathy!
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mlana
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Post by mlana on May 26, 2016 1:53:30 GMT
My mom and grandmother were only 16 years apart in age and the fact that my mom was really smart was obvious from early on. I think she intimidated my grandmother. Nornie, my grandmother, was a wonderful cook. She could take nothing and make a wonderful meal out of it. She did not let Mom in her kitchen though; Mom's younger (and really dumb) sister helped Nornie in the kitchen and Mom did the ironing.
Mom had to teach herself to cook after she was married and my dad was pretty good about eating her mistakes and not telling everyone about them. By the time I got old enough to start learning, Mom had a full time job and most of our meals were from boxes. I learned to cook by watching my grandmothers. Gma Melba was a renowned boarding house cook and her specialties were chicken and dumplings, biscuits, and fried apple pies. Nornie's most requested dishes were gumbo, red beans and rice, and coconut pie. Gma Melba only cooked when the whole family gathered and Nornie only came to town twice a year, so I was lucky that they both spent time making sure I knew how to make their dishes.
When I was about 12, my brother, Mom, and I had all put on a lot of weight eating all the convenience foods. My doctor told Mom that our diet was not only responsible for our weight problem but also for my acne. Mom decided to do something about it and she joined Weight Watchers. What a difference that made in our lives!
Mom attended the meetings and brought home recipes for us to try. I remember the 3 of us sitting at the table and deciding which ones to try on what days. At first Mom did all the cooking, and she seemed to really enjoy it. When her work schedule got crazy, she started letting me do bits and pieces of the cooking until I had a pretty good idea of how to cook. She didn't exactly teach me, but she did show me.
As an adult, Nornie and I were very close, and we spent a lot of time cooking together. She loved to try new recipes or new dishes. Mom brought her up here and I took her to our local Asian market and she was in heaven! So many new foods and spices to try. I sent her home with a cooler full of anything that struck her fancy every time she came. It was fun being able to share that with her. I really miss her and that sharing. As I type, I have a crockpot full of red beans - I sure wish they were hers.
Now I cook for my mom. She comes and stays with DH and I a lot and I cook. When she leaves, I send her home with a cooler full of meals frozen in Food Saver bags. Each one will usually make 2 meals for her - except lasagna. She says she makes a pig and eats the whole batch in one sitting.
Marcy
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Post by katlady on May 26, 2016 3:03:22 GMT
My mom is a good cook. She doesn't make basic ingredients from scratch (like tomato paste or pasta) and she doesn't do any canning, but she doesn't use prepared foods from bottles or boxes either. My mom worked full-time and came home and made dinner. It was usually something quick along the stir-fry route like meats and fresh veggies cooked together. When she made spaghetti, it was homemade sauce but she did use canned tomato paste/sauce. She hasn't baked pies in a while, but she would make the crust from scratch. And she loves to make cookies. A frozen TV dinner was a special treat for me! I thought is was so cool to have my food in their own little compartments, and my favorite was beans and franks. ![:D](//storage.proboards.com/forum/images/smiley/grin.png)
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moodyblue
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Jun 26, 2014 21:07:23 GMT
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Post by moodyblue on May 26, 2016 3:28:59 GMT
I grew up on a farm. My mom grew up "in town" but became a farm wife. She had a huge garden, we had fruit trees and chickens and even a milk cow when I was young. She canned and froze, made applesauce and jams, pasteurized the milk, baked bread and cookies, processed the chickens. The only thing we didn't do was eat our own meat from the hogs and cows; she bought meat, usually more ground beef than you'd get if we had butchered our own.
My mom was a pretty decent cook, but not adventurous in flavors, so we didn't have anything like Mexican or Chinese food at all. We didn't have much money so we never ate out. A big treat was a fast food hamburger and shared fries, or when my grandmother would treat us to lunch out at a local buffet or the counter at the five and dime store. Ironically, we kind of liked the soft white store bread because it was so different from our usual, and packaged cookies were sometimes a treat, just because they were a change. We'd get those sometimes, or my grandmother would have them when we were at her house.
My paternal grandmother was a good old-fashioned farm cook. She made wonderful baked mac and cheese, cinnamon rolls, and pies - custard, raspberry, peach. She continued to bake rolls and cookies well into her mid-90's, even when she only had an efficiency-sized kitchen.
My maternal grandmother I remember most for decorating birthday cakes for us. She was more into the crafting end of things than cooking when I was growing up. I think she got away from cooking much because my grandfather travelled for work when I was a kid, so she had more convenience foods and packaged cookies and things like that.
My mom used to have my sister and me cook one meal a week. I tended toward the easier things and didn't have much interest; I much preferred reading. My sister, however, LOVES, and has always loved cooking and baking. She did a lot more than I did, and when my mom's). food allergies became a bigger problem it was my sister who figured out a chocolate cake recipe made from rice flour, and things like that (my mom was allergic to wheat).
My mom is now 87, widowed, and still cooking and baking. She even makes bread without salt for my brother who is on dialysis and needs to watch carefully what he eats. She no longer cans and doesn't freeze much in the way of fruits or vegetables; for the smaller amount she needs, it's easier to buy the stuff.
My brother didn't do much cooking as a child, but when he got married (at 42), he started to get interested and does all his own cooking and makes things for family gatherings. He did the dressing for Thanksgiving, based on her recipe, because my mom was in the hospital. He likes cooking.
My sister lives to cook and bake and does almost everything from scratch. She's even made her own soft cheeses. She works at perfecting recipes and tries lots of different techniques.
I sometimes like to cook, but when school is in session I rarely have the time or energy to do much. We don't eat out as much as other people I know, but I will use convenience foods, or buy pre-made stuff. My husband does like the pot roast I make, and things like chili and spaghetti. He cooks certain things - French toast, pancakes, waffles, burgers, steaks, etc., but I make the sides when he grills. I'm not good about prepping things for the week or having a meal plan. Sometimes, like last week when I had something going on every evening, it's "forage for yourself" for both of us. Toast or cereal for dinner don't bother me or my husband, and generally speaking, he isn't very picky. Sometimes quick and easy are the main criteria at our house.
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my3freaks
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Jun 26, 2014 4:10:56 GMT
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Post by my3freaks on May 26, 2016 4:18:52 GMT
My Mom is a decent cook, but a very reluctant one. It is a necessarily evil in her eyes. She says her dream house would have no kitchen. ![](http://i1168.photobucket.com/albums/r481/2peasrefugees/Smilies/laugh.jpg.gif) She is a nurse, and worked full time, and came home and cooked dinner every night. Nothing fancy or labor intensive, but a pretty healthy, home-cooked meal. I do not enjoy cooking either. My husband does most of the cooking in our house. I cooked most of the time when my kids were little, but my husband took over when I had my 1st back surgery and it's just stuck. He enjoys it much more than I do also. I usually plan what we're having, and always do the shopping. I think he'd rather starve than go grocery shopping.
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