Cooking a lost art?

[NicoleLJ]

mmmmmm my house smells of chocolate cake. I am making a sour cream chocolate cake with sour cream chocolate icing from scratch. Amazing any batter got into the pans. I wanted to eat it all it was so good and I am not a huge fan of batter. Later tonight I am making a cheesy tuna casserole. My fiance's favorite dish. Yesterday I made 2 huge batchs of turkey soup to freeze from a turkey I roasted the night before and the day before that I made a hamburger soup to freeze.

My fiance is always bragging to his friends and family about how I cook everything from scratch and rarely use recipes. They all seem to have the same comments about it. One they love to enjoy my cooking and baking. Two they wish their spouses cooked or enjoyed cooking.

This always leads to a huge discussion that more and more people are chosing to either eat out, get take out, get premade meals from the super market or preboxed meals. Even baking is mainly done from box kits now. His family and friends say it is becoming a lost art when it comes to cooking anything from scratch. People are prefering to choose the quick and easy. I was wondering if others had the same impression.

Personally I do almost all my cooking from scratch. I find cooking to be a stress reliever. I love to experiment and I love watching people enjoy my food. Is this really becoming a rareity in the every day home now?

[caseysmom]

I still enjoy cooking, unfortunately I also enjoy eating. I am not a very good baker though.

Its a shame how much people go out to eat, it is so much healthier to cook at home most of the time.

[NicoleLJ]

Cheaper too. And I find much tastier. My fiance works at a department store and on lunch break everyone goes to fast food places. He heats frozen meals that I made him. When he is heating it everyone is begging him for some. He says he much prefers the meals I make and freeze over fast food any day.

[Grace]

I don't do baking - and I don't buy bakery products at the store.

I do love to cook from scratch though. I love doing Baked Beans - baking them all day. The house smells so good. Most of my cooking is from scratch.

I do buy some frozen dinners - for those nights when we are on-our-own without leftovers. I'll have a salad - he has a frozen dinner.

[Karen]

I think it is just as much that time is a lost item these days, as cooking does take some planning ahead - one needs to have ingredients on hand, and some time to accomplish! When both parents in a couple work, for example, by the time everyone gets home, there's not time to make much in the way of food, or energy, if one has not done the shopping and prep ahead of time.

[Freedom]

I love to cook, most of my friends find it "intriguing," lol. Yup, the ready made supermarket meals are a big thing.

A year or so back, there was an email, you sent a recipe to the last person on the list, deleted that name, added your name to the top of the list, and sent it on to 10 people. Idea was, you would receive recipes from folk you didn't know, so most likely the recipes would be new to you. I was SO excited!

I got replies from all 10 people, they don't cook, they had no recipes, were not sending it on, and what did I think this was the 1950's?
******

Funny, I made a chocolate cake tonight as well! I managed to do something I have never done - poured batter into the first cake pan and then proceeded to drop the bowl into it! SPLASH! (or should it be splat?) Batter over me, the counter, the coffee maker, the tile backsplash, man, I haven't made a mess like that in YEARS! He he. We still had a 2 layer cake; but it was a lot lower than normal.

[slick]

I am a rotten cook. I try and try but I can even botch up a slow cooker recipe. These days with working such long hours, I don't have time to cook from Mon-Fri. Instead, I take salads and fruit to work and when I get home it's workout time then to bed. I never get fast food or packaged food. When the mood hits me, I'll cook up a batch of something and freeze it for lunches/early dinners. Of course, not having anyone to cook for but me doesn't give me much incentive to be experimental.

[Medusa]

I love to cook but I cook simple meals. I refuse to cook with or eat canned vegetables except tomatoes. There's something about chopping onions and garlic and filling the kitchen w/that aroma that gets me excited. When I was working long hours, I'd cook meals for the week ahead and the house would smell like a restaurant. I've been alone for so many years but I'm just now learning how to cook in smaller portions. Even if I buy a pot roast I cut it in half and get two meals out of it. My friends like coming to my house b/c they know that I'll always have soup or stew or sauce of some kind that I can reheat, toss a salad and add some crusty bread and they've got a good home cooked meal. I do on occasion succumb to eating a frozen pizza or some other frozen food but that's usually on a really busy day when I don't have too much time and the fridge and cupboards are low.

[happylabs]

Hey Nicole that is awesome! Keep on cooking and don't listen to your friends. I love to cook as well. As a little girl I sat on the kitchen counter and watched my mom cook everything until I was old enough to cook. I still love to cook but my kids are grown and I am single again so I don't cook much during the week. On the weekends I try to have friends or family over.

You should try the chocolate cake recipe on the Hershey's cocoa can. BEST chocolate cake ever. So moist. This is the cake I make for almost every occasion and it is so easy.

I hope your fiance appreciates you. You know what they say...the quickest way to a man's heart is through his stomach.

[anna_66]

Your family is very lucky!

I really do like to cook and bake but I never have time, and when I do I don't feel like it because I'm so tired.
So unfortunately we end up doing quick food or take out.

[wombat2u2004]

How lucky you all are !!!! In England, all they eat is SPAM.
My wife Karen hates cooking, always has.
So I do a lot of it now.

[ChrisH]

I cook the majority of my meals from scratch, stir-frys, pasta dishes, curry, chilli, casseroles, chicken/beef/pork with mashed/roast potatoes & veg. I live alone and with things like soups, casserole, curry & chilli dishes I deliberately make too much and freeze the excess so I've usually a meal to hand if I don't feel like cooking.

I must admit though that I'm not a big fan of fish and when I do buy any it is already frozen and covered in breadcrumbs. The exception being fresh salmon because it can be bought in small quantities and is nice for a treat.

The other things I buy frozen are pizzas and beefburgers. I don't eat them very often and to me it's not worth the trouble to make from scratch.

I don't make my own spaghetti, or other pasta, either again too much trouble. The dried is so much easier.

And I don't bake, that is something I just cannot master. I don't eat pies or cake often, or desserts if it comes to it, so it hardly matters.

[pomtzu]

For years and years and years, when I was still married and the kids were growing up, I cooked a big meal from scratch EVERYDAY, with the exception of Saturday when I took a break. This was after coming home from working a full time job Monday-Friday. Takeout was never an option, nor were boxed or frozen meals. I was brought up in a home where my mother did the same, altho she didn't work, and I never questioned doing it any differently.

Now I've earned a rest - one big meal cooked on Sunday, and of course holidays too. Residing in a home with son, DIL and grandson, no one ever agrees on what they would like, or even when they will be home to eat it, so I usually fix myself a decent lunch and forgo much of anything to eat at night, other than a light snack.

And right now the house is filled with the smell of a pineapple casserole that I just took out of the oven - made from scratch of course!

[sirrahbed]

Good for you doing all that home cooking Nicole!! While I don't cook every day like I used to, there are still fewer pleasures as satisfying as filling the house with the smell of a good meal and watching people eat what I cook No packaged noodle will ever replace rolled out dumplings and no can of soup can replace a pot of simmered soup on the stove!! I do have many convenience foods that I use though - my newest favorite being packaged frozen potatoes (Ore Ida I think...) that I nuke in the microwave for mashed potatoes.

[Cataholic]

I love to cook.

It depends if I do it 'from scratch' or not. Many things are just as tasty, and such significant time savers that, really, it just isn't worth the trade off. I like the idea of embellishing an item. For instance, I never make my own pizza crust- too much work. And, I know of several that are quite tasty either fresh or frozen. But, I then embellish it with my fave toppings, my own sauce, etc.

Canned soups make such a great base/starter, as long as it isn't overly sodium ladened. I HAVE made stock many times, frankly, the boxed veggie stock is WAY better than anything I make, and it is easier.


I leave the house around 815 am, and get home usually around 6 p. No way am I devoting the next hour plus to making something from scratch. I like to eat...but, I like to live, too. I do like to make a big mess of pesto, hummus, sauce, pepperanata, etc.,.