Cooking

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As an central european...what the hell do you eat, if you do not cook? I mean do you visit restaurants every day? How can you afford that? I mean I like to go to restaurant, but I couldnt afford that every day, and I am earning middle class. Restaurant meal inclusive drink costs around 8 EUR here, and that if you choose the daily menu the restaurants offer. If you want something la card because of the daily menu being something you dont like, its easily about 12-15 EUR. Thats about 240 EUR - 400 EUR in the month, only for one meal each day, not including breakfast or second midday or evening meal? O_o

Here in Germany at least there is a lot of ready-made stuff in the supermarket, only needs to be heated in the microwave, but it's typically poor quality and tastes like poor quality, too. The stuff they try to sell as food here... Like "Analogkäse", that's a mixture of whey protein with fats from other sources than milk, plus some artificial aromas. You need to read the small print on the package to find out that you're really eating some dolled-up waste product of the food industry.

So, if you want something that tastes good and is reasonably healthy, you need to do your own cooking.

Jacky has it right. There are meals that you can simply put in the oven or the microwave, heat, and eat, such as frozen pizza, frozen pastas or stir-fry (meat, sauce, and veggies included), and other things.

I don't know too many people who eat these, but they're still plentiful in stores so someone must be keeping them in business:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_dinner

These aren't too bad, though.


When we say "cook", I think most of us mean making meals from scratch or mostly from scratch.

Yop sure, we have that as well and if I normally have 1-2 pizzas in the ice-fridge for unexpected guests, and normally 1-2 dry noodles stuff for emergency (so if you were invited to eat with friends at the weekend, so you dont buy fresh food, and then they get ill and cancel the invitation) , but to eat that kind of stuff regularly all day.... When I am ill, I usually use ice-fridged stuff as well.

During week, after work in the evening, we usually do fast stuff, like simply getting some chicken flesh, "roast" it in a pan or wok so it gets either a bit of grill flavour or according to what sidedishes you have you "roast" it until its done, take some vegetables you cutted, and according to what kind of vegetables you have chosen you simply "roast" them as well and spice and flavour it afterward, or if its vegetables, that need to be boiled, you boil them in water and then when the water is reduced, you simply do a sauce out of it. Or if the flesh was only roasted a bit, you normally do a sauce out of it, and boil the flesh in it until its ready. Or some grill potatoes in the oven, and additional you simply mix a cream out of creme fresh and some herbs as sauce. (Or Joghurt, if you are into calories.) Or a Tsatsiki, you simply need to cut a cucumber, then press the water out of it, add yoghurt, garlic, pepper and a tiny bit of salt, and its a good sidedish too all kind of vegetables out of the oven. (Corn, potatoes, onions, tomatoes, ...)

Additional we combine food, so everythings that goes fast we do on our own, and only add some "ready-bought" materials, that take more time. As example you can buy a ready "strudel"-dough, that needs much of time to prepare, and do the filling and sidedishes yourself, as example fish with carrots and peas, or chopped flesh with onions and beans, ... and some spices! Or if we do roasted "chopped flesh buns" with vegetables and mashed potatoes, we use prepared smashed potatoes, because I dont want to wait 45 minutes until the potatoes are boiled, when I come home hungry at 19:00 in the evening. ^^ Or you can use paprika, tomatoes, zucchini as "dishes" for all kinds of fillings (with meat or rice or beans or peas ...) in the oven, the yoghurt-garlic-pepper sauce goes well with that. If its hot, you can easily do a salad, simply buy two different kinds of salad, and add stuff you like, as example boiled corn (Yop, out of a tin...I like to eat healthy, but I think you can do overdo anything, so as sidedish or mainmeal I do the corn myself, but for a fast salad a tin is sufficient. ^^), tuna, greek raw-cheese, some carrots or tomatoes... as dressing you simply need some garlic, vegetable oil, vinegar, pepper and herbs.

So during week we normally try to do stuff that doesnt take more then 20 minutes of active work. At the weekend we normally try more complicated or new recipes together, because when trying new recipes you often dont know the propper order and suddenly there is something missing and everythings stands still, until you have prepared that, so you can work on. We are planning kids and if we can afford we would like me to work only halftime, so that I have more time then to cook propper meals during meals, and must not buy stuff, that needs more time like strudel-dough or mashed potatoes, during week from the supermarket.

I generally don't cook anything more complicated than heating up a can of soup or ramen noodles (I like the souper meals and chow mein ones).

Last edited by hanyo on 16 Jul 2013, 1:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I've only recently begun to learn how to cook.

My mother cooks meals, I help her out sometimes when she has many things to do but I've never really cooked for myself.

A good trick is to cut the potatoes into slices before boiling, that really speeds up the process. Still, making mashed potatoes is a rather lengthy job, and there is a lot to clean up afterwards, somehow. I wished I could install a dishwasher but my kitchen is too small . I have tried the packaged dry stuff, but the texture is unpleasant and it just doesn't taste right.

Canned vegetables are Ok, they may have more vitamins left than "fresh" stuff that has been harvested a week ago. I like canned beans, no soaking and cooking for ages like the dry variety...

If you cook them without skin, you loose many nutritions into the boiling water, and as well the ingredience (dont know the english word) that is responsible for the thick consistence of the smashed potatoes afterwards. I dont know if smashed potatoes was anyway the right translation, you do afterwards a kind of thick potatoe-"cream" out of it, and therefore you need the ingredience of the potatoe that is responsible for the "thickness and stability" of the cream, and loose taste as well.

Smashed potatoes= smushed with a fork or potato masher
Mashed potatoes=It seems like most people think of whipped with milk and butter when you call them mashed.

There might be a regional/cultural difference on this.

I cook for myself and have ever since I moved out for college. I tried the ready-to-eat stuff for a week or two, then gave up on them and started to cook for myself. Cafeteria food wasn't an option -- the quality was horrible, the rooms really crowded and there were only two or three choices (one if you're a vegetarian).

My family never had ready-to-eat meals except perhaps the odd frozen pizza, paella or chips (the kind you make in the oven). Both my parents cook, and they taught me all the basics -- some while I was still living at home, some over the phone or via e-mail after I'd moved out. I also had cookery classes in school when I went abroad for a year in HS, though not much of that was applicable after I got back as the available ingredients were too different.

I've moved into the vicinity of another cafeteria that is smaller, has better opening hours and much better food quality. As a result, I've been relying on cafeteria food more and more recently ... just not feeling like cooking for myself much these days. I hope I get back in the mood soon. It's a bit of a vicious circle: when I eat well, I feel better, when I feel better, I'm more motivated to cook for myself, and when I cook for myself, I eat better.

Seriously? I always use Jacky's method when I make mashed potatoes (i.e. peel them, cut them into slices or small chunks, boil them with salt, mash them with butter and milk), and it's wonderfully thick and fluffy!

As for the nutrients ... it's mashed potatoes. I don't eat those for their nutritional value They're a comfort food more than anything else.