I love cooking from scratch, and am unemployed so i tend to hang out online as it is cheap entertainment. Would it help to have another cook over on that board?
It doesn’t come up often enough I think…the focus of the forum is different (in fact, they have a cooking forum these people COULD go ask questions in.)
Twicks, I’d give ham stock a try. If you don’t get flavor, toss it - you are out the hambone (which would have been tossed anyway) and some spices.
Good point. I don’t usually make the stock as a separate step, but that would work. Thanks.
I was expecting this thread to be the exact opposite of what it is. I am surrounded by the frugality nazis. I’m sorry, but the homemade laundry soap makes your kids walk around smelling like garage rags. (Is that Naptha you’re using?)
Now, I’m the last person to feed my child pure junk. But I’m also a working single Mom, and I don’t have time to knead bread myself. The bread machine is one of the best bargains I ever got. Truth is, I’m lucky just to wipe the kitchen counters a couple of times a week.
And if a cup of VIA at $1 a pop gets me the caffeine I need to make it through a cranky Saturday without a migraine - so be it. Judge and ye shall be judged.
I get basic groceries through Angel Food, but I also pick a few nice vegetable blends and some healthy frozen meals from Trader Joe’s for nights when I have to run an errand after the Day-Care pickup. (Or nights when my daughter just needs her Mom’s attention more than she needs homemade food.)
Before I had a child, I would never dream of baking a chicken without making soup from the carcass. Now I get the boneless breasts because otherwise dinner isn’t done until after her bedtime.
As for juice boxes; we drink water. We also keep bottled water in the truck for when we’re thristy out and about.
I don’t know where it was along the way that we lost so much basic domestic knowledge. I know a lot of people both male and female who don’t know how to sew on a button. Or bake a batch of cookies from the recipe on the chocolate chip bag. Or iron a shirt. Some of them are younger than me (I’m 33), but a lot of them are my age or 10-15 years older. But when you get about 10 years older than that you get into my mom’s age group, who grew up making their own clothes. Somewhere in that age gap something crucial seems to have changed.
It’s a combination, I think, of increased prosperity and the shifting cost differential of diy vs. store-bought. My mom grew up making her own clothes and making her own bread and canning because money was tight and home-made was much cheaper than buying ready-made. But as time went on, they had more money and less time, and cheap imports from China made it about as cheap to buy stuff as to make it yourself if you have to buy new materials.
I’m not judging (much). I seldom bake bread, had my groceries delivered when my kids were little (and had a housekeeper!) I completely get the “paying for convenience.” What I’m bemoaning is the dependence on convenience.
Suddenly I feel like a Domestic Goddess. Granted, I stay at home, so I’ve got time, but my kid gets thrift store and garage sale clothes, I bake my own bread, and can make stew, pot roast, stock, and meatless chili from scratch, thank you. I can but don’t sew him clothes, because it’s more expensive- but I do make my own maternity stuff because that’s specialty and cheaper.
I occasionally eye the pre-made mac’n’cheese and frozen quesadillas and things and wonder who eats them. I understand frozen dinners, especially when both parents work, but… frozen peanut butter sandwiches? Really?
I must admit, right now we’re experiencing a bit of a cookie problem with the toddler, but we’re only giving out arrowroots and graham crackers, and cutting back. And he gets water, milk, or Ribena, heavily diluted. I do not buy juice packs, snack packs, snack cakes, or pudding cups.
Sorry for the confusion; I was referring to the OP and not to you in any way, except to agree that there are a zillion frugality websites already.
My cousin is almost proud of the fact that she doesn’t know how to sew on a button. Her mom (who is now in her 60’s) is the same way–it’s a point of pride, I suppose because it shows that you have enough money to throw away clothing that is slightly worn? In their family, there just isn’t a lot of focus on the home/food/etc; they don’t cook, they don’t even clean much. Visiting them is not a very comfortable experience. Now that my cousin is married and all, her mom complains that she can’t cook and eats out too much. Gee, I wonder where she learned it??
On the “paying for convenience” end of things, these are surprisingly handy for the night where you get off work at 5:00, have to get the kids from daycare and have them at their soccer game at 6:00. Yeah, organized moms probably make the sandwich in the morning, but I was defrosting them in the microwave on the way to daycare. Or the “the bus is on its way everyone to the door” mornings where your second grader announces she needs a bag lunch for a fieldtrip - and you grab a juice box, a frozen pb&j, and a box of raisins.
But they are by no means frugal and not an emergency supply I’d keep around on a really tight budget. I scoffed too the first time I saw them.
I totally agree with this.
A lot of my friends who stay at home seem stymied by cooking from scratch. They make their kids things like chicken nuggets and frozen pizzas. It’s a bit harder to cook from scratch, but definitely worth it. Plus, it doesn’t all have to be from scratch - frozen veggies and such are great shortcuts and definitely can help save money in the long run since you’re still making the food yourself. And, even when you’re making junk, homemade junk is usually not just cheaper, but healthier than pre-packaged junk.
For what it’s worth, I work full time and have a small business (that I only work on at night after the kid is in bed) and still cook all but one meal a week from scratch. I’ve found that if I put in the bulk of my effort on a Sunday, it still only takes 3 hours out of my week, with the added bonus that we can all sit around the table together most nights without me running around like a chicken with my head cut off. Plus, it gets me out of being a line-item cook for our son, something that’s swiftly coming to an end now that he’s old enough not to suffer any ill effects from being advised that he needs to eat what’s in front of him (he does get input, though). I’m lucky, though, because my husband, even though unfamiliar with housework, tries his darndest to help and does most of our son’s and the household’s laundry (sheets, towels, etc.). And I involve my toddler in most of the household stuff because I’m sure the free labor will come in helpful later.
Of course, cooking is my biggest “housewifely” strength. I am completely disorganized. Our problem is that we don’t have a system or schedule all of us can follow, so my husband winds up leaving his and my son’s clothing all over the floor, while I leave mail everywhere because every time I try to organize it, my husband loses something important and gets mad. So, if you do write a book or a blog (which I think would be awesome), organization suggestions would be much appreciated!
This thread just reminded me that I tossed out a perfectly good chicken carcass the other day after I finished shredding all the meat. Drat! I could’ve had some chicken stock for later!
Well, with unemployment higher at least some should have time to be more frugal. I am amazed at how many people seem to think making your own soup is hard. Boil water, meat, veggies, add starch if desired cook until starch is done, serve.
I also do not understand the hatred of leftovers. We tend to make a chicken or ham or roast and then dine on the leftovers, but that doesn’t just mean sandwiches. It can mean stir fry, homemade fried rice, a curry, dumplings, soup, various casseroles, pasta dishes, salads, pies, etc. Anything you would start with canned meat, you can make from leftover cooked meet, like ham salad, or chicken ala king. Often we will freeze meal sized portions in a zip lock pressed flat so it thaws faster. That way we don’t get tired of one thing. It also makes the meals fairly quick when you pull out a meal sized packet of cooked meat. It is easy to put that in a pan, make a sauce, steam some veggies and serve over rice or potatoes, or even toast.
I do notice that vegetables are outrageously prices at the big chain grocery stores and low quality too and the meat is not much better. We go to a smaller chain store and the meat and vegetables are cheaper and better quality, but the selection of processed foods is a bit more limited.
Stock is awesome as a separate step. I bought some snow crab on sale and we had steamed crab and then boiled all the empty shells for stock. Later we used that stock in gumbo, and it was heavenly. Breaking up the prep into stages means that it is easier to find time to get it all done. But the key is being able to improvise or plan ahead, and those do seem to be lost arts.
I completely get the “we don’t have enough money, but we stuff on high-calorie snacks” thing.
Off the subject of children, here at work the tradition is to bring in a giant buffet of pastries every time someone has a birthday. This is a largish law firm, so that means about three times a week there’s a big spread somewhere of cookies, cake, pie, chips, candy, etc. It’s the secretaries that bring this stuff in, and we’ve all had a 10% pay cut this year. Several years ago, I stopped participating in this expensive sugar-and-carb-loading orgy, and I’ve been sneered at for being anti-social ever since. Yet guess who bitches in the lunch room about being poor and overweight? Not me.
The button is exactly the sort of thing I’m talking about! This isn’t darning socks (which actually isn’t that difficult - although I only do it if I really liked the socks - no darning of the Target specials) or sewing your own clothes (which generally IS more expensive than buying them). Its sewing on a button. Knowing how to sew on a button or mend a popped seam is the sort of skill it seems to many people have lost - but these aren’t difficult skills.
I can get behind that. 
This thread is making me sad - so many people with no basic life skills. If anything happens to their fast food joints and Chinese merchandise, they’re so screwed.
I don’t know how to sew on a button. But I’m also confident that if I had to, I could find the information I need and get on with the task. It may not be tailor perfect, but I’m sure it would be serviceable.
The same thing with cooking. I know a little bit, but I’m certainly no cook. But I’m sure I could crack open a cookbook and make something if I needed to. Being a good cook may be hard, but being an ok one isn’t.
I guess the point is what really bugs me are people who are too lazy to even try.
For me, one of the biggest surprises of this year back in school has been how many of the other students are, in my grandmother’s sentence, “like hens: wherever they’ve shat, the shit remains.”
Between the kitchenmates who don’t know how to operate a toaster; place pots with plastic handles in the oven (since they’re called “baked beans,” that means you have to bake them in the oven, right?); use the baking tray as a chopping board; place wet, badly rinsed dishes on top of the pile of dry, clean ones; leave dirty pots, plates and cuttlery all over the place; chop up a chicken on top of the drying dishes; who at least have finally learned that when you share two toilets with seven other people you can’t apply “if it’s yellow let it mellow”; who exclaim in amazement at such things as a European woman cooking (dude, I’ve been cooking for longer than you’ve been alive, so geroff MY kitchen!) or a non-vegetarian preparing a meatless meal…
and the people who never return books or journals to the library shelf from which they took them, although they know full well that there’s about 100 other students trying to read that same book of journal. Or the one who the other day left at the library computer he’d used two banana peels (sitting on top of the horizontally-placed “tower,” on each side of the monitor’s foot) and a sandwich package (placed between the keyboard and the “tower”)…
… then there’s the ones who are surprised that updating their livejournal is not equivalent to sending an email to the people in their team…
I realize my memory must’a gotten foggy with age, but I’m reasonably sure that, while some of my college dorm-mates were at similar levels of cluelessness, they were conscious of said cluelessness and interested in getting out of it.
Now that you mention that stuff, I guess I do know my way around the kitchen pretty well. I’m 48, so I guess between my Mom and my wife, I’ve absorbed more than I knew. I also had Home Economics classes in middle school, which I doubt the typical curriculum even includes today.
Heh. It’s funny, I’m a 29 year old male, and I know many more men my age (including myself) who know how to cook than I do women. I’m not sure what contributes to that, but many of my guy friends love to cook and can make tasty meals out of anything; my roommates and I constantly cook for each other, which consistently impresses the women we know, who aren’t that kitchen savvy.
It may be that I’ve had my moments of financial necessity that forced me into learning some skills, but also that my mom and dad were both very capable in the kitchen and we almost always had home-made dinners growing up, even if they were very simple.
Next on my list of skills to get better at is sewing. I can fake my way through it, but not well enough to really repair clothing in an enduring fashion.
Sweetie, you are the Domestic Goddess of the MMP!
I’m a guy. I do know how to cook and do so pretty much every night. Another thing, I’m off on Sunday and Monday and on those days I’ve been known to drag out slow cookers (I have several. I’m also gay, which might explain the need I felt to buy several slow cookers.) and spend a day cooking stuff like beef and/or pork roasts, chickens, stews, soups and chili and freezing it for meals later on. As a matter of fact, today I’m off but being a slug and dinner tonight shall be chili and cornbread. The chili I made a couple of weeks ago and froze. Cornbread is nuttin’ to make. I guess, my thing is, it’s just easy to make a batch of something and freeze it.
I am so very thankful that my mother who raised five kids (one girl, four boys) taught us the basics of cooking, laundry, cleaning the house, ironing, sewing on a button and the like. I imagine with kids doing stuff like I mentioned is a little harder but I’m of the agreement that it’s cheaper and easier to do that stuff.
Oh, and I have one very spoiled ummmmmm… whatever you want to call him.
You bring up an interesting point, swampbear - how much responsibility do parents have to make sure their kids know how to live independently? I watch my sister (who was raised better) do everything for her kids because it’s easier than fighting with them to get them to do anything. Or maybe it’s just too late - the parents of today were raised by people who didn’t know how to do anything, either.