Most food, most of the time. Too many food issues in my house to trust prepared items.
Generally speaking, when we cook (probably 85-90% of meals) we prepare most of our meals from scratch or very close to it. The other 10-15% we usually eat out or take in. Processed foods are pretty rare- canned soup or stuff like frozen kolaches/breakfast sandwiches are pretty much it.
We’ve also tried our hand at making a lot of stuff that we typically buy; we’ve made tortillas, both flour and corn, we regularly make bread, pizza, etc… We’ve made fresh pasta, cured and smoked our own bacon (normal and Canadian), pickled vegetables (quick and fermented), fried potato chips and tortilla chips, and we sometimes make our own ice cream/sorbet.
We also occasionally make dishes that we typically buy- like cleaning-intensive dishes like deep fried stuff and time-consuming stuff like tamales.
Deep frying is one of those things I would only do once a year, because it would stink up the house and seemingly leave an oily residue everywhere near the stove…until I got an outdoor gas grill a couple years ago and figured out that heating the oil outside on the grill in a dutch oven or wok works perfectly well and doesn’t stink up the house! I still don’t deep fry a ton, but I’ll whip up the occasional battered mushrooms, chicken nuggets, shrimp, thighs for a Nashville hot chicken sandwich, etc. The mushrooms I especially like making, as I like them with a very thin batter and most places around here have the heavier, breaded type. Brown’s chicken has them as I like them, but there aren’t any really conveniently located to me anymore.
Most of the suppers we eat are made from what I consider scratch. I don’t make pasta from scratch or tomato sauce, but I do make my own spaghetti sauce using canned tomato products. I make a really yummy roasted vegetables w/Italian sausage but the sausage isn’t homemade. So I guess not every item in the following dishes is made from scratch.
I make the following from what I consider scratch:
Spaghetti & meatballs
Lasagna
Roasted veggies w/Italian sausage
Glazed ham sandwiches
Soups
Roasts w/veggies
Lots of different hotdishes (contain some canned items)
Chicken - various ways
Sloppy Joes
Meatloaf
Stew
Mashed potatoes
Turkey dinner
Pancakes
Waffles
Cookies
Cake
Pizza
Pepper steak
Bread (with a bread machine)
Lots more that I can’t think of right now
I love making jelly/preserves. I currently have black berry, black raspberry, strawberry, peach, and grape.
You should buy some concord grapes and make your own grape jelly. You’ll understand why it became so popular (before being ruined by mass production). There’s really no comparison between home made and store bought.
Hadn’t really considered using the grill; I always just assumed it was a massive fire hazard waiting to happen. I may have to rethink that though!
Oh yeah, in addition to the old list, we routinely make preserves/jams from whatever local seasonal fruit that’s good- typically strawberries, blackberries and peaches around here.
I will say that some things just aren’t better DIY. For example, making your own tortilla chips just brings you to the same level as your average Mexican restaurant. And some things are better, but not enough better to warrant actually doing it yourself- for example ice cream. Home made ice cream is great, but it’s like 15% better than the good stuff at the grocery, and about 5% better or on par with the boutique local places.
That said, there are some involved things that are knock your socks off awesome if you do it yourself. I’d never have imagined it, but curing and smoking my own ham was a revelation. And assuming you have a smoker, the hardest part was actually procuring an uncooked, uncured ham (pig thigh).
But is the jelly really made from scratch if we didn’t grow the grapes in our vineyard from cuttings brought over from the Mother Country and harvest under the beating sun?
I make pretty much everything from scratch, being one of those people that left home with a copy of Joy Of Cooking. The thing that surprises people most is making glazed donuts from scratch.
Oh, it may very well be, but I haven’t burned the house or back porch down yet! (I don’t really think there’s any more points of failure doing it on a grill outside vs on the stovetop. And if you do start a fire, better out there than in here. :))
My wife has gotten into making homemade kombucha. Dead easy stuff if you buy a big crock with a tap. Start with a couple gallons of sweetened tea, add a couple bottles of store bought kombucha with live cultures, cover and let sit for 2 weeks. Decant into bottles with locking caps (we dig 1L lemonade bottles from Aldi) through the tap, leaving a bit behind. Add back in a bunch more sweetened tea, and look at it again in 2 weeks.
You just have to be unafraid of the scary looking thing that’s going to grow on top of the liquid.
Post/username combo win.
Post/username combo FAIL. 
I’m so ashamed…
Heh, but in fact I did think you were going to post that you made cheesesteaks from scratch. 
Most of the meals we eat, probably 19/21* each week, are prepared, usually by me, in our kitchen. I ate in the college dining hall all through college but then I was on my own with not a lot of money, so I got used to cooking a big pot of something on Sunday. That was my lunch all week. Dinner was something simple like an egg sandwich (sometimes my bread, sometimes store bread). Store hummus was too expensive so that’s when I started making my own, IIRC from a Doper recipe. And so while I now make way more than I did back then, it just feels weird to me to frequently go out, get takeout, or buy ready-to-eat stuff.
*On second thought this might be a stretch. Is Fiber One poured in a bowl with a sliced banana and dried fruit for breakfast “from scratch”? Probably not.
I’ve had a bread machine for like 14 years now that I use for bread and pizza dough. Although we don’t eat much bread these days for whatever reason. I’ve never made it on my own in the oven.
It’s easier for me to think of things we don’t make than things we do.
I don’t make my own pasta – I saw someone mention that. I’ve done it. It was good. Maybe I should get a roller.
I also don’t make my own sausage at home but have done that on the farm.
I also don’t ferment or distill my own alcoholic beverages.
I don’t make a lot of Mexican food despite having lived in the southwest so long. I love Juárez/El Paso area style gorditas but have never made one.
Someone said that if you want to truly make something from scratch you have to start with the big bang. For example, although I make bread from scratch, I don’t grow the wheat, harvest it, thresh it, grind it, etc. and I’ve probably left out one or two steps. I make ricotta and mozzarella from scratch, but with bought milk. I make pizza from scratch, both the dough and filling. Not only is it better, but my favorite (and the favorite of everyone I serve it to) is not found in any restaurant: pesto sauce (we do grow basil and my wife makes the sauce), mozzarella, kalamata olives, crumbled goat cheese, walnut pieces, olive oil, parmesan. But the favorite thing I make from scratch is chocolate truffles.
My wife makes even more from scratch than I do. Dinner tonight was a kind of caldo verde made from kale and other greens, carrots, onions, bacon. And, although we haven’t roasted a chicken in years, we regularly get a grilled bird from the market and after we have eaten it, I use the carcass and with water, carrots, onions, herbs, make a very nice stock. Which is then used as a base for various things, including plain old chicken soup with rice.
oh, I used to do that regularly. I’d use the chicken for sandwiches and then boil up the bones and make avgolemono. I haven’t done that in ages, and I’ve actually got a bought chicken in the fridge… you’ve officially inspired me.
A mess. I mean, it usually tastes good – to me at least – but to give it a name would be a disservice to cuisine.
I read this as soap:D
Oh yeah, when we have the ingredients, mostly chicken carcasses or bones (cooked or not, it doesn’t seem to matter much), we typically throw it in the crock pot overnight with some aromatics and make stock/broth. I’m not sure which, but anyway, once it’s strained, it almost always goes straight into a pot of soup.
So basically if my wife buys a whole chicken, here’s how it usually gets used by us.
Evening 1: Roasted whole in the oven. Typically it’s set between 425-500 for about an hour (use a leave-in probe thermometer for best results). Eat straight up. Kids eat legs in lunches the following day.
Second day: Chicken gets dismembered- meat gets reserved, and bones/skin get thrown in crock pot with onions, carrots and celery. Simmer for hours. Strain and reserve.
Reserved meat goes one of two ways- chicken salad (my personal favorite), or chicken soup.
Chicken salad is usually chicken combined with mayonnaise, sweet pickles, dried onion, celery, and olives, with all the vegetables finely chopped. Sometimes we put dill in there, sometimes not.
Chicken soup is easier- basically take the stock made from the bones, and simmer appropriate vegetables - we like carrots, celery, squash/zucchini, and sometimes kale or spinach if it’s on hand. Add some kind of starchy substance- my wife likes potatoes, but I prefer either rice or pasta. Season appropriately with salt and thyme, and maybe some summer savory as well.
I don’t have a wide repertoire, but when I cook, I generally cook from scratch. Meat, sauces, veg, all from scratch.
I’ve yet to master chips (fries) - they end up cooked but not stiff - and I don’t make my own pasta or bread (I’ve nowhere warm to let a loaf rise).