Cooking or Eating out?

[97guns]

most people consider throwing a frozen dinner in the microwave cooking so cooking up a batch of spaghetti with a jar of sauce is gourmet

[disneysteve]

most people consider throwing a frozen dinner in the microwave cooking so cooking up a batch of spaghetti with a jar of sauce is gourmet

True. Of course, since this is a savings board, if you focus on price, there is a big difference between the frozen dinner and the restaurant. I can buy a good quality frozen dinner on sale for $2 or $2.50 tops. I can't go anywhere decent and get dinner for that amount. It certainly isn't from scratch but it is a far more affordable option than eating out.

[hamchan]

I don't bake my own bread, make my own pasta, butcher whole chickens, shred my own cheese, make my own yogurt (though I have before and it's reaaally good). I do use bagged salad, but I don't get per cut vegetables unless they have been reduced for quick sale. I hate canned and frozen veg, with the exception of canned tomatoes for certain things, and frozen corn and spinach are occasionally acceptable.

I generally don't use boxed, bottled, canned, frozen prepared foods. I make my own salad dressings, pasta sauces, etc. No rice-a-roni, frozen dinners, hamburger helper, kraft dinner, etc. I do use chicken boullion, but I have to buy the sodium free kind from Amazon. Most things I use for cooking have one single ingredient. It's just too hard to limit sodium content otherwise.

If you eat something at home that wasn't purchased from a restaurant, even if it prepared food, I don't personally consider that to be "eating out."

[HappySaver]

Is it bad advice to give that premade foods are cheaper than eating out or take out? I wonder if it really is?

I think premade foods are almost always cheaper on a personal, short-term economic level, both compared to eating out and to cooking from scratch with quality ingredients. It is big big business to feed America cheap with convenience foods.

As a society we pay the price later with increased health care costs and other harder to measure ways (i.e. environmental costs, small farms not being economically viable, etc.)

For me it's not just about my monthly budgetary bottom line, but about all these other things as well.

[Wino]

For what it's worth, I figure if I have to actually mix up ingredients, then it's homemade. Examples:

Buying frozen pizza and putting it in the oven: not homemade
Buying frozen pizza dough, sauce, cheese, pepperoni and putting it in the oven: homemade
Making ramen noodles using just the bag: not homemade
Making concoction already mentioned: homemade

I am not saying this works for everyone, but it works for me.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Nope I do use canned pasta sauce now, used to make it. Used to make pizza dough, I buy it more often now. I used to make pie crusts but I buy it now. Those are all convenience foods. Last night we had pierogies. I could make it but I don't. I'm not sure how to classify that.

I used to make homemade dumplings from scratch, have a ton in my freezer from when my MIL visited, including the wrapper. Now I buy the wrapper instead of making the dough myself. Do I consider that homemade? NO.

I also use frozen veggies in case I didn't run out to the store for fresh. I don't make my own yogurt anymore, although I still have my maker, I buy it now. I don't make cheese often, although occasionally I'll make paneer.

I don't know it's such a fine line. I feel like even with frozen pizza if I'm doing something to cook it and eat at home it's not eating out or take out. I don't make pasta often, Barilla!, but i used to, still have pasta roller.

Health wise it's probably why we dont' eat out we gain too much weight easily doing that, even more than money.

[Joan.of.the.Arch]

I think it is perfectly okay to buy the things you do. It sounds like you used to make far more from scratch than you now do. For the sake of your kids, I hope that you and your partner will cook as often as you can happily do, and pass on the skill to your kids.

But, hey, get those dumplings out of the freezer and cook them before they get freezer burned! What time is dinner? I'll be right over

[disneysteve]

I used to make homemade dumplings from scratch, have a ton in my freezer from when my MIL visited, including the wrapper. Now I buy the wrapper instead of making the dough myself. Do I consider that homemade? NO.

I think we need a category called "semi-homemade" or something like that.

I make Asian potstickers. I do start with prepared wonton wrappers that I get at the Asian market, but I make the filling with all fresh ingredients: mushrooms, scallions, bok choy, tofu (also store bought), etc. I count that as being homemade. It is cheaper than buying frozen potstickers. It is healthier than frozen potstickers. It doesn't have the sodium and preservatives and chemicals in the prepared ones. And we'll usually eat them as part of a meal at home that includes other things that we make. So how do you classify that meal? It isn't all homemade. It isn't all from scratch. It definitely isn't eating out.

[phantom]

I'm curious how everyone classifies things in their minds.

Let's say you make dinner consisting of the following:
Bagged salad topped with bottled dressing
Dry pasta cooked and topped with bottled sauce
Italian bread (from the store) and butter
Some type of prepared dessert (cake, cookies, etc.)

Does that count as making your own dinner or eating out? Nothing was actually prepared at home but you probably only spent $1-2/person if that.

It definitely doesn't count as eating out. Out means some place other than home. Even going through a McDonald's drive thru isn't eating out, if you wait till you're in your house to eat your meal. It's just carry out. Of course, I don't really consider the distinction between eating out and carrying out to be significant, but since we're defining terms, it seems worth mentioning.

For me, if I have to do any prep-work or combining of elements before getting the meal to the table, I have made my own dinner. So, by boiling the pasta and thinking to combine it with a certain sauce, I would say that I had made my own dinner. It's a sliding scale though, some meals are more home made than others. The longer the prep work takes and the more thought that goes into combining the elements, the more home made it is.

The only meals I get from the grocery store that I wouldn't say I made myself are those I get from the prepared section, things like fried chicken and sushi. If I can bring it home, plop it on the table, and start eating it, it's carry out, not home made at all.

[snafu]

We seem to eat out because that was how friends and relatives had decided to celebrate an event. Our meals are mostly home prepared which I would classify as 70/30 home made/convenience. We read labels and are buying some of the 10 noted dangerous fresh foods labelled organic. I use fresh foods and fruits and vegetables in season or until I run out, then revert to frozen. Still make pastry crusts, home made mixes, some cake batter and tomato sauce but revert to cake mixes, bread products, boxed pasta, frozen puff pastry, wonton wraps, pita, and tortillas.

I still buy dehydrated beans, lentils, barley and veggies. We make soup mostly because canned has too many unpronounceable chemicals plus it's an easy way to use up leftovers, stretch meals and make a fast lunch. We had a hilarious discussion with friends a while ago who mostly eat out and see our preference to eat at home as odd. When I thought about it later I concluded that I like the creativity of cooking and find it more sociable to have friends here for dinner. Finally, I would rather spend money on things that were more long lasting.

[97guns]

have you heard of L Cisteine, its a dough conditioner thats found in A LOT of bread, and you should start looking for it because it is made from HUMAN HAIR. the next time you bite into a really soft piece of bread your most likely eating hair.

http://www.naturalnews.com/032718_L-cysteine_commercial_bread.html

While some L-cysteine is directly synthesized in laboratories, most of it is extracted from a cheap and abundant natural protein source: human hair. The hair is dissolved in acid and L-cysteine is isolated through a chemical process, then packaged and shipped off to commercial bread producers. Besides human hair, other sources of L-cysteine include chicken feathers, duck feathers, cow horns and petroleum byproducts.

[hamchan]

I've eaten grosser things. Where do they get the hair? Food science is pretty amazing. Well, all science, really.

[BuckyBadger]

We eat a lot of prepared or semi-prepared foods that just require us to cook them. I'd say on 7 nights a week we eat some sort of mostly-prepared food 2 or 3 times, go out 2 or three times, and cook something like pasta or soup or chicken and veggies or something like that 2 or three times. (Yeah, that's between 6 and 9 dinners, but you know what I mean!)

The Costco "take and cook" section where they have the fresh food ready to cook is AMAZING. Salmon, stuffed portabella caps, stuffed peppers, chicken alfredo, chicken pot pie, rotisserie chicken, burritos, lasagna, ravioli - that stuff is delicious and although more expensive than home made, it's cheaper than going out.

We both work long hour and neither one of us takes much joy in cooking, so this works for us. We can afford it and it makes our life easier so that's what we do.

We do make simple side dishes - veggies, salads, rice - when necessary.

[ProjectDebtRelief]

Our family did dine out for a long time. We can afford it, so I didn't see it has a jab in our budget, but I always reel in spending for the holiday season so this is the time of year when we start to eat at home more often. We use some pre-made items, like marinara sauce, frozen pizza and soups but for the most part, I just make it easy for them to make things themselves on nights when everyone is everywhere.

I keep things for "good" sandwiches stocked and while it may be a bit pricier, it is still far cheaper than dining out. We prefer cold, fresh sandwiches to super salty prepped foods most of the time.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Bucky I have to say I like that section from costco sometimes too.

Is it considered cooking if you buy sauce but marinate the meat yourself? Is that cooking? Because you didn't make the marinade? I consider it sort of cooking but I sometimes make the sauce. Like pasta and sauce. I hate making sauce but is it cooking otherwise?