by Beks
My sisters make everything from scratch. They don’t buy pizzas. They don’t buy frozen dinners. They don’t buy packaged cookies. I’m not even sure if they’ve ever purchased a loaf of bread.
I figured this craziness was genetic. A rare strain inherited from my mother who used to grind her own wheat for fresh bread in the morning. I, on the other hand, take after my dad who could pull out a fork, open a can of cold Chef Boyardee, and call it dinner.
I mean really, NORMAL people don’t bake everything right?
I went to a friend’s house over the weekend. She had invited my husband and me over for hamburgers and fries. I watched in amazement as she carefully molded ground beef into patties, peeled and sliced potatoes, and pulled fresh buns from the oven. We drank homemade Kombucha and devoured fresh cookies after dinner.
She started talking about saving money and how they lived on less because she cooks everything from scratch. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that while, yes, I make dinner at home each night, the closest I’ve come to making cookies from scratch in months is slicing them off a premade roll I bought with a coupon.
Am I the crazy one here? Are all of you out there baking away while I’m buying hamburger buns and crackers instead of making them?
Beks is a full-time government employee who enjoys blogging late into the night after her four kids have gone to sleep. She’s been married to Chris, her college sweetheart, for 15 years. In 2017, after 3 long years working the Dave Ramsey Baby Steps, they paid off more than $70K and became debt free. When she’s not working or blogging, she’s exploring the great outdoors.
No, you are NOT crazy…however, I have been making more whole foods lately too and it seems to help the budget.
I think you have to enjoy cooking as a hobby first, then worry about the Donna Reed style baking expeditions.
And you have a new baby; no new mommy I have ever known has baked anything from scratch! 😉
No, you are not crazy. I make a lot of this from scratch, but I don’t bake bread. I go to the thrift store around the corner for bread, buns, etc. My biggest dirty secret is that I have been buying Bob Evan’s brand pre-made mashed potatoes. Now Mashed potatoes are not hard to make. A 5 LB bag of potatoes cost less than the tray of mashed potatoes. But we eat potatoes infrequently enough that often they go bad.
Also, everyone has different skills and interests. Find what balance works for you. I admit to having a lot of convenience foods in my house because my 12YO son is often fixing himself dinner before football practice and no one else is home. He eats Ramen Noodles, hot dogs, hot pockets, frozen chicken nuggets and personal pizzas made from pre-made crusts and jarred spatting sauce.
I agree with Claire–you should do whatever amount of food prep you feel comfortable with right now–you have a new baby and have just gone back to work! That’s plenty to manage and, if you are not doing a lot of scratch cooking, so be it. It is true that food made from scratch is generally cheaper and healthier than store bought stuff, but if you don’t have time for that right now (and you probably don’t) then don’t worry about it. I have seven kids and a job and whenever things are unusually busy I rely more on pre-made items. When everyone is healthy, kids are sleeping and husband is not travelling and able to help, I do more of my own prep. Don’t pressure yourself to live up to some ideal standard of domesticity–as long as everyone is eating you are doing fine!
yes – but not because of money, because I decided we would try to eat more real food and eliminate most processed food – Jamie Oliver’s message. The benefit to our food bill was just a bonus, not the reason we do it. Our meals are probably fairly boring in most people’s eyes but my kids (3 boys) love boring and predictable – my goal is to start adding in 1 new recipe/dish each month.
Both my husband and I work full time – and yes obtaining food, preparing food, cleaning up after food is very time consuming but it is our priority at this time. As they get older, the boys are expected to help with the food preparation – a great life skill. Our friends with girls have totally transferred a lot of the baking from scratch over to their 11 year old daughter who gets help from their other 8 year old daughter!
my rule about food is – if I buy (and I do) prepared foods, then the item must have ingredients I am familiar with and generally fewer than 10 ingredients AND absolutely no artificial colours, no artificial flavours, very limited preservatives (I avoid the BHT,BHA and TBHQ) and I try to limit the amount of soy for my boys. These food rules eliminate most process foods.
check out the raising olives blog – google hamburger buns raising olives – a really great recipe for fresh buns (I always add a little extra ground flax).
If your sisters are close – wonder if you could organize some sharing of meals – 1 night a week someone makes enough for all families for their freezer and/or take turns baking cookies from scratch and sharing the batch. I do find that even with 3 boys we don’t eat a whole batch before they are a couple days past really good. I have to remember to freeze half the batch. My husband is in charge of keeping the cookie supply full – he usually does it as he is watching some hockey or baseball game on tv.
I cook from scratch a lot. It was the way I was raised. I do have a few guilty pleasures that are convenient, but I try to get the best prices I can on those.
Now, baking is a different thing. When I do bake something it is from scratch, I just don’t do it often. It is my goal this fall/winter to start baking. We like whole grain breads and they are pricey……so I’m going to try to start doing it at home. I’m not sure I can do crackers though!
I bake all my own bread and all desserts (cookies, cakes, brownies, etc.). HOWEVER, I never did any of this until I became a stay at home mom. I have a lot more time for baking now. So don’t feel guilty.
I like to cook, but no way do I have time to make my own bread and stuff. I feel happy if i can make 2-3 big meals a week. We bring leftovers for lunches, so that saves some money. And it definitely is cheaper, you can make a pizza for about 4$ (or less) but to have one delivered? 20$ easy. Even if you buy the frozen, it’s still around 6$, so making them yourself is cheaper.
I wish I could cook, but I don’t have the time and rarely the desire. I’m exactly like you!
No, you’re not crazy at all! There are definitely some things that I make myself (veggie broth, pasta sauce, and dry beans come to mind), but I’ve chosen those items because we eat a TON of them and they’re all crockpot-friendly – i.e. low maintenance. Just decide what’s worth your time and go from there.
Are you crazy? Absolutely not. This works for your friend because she has the time and she enjoys doing it. There’s a trade-off in terms of the money you spend on the pre-made stuff. If you account for the value of the time spent avoiding the making of your own stuff, and it’s worth it to you, then you’re doing just as good as your friend. Just in a different way.
If you can inherit a bread machine to make the dough the rolls and breads are much easier from scratch.
The nutritional/ingredient quality is so much higher on home made for less cost, but at the added cost of time. Although, that said, if you make homemade in bulk and freeze the time isn’t that bad. But, of course, I enjoy that time, so I’m probably bad at measuring it.
At this point I can’t imagine eating processed food at all. Factory output does not equal food. Cars, chemicals, plastic pool toys, those come from a factory. Food, not so much.
We make pizzas from scratch (dough and sauce) and at times, we’ve baked all our own bread. We found, though, that the bread and buns went bad faster than we could eat them, and freezing altered the taste, so we went back to buying.
I wouldn’t bake and cook everything from scratch solely for the money-saving aspect – you’re never going to get down to free, and at some point your time is better spent trying to earn more money, or heck, just trying to enjoy your life!
There was a mom at my son’s preschool who talked about grinding her own wheat for bread. We all called her “the wheat grinding lady” because we didn’t know her name.
So no, you aren’t weird. I’ve never baked my own bread and I didn’t even know you could make crackers at home.
Not sure if I should pipe in here, but I do bake & cook almost everything from “scratch”, it does save a lot of money, and you can skip all the chemicals & preservatives that way! You KNOW whats in the food you’re putting in your mouth. 😉
As with everything, I am in the middle. We home cook most of our meals, and the idea that it takes a ton of time is absurd, in my opinion. That said, I don’t bake any bread. I am not into *100% from scratch* cooking. But, you know, how hard is it to make a hamburger patty? To chop up your own veggies? I scratch my head at what is sold prepackaged at the store, sometimes. Sometimes I spend 5 minutes making scrambled eggs or french toast in the morning. I can whip up a batch of fresh fried potatoes in the time it takes to bake a batch of frozen fries.
Anyway, if you made home cooking a priority, you’d probably be surprised. Most people don’t want to make it a priority. Everyone is always telling me they couldn’t possibly make the time. It’s just something we do and that takes priority in our own lives. We stick to quick and simple recipes, for the most part, so it works. I suppose my friends are envisioning me up from dusk to dawn cooking every thing from scratch – no wonder I have no idea what they are talking about!!
I’m in the middle, also. I coupon aggressively to fill the pantry, but I fill it with ingredients, not meals or meal courses. Spending half an hour baking hamburger buns when you can buy an eight-pack for under a dollar is economically inefficient unless my time is worth less than $2/hour.
Making your own bread is actually very easy and takes very little hands on time. I use the no-knead method (http://www.kingarthurflour.com/recipes/no-knead-crusty-white-bread-recipe) which takes only about 10 minutes total hands on, and that includes mixing the dough and shaping the loaves. Once you have the dough mixed you keep it in the fridge, then when you’re ready you take as much dough as you need to make what you want. The rising does take some time, but you’re not hovering over it, you’re free to move about the house doing chores, watching tv or what have you. I make bread for my family at least once a week, and I can’t imagine going back to store bought. The flavor of homemade bread can’t be beat.
~Deby
I have to admit that I make almost everything from scratch (including caning jam and pickles) and I make bread with the bread machine (occasionally by hand) – I do this primarily because it is healthier (I select very healthy ingredients), secondarily because I love to cook — so this is very satisfying for me, and third to save money. I also line dry all my clothes. But I do splurge because I have a housecleaner come every two weeks (there is no joy in cleaning for me) – so I’d say we all do what we value and like best… I wouldn’t even attempt this with a new baby — when my daughter was a baby we ate a lot of quesadillas 🙂 Even now, although I cook everything from scratch meals are pretty simple – sandwich or soup and salad are pretty common. I have to admit to having dreams about someday grinding my own wheat for break 🙂
I would love to cook from scratch more often, but it’s hard when you work full time and are, um, organizationally challenged 😉 I will try to cook something on the weekends and eat the leftovers throughout the week, resorting to frozen dinners after the leftovers run out.
However, if it makes you feel better, think of it this way: if you’re not in the habit of cookin from scratch, you could end up WASTING food by having it spoil because you never got around to cooking it. That’s happened to me before.
Btw, one way to cook from scratch without all the hassle is to use a slow cooker. I’m finding it’s a great way for me to get fresh veggies into my diet by using my slow cooker to make soups. All I have to do is chop and peel, maybe saute an onion, and then I just plop everything into the slow cooker, turn it on, and forget about it for several hours.
i don’t make my own bread, pasta or desserts, but i will make lots of other things from scratch…salad, french fries, rice, etc. if it is pre-packaged you can bet i bought it with a coupon.
i have tried to supplement our diet with lots of lentils, beans, rice and oatmael….and i don’t buy them canned or bagged. i usually get them out of a bin at the local sprouts and store them in glass jars along my cabinets. multi purpose eating and decorating.
We make a lot from scratch. It’s not always cheaper (remember you can get hamburger helper for next to nothing at the store if you have the right coupons) but it helps us control ingredient quality, which is more important to us. Our son has multiple food allergies and the guaranteed dairy/soy free processed foods are often outrageously priced. So we make it ourselves!
I think it just depends on the amount of people in your household. If I buy stuff to make everything from scratch, it will go bad before I can eat it all. I’m only one person. If I buy only a little bit so as not to waste, then I’m eating the same thing four days in a row.
Plus, you have to think, is it worth your time. I don’t have a lot of extra time after work to make my own bread and such. I’d rather just buy a loaf for a dollar and call it a day.
I started very slowly to cook the majority of our food from scratch. It started slowly as we moved away from processed food to fresh veggies and meat. If you have good spices (Trader Joes or Sams are good places to work on your cupboard) it is easier. Start with your favorite type of food (such as Mexican or Italian) each type will spice similarly and then you can add more and expand what you make slowly. (We still make “junk food” runs to Trader Joes though:).)
My household does a lot of cooking and baking from scratch because it’s much healthier and it’s cheaper. However, my husband does 50-75% of it. Maybe part of your challenge is that you do all the cooking. Husband needs to learn to feed himself and his family, too. Lots of cooking and baking from scratch is incredibly easy and can involve a few ingredients and 10-20 minutes.
I love it….. “the wheat grinding lady”. I so enjoy reading all of the responses on your blog Beks.. such great peeps you have. I agree.. ALL of you need to do what is best for each one of you and your family. Grinding my own flour and making bread was just perfect for ME. Being a stay at home mom with all of my seven kids, homeschooling, and living where we did.. it worked. I wouldn’t trade a day of that for anything. Love you Beks, mom
Really, it comes down to time. I cook every day, but just can’t seem to get it together enough to bake my own bread more than once a month (I have a break machine!), and my pizza crust skills are just pitiful. Oh, and I work full time. But I do make my own soups, bbq, pizza and spaghetti sauces, fries, mashed potatoes. It gets easier with time. We didn’t grow enough pickles to preserve 🙁
And think about it – do your sisters work full time? The woman who had you for dinner probably made it a point to make everything from scratch for her guests – that’s what I do. I didn’t invite them over for Sara Lee.
I can’t speak to what other people do but I’ve been cooking from scratch for a while. I got a nice bread machine in 2008 and haven’t purchased a loaf of bread since. I make my own bread, buns, pizza dough, cinnamon rolls (on holidays only) and jam (on occasion). I prefer to make as many things from scratch because it’s healthier and I know what’s in my food. It’s also cheaper. A loaf of bread is only $.44 and the house smells great too. I rarely if ever purchase a box of anything. It’s a good feeling and the reality is that it doesn’t take up too much time but it does take some time and a little planning. For example, I make pizza dough in the bread machine (takes less than two minutes to put the ingredients in and in under 2 hours I have pizza dough) and then split it in half-I store half in the freezer and put the other half in a plastic bag in the refrigerator. When I want pizza, I take out the dough, add olive oil, sauce, onions, garlic, zucchini or broccoli, oregano and some cheese. I cut up each item and all total, it takes under 5 minutes. That’s not much time, if you ask me. For breakfast, I make green spinach smoothies (organic banana, 1/2 cup organic berries, 1 cup water and 3-4 cups organic spinach); it takes 5 minutes tops. My point is that most of the prep time is under 5 minutes and the meal is done in under 30 minutes. There are some exceptions like when you peel vegetables, etc. but overall it can be done.
You have a new baby so I’d say do what you can when you can. When you are ready to make a change, you will.