What really sucks about cooking from scratch...
Francl27
Posts: 26,371 Member
Food timing. Oh gosh I suck at this. I always end up with cold roasted veggies or meat while I wait for the potatoes to finish boiling or something 
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Slow cookers are the best - all done at same time lol0
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It's the math and leftovers for me. I don't bake anymore because I really don't want to deal with math and creating a recipe on here that may or may not be saved and I may or may not be able to find again. I don't make big batches of things that my husband won't also eat. I wouldn't have a problem eating the same meals daily, but I can't always fit it in.0
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I always start with the food that's going to take most time to cook and when it's about half done start meat and veggies last cause the only need a couple minutes0
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Me too. I figure in my mind what the longest component is, start that the second I get home, and then do the others as appropriate. Practice has made me really good at this except for huge multi part meals like thanksgiving where I make lists of what to do when starting days in advance.0
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Stick to meat cuts that need to rest. Once they come out of the oven, they should sit for 20-30 minutes, covered in foil, before you cut into them. Use that time to prep all the sides. We have a tiny oven, so this is the only way I can make meals with more than one thing that go in it, aside from really flat things that can fit on cookie sheets on two shelves.0
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What I think sucks is having to enter the whole recipe, then determine how many servings there are, then measure out one serving. Bah!0
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What sucks about cooking is mountains of dirty dishes.
The rest of it is fine with me.0 -
2snakeswoman wrote: »What I think sucks is having to enter the whole recipe, then determine how many servings there are, then measure out one serving. Bah!
I just enter every ingredient raw, weigh the pan empty then weigh it again with the stuff inside after it's been cooked and enter the amount of grams as serving (obviously if it's something I can transfer to another dish, I just weigh it that way).
It's actually more annoying when I reuse an old recipe, because I can't modify the servings on my computer for some unknown reason and I have to use my phone.0 -
Yep. Other than this, scratch cooking is the best.2snakeswoman wrote: »What I think sucks is having to enter the whole recipe, then determine how many servings there are, then measure out one serving. Bah!
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Well at least with recipes everything is typically cooked together at some point! It's when you do meals with 3 different things that it gets annoying (I don't know why 3 is the magic number for me... I just like having a protein with two different things I guess).0
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Write a list of what you're cooking, how long it takes (including resting for meat). Work out a plan of when to start cooking stuff. Works great for meals with a lot going on. Use a non permanent pen on the fridge door to write it all down.0
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Crushing garlic. I LOVE garlic - would add it to every single meal if I could. But garlic crushers are messy and annoying, and I haven't mastered the chef's way of using the flat side of the knife blade. It's a good thing I don't mind getting bigger chunks of the stuff every few mouthfuls!
Oh, and cleaning up afterwards. Love planning, preparing, and cooking food. But loathe any form of housework, so the clean up is my most hated part of cooking. I do it. I just hate doing it.0 -
Laziness to just get it done, for me. I follow online recipes from allrecipes.com a lot, so timing is already worked out for me. And boredom to some extent. Like, "not this meal again!!" I'd want something different and exciting, but sometimes it just seems like tweaks to the same ingredients...0
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I always set up my recipes with MFP and it all figures it out for me (as long as I can select the item with grams. I so hate it when an item is setup as "medium", "cup", etc. Can't trust any item that way). Then, I put everything with my name in the beginning of the recipe (i.e.: (DebzNuDA) Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple). It's so easy to find and log. If I find that I need to change a recipe then all I need to do is "Edit" the recipe.0
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I always set up my recipes with MFP and it all figures it out for me (as long as I can select the item with grams. I so hate it when an item is setup as "medium", "cup", etc. Can't trust any item that way). Then, I put everything with my name in the beginning of the recipe (i.e.: (DebzNuDA) Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple). It's so easy to find and log. If I find that I need to change a recipe then all I need to do is "Edit" the recipe.
Yes! This! I get sick of trawling through all the entries with 'cups'. Just put in the freaking grams, people! (I'm calm, I really, really, am.....)0 -
I always set up my recipes with MFP and it all figures it out for me (as long as I can select the item with grams. I so hate it when an item is setup as "medium", "cup", etc. Can't trust any item that way). Then, I put everything with my name in the beginning of the recipe (i.e.: (DebzNuDA) Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple). It's so easy to find and log. If I find that I need to change a recipe then all I need to do is "Edit" the recipe.
But it's not your recipe, and it's someone's recipe you're editing... I don't get this.0 -
quote="Francl27;31413160"]
I just enter every ingredient raw, weigh the pan empty then weigh it again with the stuff inside after it's been cooked and enter the amount of grams as serving (obviously if it's something I can transfer to another dish, I just weigh it.[/quote]
I do this too, but MFP runs so slow it takes me 8-10 minutes to add each recipe. And I don't cook anything elaborate.
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Crushing garlic. I LOVE garlic - would add it to every single meal if I could. But garlic crushers are messy and annoying, and I haven't mastered the chef's way of using the flat side of the knife blade. It's a good thing I don't mind getting bigger chunks of the stuff every few mouthfuls!
Oh, and cleaning up afterwards. Love planning, preparing, and cooking food. But loathe any form of housework, so the clean up is my most hated part of cooking. I do it. I just hate doing it.
I just buy jars of crushed and minced garlic.0 -
For me it's planning ahead of time. I'm so used to thinking about what I want to eat a half hour beforehand, which is why I'd simply order takeout.0
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I always set up my recipes with MFP and it all figures it out for me (as long as I can select the item with grams. I so hate it when an item is setup as "medium", "cup", etc. Can't trust any item that way). Then, I put everything with my name in the beginning of the recipe (i.e.: (DebzNuDA) Chicken Curry with Sweet Potatoes and Pineapple). It's so easy to find and log. If I find that I need to change a recipe then all I need to do is "Edit" the recipe.
But it's not your recipe, and it's someone's recipe you're editing... I don't get this.
I thought she just meant changing quantities of a recipe she previously entered. Like when you weigh the pack of chicken thighs and it doesn't come to the same weight each time...
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Food timing. Oh gosh I suck at this. I always end up with cold roasted veggies or meat while I wait for the potatoes to finish boiling or something
It's called learning, it's really not that difficult. Once you cook something once and it turns out to your liking, you know how long it takes, make note. Then whenever you cook that component, you know how long it takes and hopefully you can combine with other past experiences, so it all gets to the table at the same time.
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Crushing garlic. I LOVE garlic - would add it to every single meal if I could. But garlic crushers are messy and annoying, and I haven't mastered the chef's way of using the flat side of the knife blade. It's a good thing I don't mind getting bigger chunks of the stuff every few mouthfuls!
Oh, and cleaning up afterwards. Love planning, preparing, and cooking food. But loathe any form of housework, so the clean up is my most hated part of cooking. I do it. I just hate doing it.
I just buy jars of crushed and minced garlic.
I do this to, but they do taste different. I prefer the taste of fresh garlic, but the pre minced is so much easier. For some things, things where the garlic taste is prominent, I go ahead and buy fresh.0 -
Practice helps. You get faster chopping vegetables, mixing spices, cleaning up as you go along and all of that and everything just seems to fall into place. But until then, doing all of your prep before you start cooking anything helps because you can just focus on your cooking times.0
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Yeah, do your prep early. I like doing it a day prior.
Makes cook day a lot easier.0 -
Crushing garlic. I LOVE garlic - would add it to every single meal if I could. But garlic crushers are messy and annoying, and I haven't mastered the chef's way of using the flat side of the knife blade. It's a good thing I don't mind getting bigger chunks of the stuff every few mouthfuls!
I crush a whole lot of fresh garlic in one go. Then put it in a ziploc freezer bag. I put the freezer bag flat on a table and flatten out the garlic inside so that it is filling the space of the entire bag but is quite flat - about 1/2 inch high. I then roll the bag, with the last bit to roll over being the ziploc opening side. then pop it in the freezer (put an elastic band around it if necessary to hold the shape). Once it is frozen it is easy to take off as much as you need, slowly unrolling the bag as you do.
easy !0 -
Crushing garlic. I LOVE garlic - would add it to every single meal if I could. But garlic crushers are messy and annoying, and I haven't mastered the chef's way of using the flat side of the knife blade. It's a good thing I don't mind getting bigger chunks of the stuff every few mouthfuls!
Oh, and cleaning up afterwards. Love planning, preparing, and cooking food. But loathe any form of housework, so the clean up is my most hated part of cooking. I do it. I just hate doing it.
I just buy jars of crushed and minced garlic.
Sometimes I used crushed garlic that I bought, but I just prefer fresh. I think it's the one slightly food snobbish thing I do
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I hate to cook. I think it comes from years of preparing meals for my family, which became such a chore. I love to bake though, and fortunately my husband has decided in recent years to become the cook in the family. Yay!!0
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