For seasoned home cooks, scratch-cooking comes easy. Having mastered culinary basics long ago, these cooks can manage the most complex recipes—or even cook without a script.
This post isn’t for them.
It’s for you.
Are you a non-cooking foodie?
You love great food. You crave new taste sensations. And you like the idea of home-cooking.
But for one reason or another—your kitchen’s too small or too big, you have too many children, you don’t have any children, you’re too busy, you have better things to do with your time—you’ve never made scratch-cooking a daily ritual.
Recession dining: Living well is still the best revenge
You’re not alone.
In the boom economy many foodies stopped cooking. They found food fixes in restaurant dining and upscale ethnic take-out fare. Cooking was relegated to weekend performances on Hummer-size Viking Ranges and industrial meat smokers.
Those days are gone. The recession forced foodies back into—surprise!—our modest but serviceable kitchens.
And that’s a good thing, I think.
There’s more good news. You don’t need an investment banker’s income to eat well—even fabulously. You can enjoy wonderful family dinners, soigné cocktail parties and lovely guest suppers no matter what the Dow decides.
Here’s the kicker: You have to learn to cook.
Very likely you’ve realized it’s time to say hello to your kitchen.
Perhaps you’ve been casting furtive glances at that fancy Dutch Oven you got as a wedding gift. Yes, you took it out of the box—and it looks great sitting next to your artisanal extra virgin olive oil.
But maybe it’s time to haul it from the shelf, dust it off and, you know, start using it.
Maybe. Just think about it. Need more convincing? Here are my…
10 top reasons to scratch-cook
- Better taste. Scratch-cooked food tastes fuller, fresher and more satisfying. I’m not talking about showy, chi-chi recipes. I mean simple meals made with seasonal ingredients put together by someone who cares. (A thoughtless, ill-prepared meal is almost worse than none at all.) Once you take time to learn and practice cooking basics, you’ll find your pestos, pastas and puddings hold up to—or beat—any pre-made convenience food and most restaurant repasts.
- Health. Home-cooked food is healthier than convenience meals. You control what goes into your body. You select the fresh, organic, seasonal, grassfed or other preferred ingredients. You measure the oil, salt, sugar and cream in each recipe. And scratch-cooked meals don’t—by definition—include commercially processed items. So you’re assured the fat molecules in your olive oil haven’t been re-arranged in a lab, heated to Inferno-esque temperatures and injected with dubiously stable hydrogen. Your sauces, pastas, condiments and desserts aren’t loaded with high fructose corn syrup. And the flavor of your dishes comes from real food, not test tube-created texturizers, enhancers, emulsifiers and preservatives. When you select and cook food with your own hands, you eliminate a load of known—and unknown–food dangers.
- Cheaper. Unless you shop exclusively at Citarella, you’ll spend far less buying and preparing your own food than eating take-out and convenience dishes. And that holds true even if you eat high-end organic, imported or specialty foods—the restaurant or take-out equivalent will always cost more. A lot more.
- Promotes emotional/spiritual balance: Food preparation is a process. It takes time. It requires participation. There are no instantaneous results. You have to plan meals, shop, tote groceries, unpack items, set aside half an hour to cook. You engage with the food you eat. I don’t think it’s going too far to say, you develop a relationship with food. You start to understand its textures, tastes and idiosyncrasies. You may find yourself wondering about your foods’ origins—it’s plant and animal sources—and your relationship with them. By handling food every day, you’re given the opportunity to be mindful. You open a daily window that allows you to consider your interconnectedness with something greater than yourself. You don’t get that kind of take-away from a take-out burrito.
- Helps you relax, lift depression and manage stress. Recent studies show that knitting, crocheting and other repetitive needlework activities measurably lower stress and boost the immune system. Based on my anecdotal experiences with both needlework and cooking, I believe food preparation offers similar salutary benefits. Once you know your way around the kitchen—there is a learning curve—I predict you’ll see both short- and long-term improvement in your mood and stress levels.
- Supports work/personal life balance. We talk the talk about professional/personal life balance. Scratch-cooking gives you a tangible way to walk the walk. It moves ideals from lofty concept: Home-cooked meals are a good idea; we really should make time for them, to action: We set aside time to cook and eat dinner together. It’s pretty easy to cheat on family time. You can chat and check email while watching your kid’s soccer game or tweet and text in the middle of Chutes and Ladders. But you can’t get away with that when you scratch-cook. At least not without second-degree kitchen burns. You can’t prepare meals unless you set aside time to plan, shop and cook. Having a genuine measure of your work/life balance—or imbalance—provides a sobering reality check.
- Holds family and friends together. We’re all busy. But if you’re too busy to eat with your family and friends, you’re too busy. If gathering your tribe around the table is impossible for you, maybe you need to rethink priorities. Because family meals aren’t just a bygone-era formality. Breaking bread at home with friends and family helps you relax, rejuvenate and reconnect. For a more detailed take on the importance of family dining, check out my post, The Secret to Making Time for Family Meals.
- Revives lost and dying skills. I remember feeling shocked a few years back when I realized how few friends and neighbors cooked dinner. Ever. In my affluent suburb cooking had become optional. Some parents saw food preparation as an onerous chore. Others caved to kids’ pizza and fried-food cravings. And some parents simply didn’t know how to cook. You know how you feel disturbed when you hear about a species going extinct? I felt the same kind of quiet panic over lost cooking skills. My vague anxiety over home-cooking’s demise was, in fact, the impetus for Copywriters’ Kitchen blog. I want busy people like you and me—freelance workers, parents, students—to make time for body-and-soul nourishing meals made by our own hands.
- Models resourcefulness. When you’re able to prepare food from start to finish, you give your friends and family a powerful model of self-sufficiency. I’ve seen this play out in my own home: My oldest son is a skilled and talented scratch-cook. This year he opted out of his college food plan and pooled resources with his roommate. He bought a bulk supply of grassfed meat and chicken, shopped farmers markets and cooked fabulous meals every night. As you might imagine, he was one of the most popular young men on campus.
- Supports ethical choices. Home-cooking doesn’t immediately raise your consciousness and transform you into a proponent of fair trade, agrarian labor relations, small business advocacy, locavorism and farm animal ethics. But the process of scratch-cooking and the relationship it engenders with food and its sources, lays a foundation for deeper thinking on the politics and ethics of food.
Non-cooking foodies: Ready to give scratch-cooking a try? Or are you still holding out in defense of frozen Pad Thai and pizza? Let me know.
Experienced cooks: Tell us why you cook from scratch.
Thanks for the inspiration, Lorraine!
Hi Jeff:
Thanks for visiting.
Love your post and its emphasis on SLOW food and enjoying “being in the moment” with food prep instead of rushing through to a hurried result.
I recently heard on the radio that this bad economy is actually making people cook at home more and eat out less…that they are eating healthier foods now that they are not loading up on fattening and sugar loaded foods from eating out. So maybe, “scratch cooking” will become a necessity and people will discover (or re-discover) the joy of cooking at home. May be obesity will become less of an issue, then. We can hope, right?
A friend forwarded your blog address to me and I’m so glad she did!
I agree wholeheartedly with this post. Here, here!
@Karen: Yes, let’s hope. At least there’s one good thing to come out of the bad economy.
@Keetha. Thanks for your comment–scratch cooks of the world, unite!
Hi Lorraine!
I enjoy cooking from scratch because the economic and emotional benefits cannot be equalled by getting take home or delivery or by dining out. I save money by cooking at home and I have a lot of fun trying new recipes or creating my own. It’s relaxing yet energizing at the same time. But most importantly, I know what I am feeding my kids and where it came from. And, of course, food prepared outside the home is almost always lacking the most special ingredient- love.
-Janee
Hi Janee:
Thanks for visiting–and for reminding us of that very special ingredient. Food made with love–to nourish, comfort and delight our family and friends–is one of life’s great joys.
I cook from scratch primarily for economic reasons, but I also like having minimally processed food. I don’t like over season foods, sometimes I think that all the commercial food providers are smokers with no taste buds. My idea of seasoning is to put in just enough so that you really can’t taste it, but if you were to leave it out, people would say that something is missing.
You’ve summed up my feelings about the benefits of cooking from scratch exactly. With Thanksgiving coming up I was thinking how many people think they are “cooking from scratch” when they use the gravy that comes with the turkey, use boxed stuffing mix, and canned cranberries, instant mashed potatoes and on and on. What they don’t realize that they are just tasting chemicals and the true taste of those foods are lost. When you eat real food, made with care as you said, you really get a feeling of well being. 20 years ago I was at my brother’s house and I started making mashed potatoes. As I was peeling the potatoes my 8 year old niece came up and asked what I was doing. She had never seen anyone make mashed potatoes from scratch even though her mom was a very good cook. And then last week, our community put together an event to celebrate Native American month and I made Navajo Fry Bread and let the kids form the dough and then I fried it. I made taco mix (from scratch with real spices, garlic onion, tomatoes) and grated cheese (instead of buying pre-grated) or they could have it sweet with honey. The kids just loved it. One little boy said “Thank you for the best food of my life!” How sad is that. I work at a library and every event is punctuated by a from scratch cake. People can’t get enough of it. And they are not hard to make, but most people think making a cake from a box mix is the equivalent of making a cake from ingredients, but the taste difference is night and day. Unfortunately people are brainwashed by the media into thinking that they don’t have time to really cook, they don’t have time to eat together. And all that processed food leads to obesity, more trash, more money in the pockets of corporations instead of of theirs. I guess I’ll stop there.
@BR Yep–cooking from scratch saves money big time–and allows you to season exactly as you like.
@Shellie Thanks for more fully putting into words my sentiments. Your Navajo Fry Bread and taco filling sounds heavenly. How good of you to prepare this for the kids. The little boy’s reaction to “the best food of my life” is sweet and, yes, sad.
It’s depressing to think about cooking skills disappearing, but people like you give me hope. Keep cooking those delicious scratch cakes and meals!
I cook from scratch to save money. Nothing fancy tho. Simple plain food. Did you know it’s just about impossible to gain weight from eating plain, simple food? It’s just not exciting enough to overeat. I don’t snack between meals because I’m not hungry enough to be excited about cornmeal mush or a bowl of beans. But, like the saying goes, hunger is the best spice, so when I do eat a plain unexciting meal it tastes darned good. When I’m full, I know I’m full and don’t crave more. I don’t make cookies or cakes or anything like that, they’re junk food.
My thought about convenience foods is- Why should I pay an unseen stranger to gather, cook, assemble, and package my meals? I can do it myself for pennies on the dollar, with a much lower fat content and a higher vitamin content.
@Maxine: Yes, scratch cooking is a great boon to your budget–and your health. And, again, the taste is far superior to processed foods.
My son antwan gilliam is 13 years old and he wants to get his own cooking business
Real food and cooking from scratch has more benefits than anyone realizes but when you are stuck in a rut, trapped in a bad habit you need community to come around and encouage you to make healthy decisions on eating for the good of everyone. When I eat healthier it benefits me but it benefits my children, grand children, neighbors, friends, co-workers and on and on…. Please encourage me as I have fallen off the wagon and am trying desperately to get back on. I am a empty nest single mom and it is hard to get motivated to cook for myself as I am exhausted after work. I would love to have family and friends over for meals but my house is just a wreck from no energy to clean it since I am not eating right and have just enough energy to get back and forth to work each day. Any prayers and encouragement would help me so much. Thanks, and I will return the favor.
@Tamela: Thanks for dropping into Copywriters’ Kitchen. I’m hope you look at this blog as your community. : >
I know where you are at. At this point I only have one child at home–and I’m finding it much tougher to motivate myself to plan and cook meals. In a few years it will be just me and Mr. Copywriters Kitchen. I think one of the reasons I stick with this blog is to force myself live up to my principles about scratch-cooked food.
Here are few quick ideas that may help you get back on the home-cooking wagon:
* Remember cooking is self-nurturance and you need and deserve to feed your body and soul with good, simple food.
* So keep it simple. Instead of setting up unrealistic expectations for weekday dinners, cook wholesome, easy food. Scrambled eggs and toast is healthy, quick and comforting. Or try my FAST Penne Alla Vodka–cook half a pound of pasta (BTW, this is one of the few pastas that’s delish with whole-grain pasta) and eat it for two days.
http:https://www.copywriterskitchen.com/dev/2009/02/18/confessions-of-a-scratch-cook-%E2%80%9Ci-serve-my-kids-fast-food%E2%80%9D/
* Sameness can be a comfort. Don’t shy from eating a delicious home-cooked meal twice in a row. Or more.
* Use the the weekend to prepare. I often use Sunday afternoon to hold a cookathon. I boil a pound of pinto beans–great for burritos, chili, on salads or unadorned for a quick, high-protein snack. Wash and tear salad greens–store wrapped in paper towel and plastic bag in fridge and they’ll keep for most of the week. Make a big pot of soup, chili or casserole–and freeze in genrous single portions. Some more kitchen tips follow. But don’t feel compelled to use them all–or ANY of them. Only if they resonate: http:https://www.copywriterskitchen.com/dev/2009/03/11/30-kitchen-tips-make-scratch-cooking-childs-play-part-2-of-a-2-part-post/
http:https://www.copywriterskitchen.com/dev/2009/03/10/30-kitchen-tips-make-scratch-cooking-childs-play-part-1-of-a-2-part-post/
* Instead of entertaining for dinner, invite friends for cocktails or wine and cheese. You don’t have to meticulously clean your home to invite people over–that’s what dimmed lighting and candles are for. All joking aside, your friends want to see you (I’m telling myself this as I write it) not a Martha Stewart staged photo shoot. Dust surfaces, turn down the lights and serve some frozen tidbits from Trader Joes. When I do cocktails, I often prepare a pot of soup (See weekend cookathon) just in case I feel the need to offer dinner. But you know what? When you invite people for cocktails, they usually are very adept at making a timely exit.
The best way to “return the favor?” Start nurturing yourself with simple home cooking. And come back and tell us how you’re figuring it out. Many of us are in the same boat.
My husband and I opened a restaurant one year ago, Shockley Market, that makes 100% of our menu items from scratch. We also have become an industry leader in Corpus Christi, TX for using local produce and seafood. Cooking from scratch is our way to show the community and our guests that we care about them. We realize that everyone might want to cook from scratch for their families, but in reality they may not always have the time. All our guests agree that is tastes so much better too!
@Jana: Shockley Market looks wonderful. I want to try your Sweet Potato and Peanut soup. Mmmm…
Came across your site in a search for cooking from scratch and LOVE your site. I’ve featured it in today’s blog article for all my freelance buddies to see and anyone else who follows my site. Love it, Lorraine, Thank you for providing this help to others. I’m thrilled to try what recipes I can (given the experiment I’m doing.)
I cook from scratch for all 10 reasons. I especially like that I can afford more expensive farm raised sustainable meats and eggs because I save money on cooking from scratch. I also balance the expense and meat intake with vegetarian options.
@Kim: Thanks for your kind words. I’ve got loads of grain-free legume recipes on the site. Unfortunately, my recipe archive has not been updated in far too long. Hoping to work on this project with a coder in the spring–an improvement that will make it easier for you to find all the recipes I post.
@Liz: A woman after my own heart! We eat meat only around twice a week. I never feel deprived, just relieved that I have a sustainable, humane choice–thanks in good part to the money I save scratch cooking.
You’re a girl after my own heart. 95% of the food that goes into our tummies is prepared by me. One day out of 95, I collapse and my husband takes me out. I still get a “high” from kneading my own bread. My husband is so cute because he knows that the kitchen is a de-stresser for me. If he smells bread, he can be sure that I’ve had a stressful day and I’m unwinding with flour all over my apron instead of a martini.
Love this. I’m going to try!
My mother is an awful cook. She is one of those people that can burn water. So she made food out of the box for my entire life up until this summer (16 years), when I suddenly had an allergic reaction that put me in the ICU. Turns out I’m allergic to twelve different foods, and she fed me almost all of them unknowingly. Now I cook from scratch, because 1) I don’t want to die and 2) my mother would burn everything.
Thanks for the advice Lorraine! I used to be a very healthy and in shape guy, but after family issues I fell into a depression and stopped eating healthy and working out. On top of that, I dropped out of school and started drinking pretty heavily. I’ve just started to work on getting things back on track and this has definitely been very informational in regards to one of the things I want to do to get my life back on track. Thanks again.