By Emily Woodbury
I know a lot of people who have turned to cooking in these quarantine-times. Are you one of those people? I usually cook quite often, probably 5-6 days a week, but there’s something about having this extra time to explore a new freedom with cooking – what can I attempt to make that I’ve never made before?
The next time you go to the grocery store, take a look down the baking aisle. See any flour? Grocery stores across the country are experiencing a flour shortage because bread-making has quickly become a quarantine trend. Funny, huh?
If you’re looking for a new recipe, check out some of our reader’s favorite recipes here. (We used to publish these often but haven’t in a while. Have a favorite recipe? Send it to us here.)
Well, now that I’ve made myself hungry…let’s get into the results of this poll (which we asked you on March 31st.).
Almost half of you are like me and cook dinner from scratch every night or almost every night. A third of you prepare dinner a few nights a week, and 6 percent of you make it from scratch about once a week. A small 10 percent of you hardly ever cook, and 3 percent of you never cook at all.
Reader Cee likes their salads. They wrote, “My cooking from scratch involves making a salad with many fresh veggies and fruits then topping it with salmon, chicken, ham or beef. I hate cooking but do it 3 or 4 times a month. I prefer salads. Actually, I could just stand at the fridge and graze…” And Sharon has a good way of doing things. She commented, “We cannot eat large meals in the evening. I cook (from scratch), our large meal for lunch, but usually make enough for more than one meal. Extras become the next day’s meal or are frozen for another time. We don’t like to waste food and if I don’t have to be cooking but can reheat, then we have more time for other things — like hiking or biking or kayaking. A stash of home pre-cooked meals work nicely for traveling.” Indeed they do!
Drew commented, “My impression of ‘from scratch’ means you’d raise and slaughter the chicken, pick your vegetables and grind the corn. Far from getting items out of the fridge and cooking them.” Well, Drew, that’s not exactly what we meant – I don’t think “from scratch” has meant that in many years. Though, I respect people who do cook like that! We are so disconnected from our food these days, it would be nice to raise our own meat and dairy, and grow our vegetables and grains. Anyone up for putting a chicken coop on the roof? This wacky RV did!
OK…signing off for now. Eat well, folks.
Flour isn’t the problem for us to find but the yeast is hard to find as most store have ran out in last week
I ordered yeast from Amazon 6 weeks ago. $3.33 from China. Hope to get it this week. Ask a local restaurant if they can order it for you, I wish I’d known that sooner.
I’ve seen bags of Scratch at Wal-Mart. Doesn’t look very tasty, I think I’ll pass.
great
I like homemade bread, but my wife has to eat low or no carbs. So, I make pancakes or waffles and she’ll eat one. So we have all the flour, baking powder, baking soda and sugar that we’ll ever need for a 6-8 month time period.
We have no yeast since it won’t last forever.
Every night. We have very little of processed food except my one guilty pleasure of mac and cheese. Other than that maybe some gravy mix and pasta. We buy spices and we stock up on New Mexico Chili when we go through New Mexico. It is just pure chili, no additives. Food taste way better made from scratch. Cheaper too.