I grew up with a lot of frozen food (e.g. breaded fish, pizza, curries, peas), things out of tins/jars/packets (e.g. biscuits, donuts, cakes, sweetcorn) or a plain meat, potatoes&2veg most of the time. Chips done in a deep fat fryer was our staple.

I can sympathise with the likes of Jamie Oliver, heh, since I have only really tried to cook in the last year or so, and find it hard to keep at because it's too easy otherwise.

I grew up with casseroles, roast chicken and lots and lots of vegetables. I never had curry or pizza or takeaway until I was about 15 and was away from home without my parents. When I first left home and cooked for myself, I rebelled by wanting instant mashed potato, oven chips, pot noodle, chinese takeaway, and microwave meals.

I've come full circle now though, and cook most of my own meals from scratch, and particularly like a good casserole just like mum used to make.

The odd breaded thing like fish fingers or chicken kievs and lots of casseroles (beef or chicken with vegetables). I used to like homemade tuna pizza as a toddler but went off pizza until I was about 7/8, when it became my favourite food. I ate quite well as a young child - I hated pizza, McDonalds and white bread and my mum stayed at home and thus had plenty of time to cook fresh meals.

My mum has us really young so she developed into a really good cook as I was growing up - she was always competent but when we were small it was more traditional Irish and Russian cuisine (learned from her parents and fairly similar - lots of potatoes!), then she broadened her food horizons and after that it was lots of everything from Mexican to Japanese, to French to lots and lots of Italian!

Mine was very similar. Fish fingers/burgers/mini grill pizza with chips and peas were our usual evening meals. Roast dinner on a sunday, and sausage/fish cake and chips from the chippy on a Friday night.
Never did me any harm, I was always a skinny, lanky thing as a kid

Findus crispy pancakes, chips, spaghetti bolognaise, roast dinners - usually beef or lamb. My dad hated chicken and it was still very expensive in the 70s so it was regarded as a real treat

My memories are of lots of cabbage and spuds and liver. My mum would cook the hell out of liver, grill it till it was like rawhide.

Funnily enough I still like liver but pan fried with chilli and red wine.

She also made a belting lemon meringue pie so much so she was famous for it in the local community.

She also made a wonderful gravy from scratch (and taught me how to)

RIP Mum

Mostly plain stuff from scratch - chop, potato and veg and variations of. Also casseroles, stews, roasts etc. Oh and only ever homemade chips, I can't eat the packet ones now

porridge (for dinner), mince, stovies, casseroles and stews and on a wednesday (day before payday) egg and chips

Homemade casseroles and pies. Everyday was meat and veg almost always cooked from scratch. My Dad grew vegetables in the garden, so peas and beans were always fresh when in season.

We also ate a lot of chips/mashed potatoes, always homemade - never frozen or Smash, lunchtimes we would have beans on toast, egg on toast, tinned spaghetti on toast, cheese on toast etc

Weekends were cold meats and salads in the summer, Sunday roasts, or winter teatimes we had jacket potatoes and spare ribs or cheese on toast.

And ALWAYS fish on Fridays - whether it was fresh from the market, sometimes fish fingers/fish cakes and the best of all - a takeaway from the chippy.

We lived with my grandparents, so my nan did the cooking.
We mainly had stews, meat pudding or pies, shephard pie. What we had for dessert depended on what we'd had for dinner..so if nan had made a meat pudding, we'd have suet pudding for dessert, or a meat pie meant fruit pie

We always had fresh fish from the market on Friday, she used to do me Plaice in milk and parsley sauce

Saturday was called nans day off, so lunch was usually pie mash and liquor from the shop, (yum) and tea was always shell fish and salad,with bread and butter

And Sundays were always the same..egg and bacon for breakfast, a huge roast for lunch, followed by jelly and icecream....and cold meat sandwhiches for tea

What a really nice thread.
In my twenties so still live at home.

Growing up everything was made from scratch even though both my Mum and Dad worked full time, and I don’t think I had a ready meal until I was about 17.....and then didn’t like/don’t like them. Having said that we still had/have fish fingers and baked beans but that doesn’t count as ready meal does it?

My Mum cooked mostly, her parents lived all around the world after the War so there were influences and things we had quite a bit before they came into the supermarket......I remember buying olive oil from the chemist in about 1985. My Dad grew a lot of vegetables until he died a few years ago. We were spoilt but didn’t realise it he grew everything!

We would have BBQ’s for Sunday lunch from about late March to October with a huge variety of different stuff as well as regular favourites and then in the off season Sunday was a roast from the butcher.

We would often have some form of mince on Saturday night lasagne or moussaka, chilli, bolognaise, mince beef pies, cottage pie, shepherd’s pie etc etc etc.

Monday would be leftovers, then the rest of the week something from the following all with fresh vegetables and huge salads: - chicken thighs in soup, pacific pie, fish pie, burgers, chicken Kiev’s, fish-like trout in butter oven baked, casoluet, casseroles.

We also went to France a lot so would always bring back loads and loads of stuff.

my Nan lived with us after my mum died and she would cook everything from scratch, shepherds pie was my fave, she also did a cracking stew with left over roast, then my dad married a witch who couldn't cook so everything was frozen or out of a jar

My housekeeper did most of our cooking so we mainly had horrendously lumpy mashed potatoes, rock hard pork chops and overcooked broccoli. And no sauce or anything! It's put me off mashed potatoes for life, and before I became vegan I was never too keen on lamb chops either!

When mum had the time she was great and cooking and baking. On a Saturday night she'd make pizzas from scratch, and she'd bake Irish soda bread every Saturday morning.

Tinned bloody peaches with Carnation milk....

My mum was a lovely cook but not fancy stuff, had cooked meal every night, chops and veg etc, used to love saveloys pease pudding and carrots.Sundays would be a roast. Luckily none of us had a sweet tooth so no pudds although mum used to now and them make a gorgeous apple pie.
Her steak and Kidney pie was to die for and her stews.

I can always remember poding (sp) the fresh peas and eating them as I was poding.

As very young kids we would have bread and sugar. Eww the thought now, also bread and dripping.

Sunday teatime we'd have *winkle sandwiches*

Ah, you mean podding the peas, sorry, took a while, didn't know what you meant for a while there, winkle sandwiches sound good, my dad would always bring home winkles from the pub and we'd have them for Sunday tea, with tinned salmon sandwiches and jam tarts

I really couldnt be sure whether it was one P or 2
I think we had a seafood stall near our local pub so I think me dad used to buy em from there,along with shrimps and cockles! me mum loved whelks....ewww

Largely, mince. We had a lot of meat out of tins - ham, chicken roll, corned beef, with potatoes/mash and veg. Sometimes sausages or chicken.

Everything was cooked very VERY plainly in my house as my Dad hated spices of all kinds. Once I was in my teens we started having a lot more ready meals (as Mum isn't the best cook and generally was too busy by then) so I got to have bolognaise and whatnot for the first time.

Tinned fruit was also a regular in our house served up with either carnation or dream topping otherwise it was Angel Delight or birds Trifle. By the late 70s my mum used to stockpile ski yoghurts - still not keen on yoghurt after being force fed it in my teens

We grew up eating the same foods on the same days of each week.... strangely not all of them have stayed with me as much as the braising steak, with creamed spuds & peas that we ate on a Wednesday. I detested braising steak, and still do, and I used to eat all the peas, half the spuds & then hide the meat under the rest. I also recall eating sausages in onion gravy while watching Renta-Ghost.

On a saturday we would get crabs nippers or winkles as a treat while in town with my mum, we'd choose a pick-a-mix to eat while watching Saturday evening TV, and then we'd get fish & chips (in Newspaper) on the way home.

Puddings in our house were Lemon Meringue Pie, Apple Crumble, and Chocolate Cake - all of which my mum makes exceptionally to this day.

On a Sunday we never had pudding because we visited my Aunts & she made the best Apple Pie I have ever tasted, and she served it warm with half ice cream, half fresh cream.

I must say like I said before mum was a gorgeous cook but also she had to rely on rations for us kids How On Earth did mums make do in those days! Good Grief.

We always had set meals on set days, cant remember the running order but I know there was always boiled bacon ribs, boiled potatoes and cabbage, yellow fish, mash and butter beans, braising steak with liver and onions, mash again and carrot and turnip, sausage casserole, spag bol, scouse, and always a roast on a sunday. We always had a full english breakfast (with fried red potatoes that my nan grew in her garden) on a Sunday, the roast about 2 and then a "nibbley biccy tea" sandwiches, biscuits, cakes, trifle etc. I LOVED Sundays!! I still get my Mum to bring me and the OH a roast each down on a plate on a Sunday sometimes!! Gorgeous!
Never any spices or frozen meals, even now you will only find meat in mums freezer, and if we ever had chips they were home made! Salads in the summer, just cold meats and egg and cheese and the salad veg, no dressing and if we were poorly, home made ham and pea soup or "chucky butties" (boiled egg all mashed up with a nob of butter and some salt then spread on crusty bread) mmmmmmm...

Also you have to realise we didnt have fridges/freezers years ago either.

We did I'm only 30!!! hee hee ;OD