Have you ever tried to make your favourite takeaway at home?how did it turn out?

Yes, we loved take-away too, Chinese food, Indian food and Pizza. But I agree it is expensive and we tend to make a lot of our own now. It's not quite the same because I think that there may be secret ingredients in the take-aways, but I do enjoy the home-made just the same. _Derek

it all started a year back , i met an accident and was not able to move out , as my leg got broke, so i decided to make my favorite burger my self, i tried missing some of my things while making the burger and in the end while i tried out, it was much better then my fav take away, so from that time i make my own take away, anybody intersted, it is called as extra spicy chicken, kabab burger :-)

Now that I don't live in the USA anymore. I am forced to try to take my favorites at home. Thank God for copycat recipes online, I have been able to make my favorite General Tsao's Chicken, Paper Wrapped Chicken, even Long John Silver's Chicken and Hushpuppies. They taste a lot like the original so I try to do that once in a while. My family loves it too.

I did a stuffed crust pizza that turned out wonderful! I too use dough from my bread maker. I add Italian seasoning to the bread mix and it gives it a little bit more of the flavoring of the pizza shops. About the only thing I do like from the take out restaurants is pizza. I did go to Panda Express and kind of liked their food, but I am a Asian food snob as I lived in Thailand for 9 months and ate the local food. In fact I am going to go back to fixing my food the Asian way as it has less calories and is healthier since it is full of veggies. There are several books on how to fix food like the various restaurants, but I find that doing it myself is so much more fun than spending the big bucks for supporting someone else's take on recipes.

Hi Pandaeyes..I love to cook and am a recent grad of culinary school. I cook on a yacht for the owners and their guests and travel quite a bit throughout the Bahamas and the Carribean. I dont get to do too much on these trips as my day starts at 3am and ends well after the dinner hour. The pay is good however and I'm doing what I was trained to do. When out on the boat, obviously take out is not an option and sometimes I get cravings for this restaurant or that restaurant and something special from those places. I found a website that makes a lot of these cravings attainable. You can search almost any recipe from your favorite restaurant and it will give you the recipe (or so close to the recipe that you wouldn't know the difference)if they have it..I can almost always find what I'm looking for and am now able to make these things both at work and at home. Check it out..With the cost of living being what it is today, eating out is a luxury that I have to do without so I have found this to be the next best thing..Again, its Copycat.com..Good luck and happy cooking!!

For me it's look like the same with the original so delicious also.

I make restaurant food at home all the time...In fact we're having Chinese tomorrow LOL which for us consists of S&S chicken balls, kung pao chicken, fried rice, and beef w/snow peas and or sometimes I will make a stir fry with rice etc....I make "better than KFC mom" fried chicken....4 Cheese Spinach dip with fried pita (which use to be a FAV at our former fav restuarant Kelseys back home)..We make pizza at home all the time and homemade burgers and fries too are big here...Thats just a few things...and yes it is way cheaper to do it at home then to grab take out..

I love Chinese food a lot especially sweet and sour pork and chicken with cashew nuts. Unfortunately in my country Chinese food and restaurants are rather expensive. So we only go there on special occasions. My wife learned how to cook the Chinese food and thus we can enjoy Chinese food at home. It is much cheaper and much healthier.

I got so fed up with the price hikes in our local chinese that I started to cook chinese food at home and have to say that the home cooked is definitely better than the takeaway. My partner cooks a mean curry so we don't need to go to the local curry house very often now and I can cook pizza using the pizza bases and our own toppings. Once in a while we will go to the takeaway but we prefer home made.

I have made Wendys spicy chicken patty and popyes biscuts, and also Boston Markets creamed spinich. They always come out really good.

We make pizza quite often and I love doing that, it's so nice to be able to control what and how much goes on. One thing we tried a little while ago that worked quite well was recreating the KFC bowls. All they are is mashed potatoes, sweet corn, chicken, gravy and cheese. They were good and since we were doing it at home we could substitute light and low fat ingredients.

There are certain things that I have tried at home and the majority of the time it turns out quite well, and a lot less expensive than the restaurant versions. I make homemade pizza all the time and the children love the days that I do that. I also like to make shreded pork barbeque. I've never been brave enough to attempt Chinese food at home, but it is something that I would like to give a try eventually. Also, I would love to find some good Italian recipes to try at home.

I have tried to recreate restuarant meals at home, but they never quite taste the same do they? I have only had two sucessful attempts. The most recent was an italian chicken and pasta dish which I ate at Bella Italia at christmas. Last year I created my very own version of hot and sour soup which went down very well. Unfortunately I didn't write the recipe down as I went along so now I can't remember how I did it!

Chinese is my favorite takeout, too. However, I have never gotten or made a good Chinese dish. Nothing has ever compared to restaurant-made dishes. Pizza though is a different story. When I visit one friend of mine and we have parties, we make four or so different pizzas. Roll out the crust, and put whatever people want on it. Inexpensive, and DELICIOUS.

pandaeyes, It is always better for us to make these menus ourselves as we can always have the best cut of meats, more of our favorite mixes, vegetables, or condiments to suit our own whims and fancies. So, the steak will always be the best premium cut, the pizza will always have our favorite chunkier meats, cheese toppings, quality ingredients and everything that will make our gastronomical experience a more satisfying and memorable one. So, yes I will always try to have my favorite orders home made and I even have secret recipes direct from well known chefs to make my dishes as authentic as possible.

I make "restaurant" recipes often, and for the most part, they come out quite well. Of course, it's worth saving the cost of the restaurant price. My mom got some good Chinese food recipes from a well-known NY Chinese restaurant years ago and the dishes turned out quite well. I try to get recipes when I can and, if not, I approximate them the best I can. I do a refreshing salad my granddaughter loves from a restaurant chain; it's pretty easy. My best success came from duplicating a dish I ate at the Russian Tea Room, also in NY. Some ingredients are easy to discern and make; others are not so easy in both areas. Pizza is a good one to do at home. I used to make the dough, but I have bought the dough from a local Italian Deli as well; I like their dough better than mine, but my toppings are better (and more of them). I do try to find some restaurant recipes in books or on line as well when I can. Also, it's important to buy good ingredients.