My family sounds remarkedly similar. My mother always cooked dinner every night after working every day. And now that I'm married, my husband does the cooking--every night and because he enjoys it. He also makes his own tomato sauces. Well, we just discovered a canned one that is actually as good as homemade, believe it or not, so we switched. He was just diagnosed with diabetes, so cooking no longer holds much enjoyment for him. But we've been surprised at the poor quality of diabetic cookbooks. We've talked about publishing our own--he thinks I'm just teasing. We never canned things, though. That's really a great way to go! And I was also an teen before I ever went to McD's.
I have to tell you, the canning of tomato sauce is not fun. I remember long hot days in the kitchen with my folks and sometimes the grandparents too, churning out jar after jar of the stuff. I was happy for it in the dead of upstate NY winter, but it really, really sucked when we had to make it in August.