For a basic pie crust, the only thing I measure is the flour - cup into jar, tip into mixer. 10 seconds? Then unwrap the butter, cut into 4 with a knife, toss it in, another 10 seconds. Pinch of salt, splash of cold water, another 10 seconds, and switch the mixer on. As I acknowledged, you do have to roll it out, but that is pretty quick too. Extra washing up, 1 mixing bowl and blade (the measuring cup and knife go in the dishwasher, as does the pie plate). Maybe it is because I grew up like this, and this is how my friends cook (situation normal to pop over to see a friend, they throw the mixer on to make pastry for a quiche, say, while I open and pour the wine - and it probably takes the same amount of time). I also think kids should learn to cook - so time spent playing with your kids is a bit of a cop out - they can help to cook which is just as much quality time together doing an activity.

I genuinely think that people are a bit afraid of things like pastry, and baking cakes, in part because they see TV chefs using pre-made items, so assume it must be hard. As a 5 year old child, we baked pastry (jam tarts) and buns (uniced cupcakes) in school cookery - I had beaver scouts doing similar - the mixing and rolling of pastry being absolutely safe, as opposed to anything requiring heat, cutting etc. I think it is about as basic as you get. If someone doesn't want to make it, that's another issue, but it is hardly rocket science to say I'll use a pre-made one, if the recipe lists the pie crust step separately. The trouble is they don't, their immediate instruction is to go to the ready made solution. I have a secondary cook book that I keep in my kitchen that has recipes for the basics (some I don't need to look up, like plain pastry, or a vanilla cake, others, like egg pasta that I make less often, I do) because so many recipe books don't give measures / cooking times / standing times for the whole recipe.