When you are alone is it Thomas Keller or Kraft?

[Anna N]

 On another thread @Toliver said,

 

”I'm sure from-scratch pancakes taste great. But when you're raised eating pancakes made from Bisquick, that's what you tend to prefer. “

 

He’s not the only one to observe this phenomenon. 

 

 I gave up making macaroni and cheese and mushroom soup from scratch because my granddaughter would turn her nose up at it.  “It just doesn’t taste right, Nan.”  What she meant was that it didn’t taste like the food she was accustomed to. 

 

 I, too, find that some things MUST be bought not made. 

 

Jamaican patties. I’ve made my own and they were good but secretly I still prefer the ones I buy. And not just any but a particular brand.  There are others but this is what comes to mind on the spur of the moment  

 

What about you when you’re alone and the blinds are drawn? Do you go for southern biscuits made with White Lily Flour or “snap it on the edge of the counter” Pillbury’s?  With your grilled cheese will it be homemade tomato  soup or will it be Campbell’s?  

[gfweb]

Hellman's mayo, French's yellow on a hot dog, Whiz on a Cheesesteak....

 

I tend to make my own tomato soup because there are no cans around, usually.

 

American cheese on a cookout burger.

 

[kayb]

54 minutes ago, Anna N said:

 What about you when you’re alone and the blinds are drawn? Do you go for southern biscuits made with White Lily Flour or “snap it on the edge of the counter” Pillbury’s?  With your grilled cheese will it be homemade tomato  soup or will it be Campbell’s?  

 

Biscuits, unless it's cheese biscuits or biscuits for a crowd, are generally from the frozen foods section. Although I do get the urge occasionally for the canned variety, with all the little multitudinous layers.

 

It is, however, NEVER Campbell's tomato soup. If I don't have any home-canned, and don't want to make any, a cup of V8 juice mixed with a couple of scoops of Greek yogurt and heated works nicely.

 

I, too, face the issue that the grandkids want Kraft mac and cheese. Their parents, however, want my homemade. I have been known to serve both at the same meal. The single-serve nuke-it cups of Kraft are always in my pantry.

 

[Katie Meadow]

I do just about all the cooking for my husband and me. So, when I am alone and the blinds are drawn I don't want to cook anything at all. I scrounge, eat leftovers if they are available, or just defrost some chicken broth and make some white rice to dump in it. Eggs may be possible too. And then there's always toast. But we don't buy canned soups or boxed mixes of any kind, so those are not options. I have been known to have a glass of rye and a bowl of my favorite potato chips or popcorn and call it a meal.

 

But yes, I remember those elementary school days when my daughter wouldn't eat my home made macaroni and cheese, but would eat Kraft. That was very sad, and I assume she had it at friends' houses and that set her standard. And there were desperate times when I ate that stuff along with her. But those days are long gone. Who knows; the future could be very weird indeed.

[Martin Fisher]

Hmmm. Depends on how lazy I feel at the time.

So, it's about the mood, I guess.

My grandmother's were excellent cooks and bakers. Almost everything they cooked or baked was homemade.

My mom is also an excellent cook and baker—she owned restaurants years ago.

My preference is almost always homemade.

[Doofa]

I live alone and every day is a blinds down day. As I'm a Coeliac I tend to cook almost everything I eat. For a treat I"ll buy something frozen that I can eat and have that. I say treat as sometimes I enjoy a "night off" I will vary from toast and cheese to some complicated "Keller" job. 

I do eat quite richly, oyster and goose eggs are on today's menu. Oh, forgot the king scallops and asparagus. Sometimes a bag of crisps with cheese perhaps. Somethings I now refuse to make like mashed potato, chips, (unless I'm making big chunkies that take two days) A few other things that I regard as time I'll never get back if I make them. I'm good at wasting time and idling. At the moment 08.45, I'm lay in my hammock penning this with a double expresso and a fag, making chips would interfere with this regime, metaphorically of course. I live in a library of cookery books and use them. I do like nice things. D

[Lisa Shock]

I've got allergy issues, so, many processed foods are off limits for me. I do like potato chips, and on occasion have been known to eat apricots straight from the can... (I keep emergency supplies!) Most of my processed food supplies are whole foods, like canned plain beans, some fruit, water chestnuts, baby corn, plus condiments.

 

My mom, as much as she hated to cook, distrusted most processed foods, and so I never grew up with them. As difficult as this may be to believe, my dad preferred brown rice, so ate that fairly often at home. We'd buy bread and crackers and chips, but actual meal-type hot or cold foods were made from scratch. I also am a picky eater, and my tastes, plus being vegetarian, mean that I don't like some common packaged foods. I do not like cheddar cheese, for example. So, I make scratch mac & cheese with mozzarella & red onions & basil, mozzarella & green chiles, Jarlsberg & chives, smoked Gouda & mushrooms & garlic, etc. -Some kind of mild cheese and some strongly flavored vegetables/aromatics.

 

For me, if I am alone and tired/lazy I often turn to making a sandwich or reheating a frozen entree that I made. I try to cook several portions of certain meals, so that I can freeze up some single-serve quick dinners. I also freeze portions of rice and plain cooked beans, making some meals faster. Usually, at least once a day, I make something fairly complex from scratch. I make bread dough fairly often and have pizza/calzones  a couple of times a week, with various toppings and sauces. With raw dough in the fridge and some raw ingredients plus maybe a sauce or summer herbs in the freezer, much can be accomplished pretty quickly.

 

Even something as simple as cheap ramen gets a makeover here. I toss the flavor packet (allergies), and either make a broth with small amounts of vegetable scraps and herbs, or, cook the noodles up plain and stir fry them with vegetables and maybe some tofu/tempeh. Neither dish is worthy of serving to Keller, but, neither follows the manufacturer's instructions, either.

 

Years ago, when I first went out on my own, I'd try things like boxed rice/couscous side dishes (and often suffer from the allergic reactions). But, over the years, I have learned to make those dishes from scratch and the flavor is so much better, I have not been tempted to buy a boxed mix in over 20 years.

[Thanks for the Crepes]

I like Rice A Roni. Especially the chicken flavor. I tried the cheese flavor, and was pleasantly surprised that is was pretty good too. I could not read the minuscule black print on a dark red background, but found the ingredients online in a legible format. Unlike Kraft Mac and Cheese, the cheese version of Rice A Roni actually has real cheese in it. Not a whole lot of it, judging by taste, but at least they are trying.  Still, I prefer the chicken version. I had forgotten all about it and hadn't had it in years until it started showing up on the Dinner thread recently.

 

I've been a month without grocery shopping, so things are running fairly low at Chez TftC. I could survive months on what I have left, but all the fresh stuff is gone, and it certainly would not be any fun. I will be going shopping on Thursday. Yah! 

 

Tonight I made homemade Rice A Roni with fideos and long grain white rice, Knorr Caldo de Pollo bouillon, garlic and onion powder and lots of dried parsley and a little paprika. I browned the pasta and rice in butter as usual and then added the rest with water. It was good and I have three more servings for the freezer. I have to say that I like the boxed Rice A Roni better than mine. It probably has more salt and MSG. I love MSG.  Curiously, my long grain white rice from Food Lion took on more golden color than what Rice A Roni supplies in their boxes. Their rice becomes translucent, but does not brown at all, even if you get the pasta toasted quite dark.

 

I also prefer the texture of boxed cake mixes to what I make from scratch.

 

I made a quiche before I ran out of milk and still have some in the freezer. I did not have a frozen ready made pie crust, so made one with the flour and butter I did have. I have to tell you that an all butter pie crust, while I'm sure it's healthier than the trans fat ready made was cloying to me. I won't do it again. Don't get me wrong. I adore butter, but this was just too much with the rich spinach and bacon custard. I'll try again with maybe half butter and some oil, but I just don't prefer an all butter pie crust. It was flaky and the texture was tender and good, though.

 

I used to like Stouffer's lasagna and mac and cheese better than what I could make for the effort involved. Since Nestle's food scientists and bean counters have been given free rein to degrade what was once an excellent product line, I make my own now. I still occasionally buy the spinach "souffle". It's not a souffle, but it's still good for what it is. Give the corporate bots time, though. They will ruin that too.

 

I make pancakes from scratch. It's cheaper and I have a good recipe. I had a couple from the freezer I made when I still had milk with big old blueberries in them for dessert. This time of year, the blueberries I used were frozen, but I find them to be very fine in pancakes or muffins or coffee cake (which I do make from scratch).

 

I get up to some ambitious cooking every once in a while. It's usually a project like spanakopita, empanadas, egg rolls, samosas or something like that where I can freeze it and then have a ready to bake treat anytime I want. I'm not a fancy cook though, and never will be. The motivation just isn't there to make things more complicated than they need to be. I look at some of the "fine dining" restaurant dishes shown on here and shake my head. I don't get it, but I don't need to. I'm glad it's there for those who enjoy it, but give me the cachete tacos at Esmeralda Grill any day.

[Tri2Cook]

I'm usually somewhere in the middle. I don't use a lot of the Kraft Dinner type stuff for myself but I'm not at all opposed to some things from cans or the freezer section of the store helping make a meal quicker and easier. There is always KD, Campbell's tomato soup, Ichiban ramen noodles and frozen chicken nuggets in the house though... despite my best efforts, the kid won't eat very many things outside of those items.

[Honkman]

Cooking is too much of chill-out/relaxing time after a long day at work that we would at home “waste” it with any highly processed/low quality food. Also dinner is every day a good time to sit and talk about the day as a family without any distractions and so good food is even more important as it is a great foundation of good discussions

[Darienne]

We cook just about everything from scratch - both retired.  However, there are some things I either don't make well, like pastry, or am too lazy to make most of the time like canned beans and those I buy.  There's probably more, but I can't think of it right now.   

[blbst36]

The title of this thread made me thing of this (amazon link - non-affiliated) book that I have.  It's an interesting read.

[Toliver]

I used to take Banana Nut (walnut) bread in to work and everyone loved it. One of my co-workers asked for the recipe and was crestfallen to see that I used Bisquick in it. It's what I grew up eating so it wasn't a big deal to me that it wasn't "from scratch". I told her if she objected to Bisquick, she could always go to Alton Brown's web site and find his homemade version of Bisquick if that would make her feel any better.

That's more banana nut bread for me...#silverlining 

[ChocoMom]

Prior to going to college, I'd make everything I could from scratch.  My grandmothers both taught me how to cook, bake and make confections. My Mom taught me frugality, picking fruits and veggies, canning and preserving.  I did all that I could.  Once I hit college, and my life became filled with school, work and activities -  I succumbed to Campbell soup, Minute rice, canned fruit cocktail, Crystal light, coffee, and powdered milk.  I longed for foods from scratch, but it was not possible in a college dorm, or an apartment - when I was nearly broke with no money for fresh foods. 

 

Ever since I was a little kid, I wanted to make pasta, too. I still want to get a pasta machine. I vividly remember by grandma's neighbor making all the pasta for her oldest daughter's high school graduation. Old school Italian  -  Bruna Porcari -she was the best!!! Never have I tasted pasta that delicious, and I wish I could do that some day!!! 

 

On rare occasions, maybe one time every couple of months, I'd spend an evening with one of my friends and we'd bake cookies from scratch. Neither of us had much free time, so we'd make cookies together, and call it good.   After I found a more stable work environment and steady income, and ended 6 years of college, I found more time to bake and cook, and it was such a pleasure. I had missed it so much.  After I got married, I went full throttle into working with chocolate.  Built a second kitchen in our basement, and went from there. 

 

But now, having a home and a farm, plus two kitchens -  I am blissfully content with making farm to table meals pretty regularly during the summer/fall.  I cook from scratch as much as possible during the winter/spring, but need to buy produce and occasionally meat.  The primary thing that gets in the way of cooking completely from scratch is our ridiculous schedules. Secondary reason... There are some things that the hubby and kids like having from the store....bread, buns, lunchmeat, hotdogs, chips, crackers, cheese, some cookies....basically junk food or processed meats.   

 

This past weekend was nothing short of insane.  With the kids, grandkids, friends and relatives over-  somewhere around 30 people, I made all the foods, vs ordering pizzas.  The birthday cake was made from boxed mixes- because I find them to be more consistent than me baking from scratch. I did make the buttercream frosting though, and decorate the cake.  We had friends over from church on Sunday, and while I did use the purple cabbage/jicama/pineapple coleslaw from the day before, I cooked fresh from scratch chicken breast, risotto, and asparagus with hollandaise sauce. I bought the baguettes, and the puff pastry.  I made raspberry turnovers with the pastry dough.  Had it not been for me being wiped out, and extremely short on time, I would have made a different pastry with homemade dough.  But this is the kind of schedule-mania I deal with sometimes.  Either I have to plan better, or seek divine intervention for another 3 hours in the day, so I can make it all happen. Doing those two events, back to back, was a little taxing on my patience.  (and my feet!) 

 

I need to finish tiling the shower now, so I can devote my attention to the kitchens- which is where I would much rather use my time and energy! Shoutout to @Anna N.... Thank you for starting this thread!  It helped me to remember the joy I had as a kid, learning and cooking! 

 

 

 

 

 

[Darienne]

2 hours ago, ChocoMom said:

Prior to going to college, I'd make everything I could from scratch.  My grandmothers both taught me how to cook, bake and make confections. My Mom taught me frugality, picking fruits and veggies, canning and preserving.  I did all that I could.  Once I hit college, and my life became filled with school, work and activities -  I succumbed to Campbell soup, Minute rice, canned fruit cocktail, Crystal light, coffee, and powdered milk.  I longed for foods from scratch, but it was not possible in a college dorm, or an apartment - when I was nearly broke with no money for fresh foods. 

 

.........

 

I need to finish tiling the shower now, so I can devote my attention to the kitchens- which is where I would much rather use my time and energy! Shoutout to @Anna N.... Thank you for starting this thread!  It helped me to remember the joy I had as a kid, learning and cooking! 

 

I'm so tired after reading your post that I have to have a little lie down.... 

[Anna N]

5 hours ago, blbst36 said:

The title of this thread made me thing of this (amazon link - non-affiliated) book that I have.  It's an interesting read.

 I think I would enjoy reading this. Too bad it’s not available in Kindle. 

[ElsieD]

I sometimes use Uncle Ben's rice.

[rotuts]

I missed this thread initially

 

I note it was ' short lived '

 

suggests to me Many are Hiding something 

 

I love bean soup.

 

the gold standard for me is Campbells Bean w bacon

 

when energetic I slice up a rasher or two of bacon , and get it crispy and add it to that soup.

 

I also add a pinch of Spanish Smoked Paprika ( Penzey's )

 

Ive had bean soup all over , including a zillion years ago Senate Bean Soup.

 

Campbells is better for my taste.

 

of copurse the conglomerate that owns the camp bells label knows this

 

C's BwBacon soup never goes on sale , just to spite me.

[Anna N]

1 hour ago, rotuts said:

C's BwBacon soup never goes on sale , just to spite me.

 Even more disgusting than green bell peppers!   but to each their own. 

 

 

[gfweb]

I believe that there is celery in Bean w Bacon soup.

[ElsieD]

I like Campbell's tomato soup and also the cream of mushroom.

[rotuts]

no celery.

 

of lots of Sodium This , Sodium That , and Sodium TheOther.

 

way down the list is Navy Bean Powder.

 

first is Water , then Pea Beans ,Tomato Pure ( i.e. Water and Tomato Paste ) , Bacon ( and those pesky Other Sodiums ) carrots.

 

Ive seen clone Rx's and thought about trying them.  Have not gotten around to it.

 

 

Edited May 15, 2018 by rotuts (log)

[gfweb]

Wheat starch....hmmmmm...could that be GLUTEN???

[rotuts]

I love gluten

 

I can't imagine this formula have changed in eons.  

 

made this stuff well before Gluten became a cult .

 

and I lie my Food Starch modified , less work for me.

 

love to know what exactly the , 2% pork is exactly

 

no matter , this soup is for me.

 

Fall and Winter

 

I either smooch up the soup a bit w a hand masher or an electric hand blender a bit.

 

as Ive lived in Spain , the pinch of Spanish Smoked Paprika give it a Continental Flavor.

 

[Kim Shook]

We quite like a lot of Campbell's.  Bean with bacon, tomato, split pea with ham, beef and barley, old fashioned veg, vegetarian veg, and every so often - chicken noodle.  They don't compare to homemade and we don't eat them very often, but when we do, we like them.