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What don't you buy anymore?


enurmi

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for me, the list is:

salad dressing

microwave popcorn (never bought it much anyway)

canned soup (though I do buy the boxes of Trader Joe's creamy tomato)

frozen dinners

mac & cheese mix

bisquik

I do admit to bringing home bread, but I do work in an artisanal French bakery. Can I get a pass for that? I know the guys who make it. :unsure:

I also have to say that I'm proud to have made & frozen some two months' or so worth of meals so that when my husband and I are without a kitchen in the coming months during our remodel, we won't have to rely solely on takeout or frozen meals.

"I just hate health food"--Julia Child

Jennifer Garner

buttercream pastries

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I can't remember the last time I bought salad dressing. I also have never once in my entire life bought canned spaghetti sauce (it was the first thing my dad taught me to cook as a kid.)

"Vegetarians are the enemy of everything good and decent in the human spirit." -- Anthony Bourdain

Promote skepticism and critical thinking. www.randi.org

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A zillion people have listed salad dressing. Honestly, I don't understand why anyone buys bottled salad dressing. It's all horrible, and making a vinaigrette, for example, which is really as good as salad dressing gets, takes all of 40 seconds. Or dressing a salad in the Italian manner, just tossing it with olive oil, then some salt, then some vinegar...if the salad greens are good, and the olive oil is good, you can't get better than that.

But you people who say you don't buy pre-roasted coffee...really? You buy raw coffee beans and roast them yourself? In what, your ovens? I don't quite understand that. Where do you even find raw coffee beans?

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I was very proud of myself when I took ketchup off the shopping list 3 years ago, and began canning my own. Now it's an annual ritual. I buy 20 lbs of organic tomatoes from a local farm, and just go at it. There's no comparison in flavor between homemade ketchup and commercial ketchup. Even if I wanted to, I couldn't go back.

Of course, when I'm prepping tomatoes and standing over the sink up to my eyebrows in tomato pulp,  peels and seeds, I sometimes wonder if I'm crazy.

Most recently I've taken canned tuna off the list. I've started slow poaching chunks of fresh tuna in olive oil with garlic and spices. Heavenly!

djyee,

I'd be very interested in both these recipes, if you have the time and inclination to post them. (Or a link to them.) Summer tomatoes are so flavorful and cheap, I would love to learn how to make ketchup. I already do that tomato-covered stance at least two days each summer, because I blanch, peel, chop and freeze about 5 kg. of those little red guys for future use. Wonderful to pull out a ziploc bag and release that fresh tomato flavor into just about anything. I would willingly prolong the work day and make ketchup too.

And do you preserve the tuna in some way, or make it once for a meal the same day?

To return to the topic, I've never given up commercial pesto because I've always made my own. Once I tasted the supermarket stuff and it was kind of a sad experience.

Miriam

Edited by Miriam Kresh (log)

Miriam Kresh

blog:[blog=www.israelikitchen.com][/blog]

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A zillion people have listed salad dressing. Honestly, I don't understand why anyone buys bottled salad dressing. It's all horrible, and making a vinaigrette, for example, which is really as good as salad dressing gets, takes all of 40 seconds. Or dressing a salad in the Italian manner, just tossing it with olive oil, then some salt, then some vinegar...if the salad greens are good, and the olive oil is good, you can't get better than that.

But you people who say you don't buy pre-roasted coffee...really? You buy raw coffee beans and roast them yourself? In what, your ovens? I don't quite understand that. Where do you even find raw coffee beans?

Click here for answers about coffee roasting.

"It's better to burn out than to fade away"-Neil Young

"I think I hear a dingo eating your baby"-Bart Simpson

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I imagine you could store the tuna in the oil you poached it in. If it's fully covered it should last in the fridge for a month at least (and probably a lot longer).

My rather weak offering:

Pre-Ground Coffee

Pre-made meals (aka hey ... michalina's)

French Fries

Battered frozen fish

Canned california black olives

Edited by Worldly (log)
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A zillion people have listed salad dressing. Honestly, I don't understand why anyone buys bottled salad dressing. It's all horrible, and making a vinaigrette, for example, which is really as good as salad dressing gets, takes all of 40 seconds. Or dressing a salad in the Italian manner, just tossing it with olive oil, then some salt, then some vinegar...if the salad greens are good, and the olive oil is good, you can't get better than that.

Amen, brother. (Sister?)

Bottled dressing makes me want to weep.

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  • 1 month later...

Cake mixes - I prefer baking from scratch

Pesto

Chicken & beef broth - I make my own stock these days

Frozen dinners - too much sodium

Kraft mac & cheese (gave it up years ago)

Boxed meal helpers

Hummus

Parmesan cheese in green can - prefer grating fresh parmiagiano-reggiano

Bottled vodka sauce - make my own

Campbells cream of "fill-in-the-blank" soup - whenever I need a creamy base for a recipe, I just make a homemade bechamel sauce and add cheese, chicken stock, etc.

Bisquick

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I tend to make everything from scratch now. Partially because I use cooking and baking as a diversion from studying. This normally means that I have some weird stuff in my fridge that doesnt really go with anything in particular. For instance right now I have.

1) loads of sweet potato gnochi frozen

2) stocks . Duck/chicken/ veal/ beef.

3) An onion juice reduction ( that has kept for 3 months)

4) Short rib soup with lentils

5) Pickled oysters ( I have no idea why I did this, the urge just struck me one night.)

6) Roasted beets

7) Duck confit sitting in its fat in the bottom of the fridge

One thing I will always buy though is nutella. You dont even need anything else to eat it with just a spoon, or actually just your fingers.

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Do you have a particularly great recipe for Hummus?  If so, can you share??????

There's a good hummus recipe buried in this article on Lebanese chef Reem Azoury.

The hummus recipe begins on page 3 of the first link. :smile:

Edited by Rehovot (log)
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As most people noted- salad dressing, but even at restaurants I just ask for olive oil, I have never liked the richness of most salad dressings (I actually like the taste of veggies :wink: )

I use canned tomatoes to make any tomato/spaghetti sauce- which is anything I feel like- mushrooms, vodka sauce, etc etc

Now I do not make mint jelly but no longer buy it- Love mint pesto instead.

I would like to start making my own chicken stock.

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Do you have a particularly great recipe for Hummus?  If so, can you share??????

While maybe not truly authentic, my secret is to use roasted garlic instead of raw -- and lots of it. I might use an entire head of roasted garlic just for a single batch.

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