I’ve never noticed that plain canned tomato sauce has a significant problem that way, and there is such a thing as overcorrection (which most prefab tomato-based pasta sauces do).
Stew. If I can’t chop stuff up, put in a pot, pour water over it, add spices and wait an hour, I don’t deserve to eat.
What’s your best stew recipe?
Pancakes and waffles. How lazy do you have to be, to buy them? Ok, I can understand if you’ve gotta feed 6 hungry kids and get them to school on time, but other than that, you’re just lazy.
And anything made of various ingredients, like soup or stew. And I’ve never used a recipe. I’ve got all kinds of meats and veggies in the refrigerator or freezer, and lots of spices on hand, and I just choose what I feel like using.
And does anybody actually buy eggs already hard-boiled?
2 pounds/1 kilo of beef - I like a tough cut like chuck. Leave the fat. Cut into generous cubes, 25 mm/1 inch or so. Take a heavy pot/dutch oven and drizzle a bare tablespoon of olive oil in and roll it around. Toss the beef in and start browning it on medium.
While the beef cubes are sizzling, coarsely chop up a fist sized peeled onion, smash flat and peel 6 cloves of garlic, scrub the bejebus out of 2 or 3 large carrots [I like to leave the skin on.] and coarsely chop, coarsely chop 2 or 3 stalks of celery. When the beef has been sizzled on all sides, toss the veggies into the pot along with about a tablespoon of italian herbs, a couple grinds of black pepper and a couple bay leaves, and enough beef or chicken stock to just cover everything. Set on low, cover and ignore. <I use a mezzaluna and bowl for doing this type of prep, it goes fairly fast.>
Meanwhile, I take my bread bowl and put about 3 or so cups of flour, 1 cup of Irving, a dash of salt and add warm milk until it is a nice resillient dough and knead for about 15 minutes or so. Pop into a flour dusted brotform and set somewhere warm to double. When it has finished preheat the oven to 500F and pop in the terracotta tiles to preheat. Flip the bread onto the tiles after scattering some coarse cornmeal on the tiles and give the top a quick slice. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Even though it uses a sourdough starter, it is a short rise non’sourdough’ bread. You could use an envelope of store bought yeast just as easily.
The stew and the bread should be accomplished in a couple hours and go well together.
[and I am another person who makes pancakes, waffles, cakes and such instead of buying them or mixes.]
That’s what I was going to say–plus, when I have fresh tomatoes, I’ve canned my own pasta sauce and stored it for over a year, and not noticed any problems in acidity.
Also, when I make my own pasta sauce most of the time, I start with canned tomatoes, too, and they don’t have any added sugar in them, nor do I add sugar to the sauce, and they taste fine.
Most baked goods, but especially cookies. Now, if you’re buying them from a good bakery, that’s one thing, but no packaged baked goods and few grocery store bakeries make anything that tastes as good as homemade.
Pie. Store bought pie is disgusting, so are premade crusts. Canned pie filling is the stuff of nightmares.
Pie crust
Caramels
Hollandaise sauce
Nearly all fruits and vegetables prepared from fresh at home are superior
Any lasagna but my own is basically horse shit. Even restaurant lasagna is a waste of molecules compared to the brilliance of my lasagna. I’ll eat nothing else and a lot of my family feels the same way.
I am crazy for my own tuna salad, and my mom’s meatloaf. Any other version of either that I’ve dared to try has been almost nothing like how we do it at home.
So it’s not a “I won’t eat it because homemade is superior” thing but more like “I don’t trust anyone else’s recipes.”
Home-made whipped cream, however, is superior. I’d rather go without than eat Cool Whip. Just not a fan.
The only time restaurant lasagna is good, is when that is the only thing the restaurant does well. When I ived in Denver years ago, There was a place on the North east side called Patsy’s Kitchen I think. Their entire menu was forgettable and pedestrian, except the lasagna, which was freakin awesome. But it was the known that it was the only good thing they had, and for some reason, just to give the finger to normal business practice I guess, They only made 4 pans a day or so. Dinner started to be served at 3, and by 3:45 they were out of lasagna, so in order to get any before they ran out, you would have to eat at 3:30 or so.
Anybody in Denver know if they are still there, and is their lasagna still legendary?
Louisiana Creole cuisine. You simply can’t get it here in Virginia unless you make it yourself. For example, the red beans and rice I got cooking right now. Oh, you can find Creole foods in the store, but they’re all labeled “Cajun”! A fact little-known outside of Louisiana is that Creole and Cajun cuisines, while related of course, are distinct and different. But because of that massive Cajun food fad that swept America coast to coast over the past 30 years, now everybody thinks New Orleans cuisine is “Cajun” when it isn’t. It’s Creole. Red beans & rice is a Creole dish from New Orleans.
Recipe, s’il vous plait?
French onion soup, mine takes 4 or 5 hours to make and doesn’t peak until day two or so, but there is nothing you can purchase in a grocery store that even comes close to worthwhile.
Very much my family’s feelings about my macaroni and cheese. Especially since I developed my “best of both worlds” recipe, the two worlds being baked vs. sauced.
Hollandaise sauce.
I make everything I can at home, right down to the bread. But I’ll happily eat pre-made versions of most of it. I didn’t even know you could buy hollandase sauce pre-made until a couple years ago, and just looking at it on the shelf makes me feel disgusted. Whereas fresh homemade hollandaise is one of the foods of the gods.
Roast potatoes - buying them pre-made means re-heating them and that will never work.
Yorkshire puddings - kill them…kill them all.
Salsa - the thick, sweet processed crap in jars is not worthy of my attention
Guacamole - I only ever make it when the Avocados are right. That means some days when you want it, you can’t have it. Tough. Deal with it. The shop -bought stuff is some sort of weird, dense, chalky gloop with an overpowering saltiness and garlic flavour and not enough chili, coriander or lime juice
Pizza - I’ve yet to find a boxed pizza that is adequate. As long as you can get the dough roughly right then a home made pizza is far better. Getting the oven hot enough is tricky but a pizza stone helps a lot (and it works well for pitta bread as well)
You mean moi? Check your PM. I make it vegetarian; meat eaters’ll put in a ham bone or somethin.
Oui, tu!
Merci!
Vegetarian is fine with me!