Just got back from Umbria, where I had pasta at almost every meal, and it always had started out as dried pasta. If that’s the way they do it in Italy, it’s good enough for me.
So I’m with The Swan – dried pasta is good, and good for you. You guys are just tools of the imperialistic Pasta-Machine Lobby.
“Avoid at all costs that vile spew you see rotting in oil in screwtop jars. Too lazy to peel fresh? You don’t deserve to eat garlic.” Anthony Bourdain, KITCHEN CONFIDENTIAL, p. 81.
He’s even nastier about garlic presses. (Me, I can’t taste the diff between ‘vile spew’ and hand-slivered.)
I have smashed and peeled and chopped so many billions of garlic cloves that it would be harder for me to reach into a cupboard for a jar or into a drawer for a garlic press than to just do it by hand. My chef’s knife and a little bowl always containing a fresh garlic bulb are both within 6" of my chopping board and I can have a couple of cloves peeled and chopped in about 20 seconds.
I am doing it the easy way - for me.
I use a powdered one by Vegeta (vege version comes in a blue tin), as it’s got a lovely flavour, and is convenient and economic, plus also being almost fat free, gluten free and vegetarian. Main ingredients are carrot, parsnip, onion, celery and parsley.
The dried stuff can be as good as fresh for longer and tube pastas (although I do like fresh better), but for stuffed pastas I think there is no comparison, fresh is best. I just don’t always have time to make or buy the fresh stuff.
Marry me.
My mother screeches at me about using garlic that comes from jars. That’s OK. Anthony Bourdain and my mother don’t have to eat my cooking. I like it. My husband likes it. Anthony and my mom can eat elsewhere.
I’m a little afraid to admit this, but in my opinion, the mother of all convenience foods is Rice-a-Roni. I grew up poor, and this stuff was “special”.
I do occasionally make my own pasta (including ravioli), and I always use fresh garlic.
Don’t judge me.
On weekends, it’s homemade pasta, fresh grated parmesan, cook all day red beans’n rice, braised ribs etc, etc. Leftovers packed and stashed in freezer.
Mondays and Tuesdays, devolved to dried pasta, sauce made on the weekend plucked from the freezer, other weekend entrees from the freezer, boxed beans and rice with some sausage chopped in.
Thursdays and Fridays, I’m grunting, scratching, and making macaroni with Cheez Whiz. Full time employment fucking blows. But it provides the cash for the pasta machine motor!
Canned beans and canned tomatoes are hard to beat. Dried pasta is fine. Storebought bread is just dandy if it’s from an artesan bakery.
It would depend on how one chops it and how much the garlic press presses. I’ve seen really crappy garlic presses that leave half the clove in the press, which would be less garlicy, and some people might chop the garlic more coarse, which again would be less garlicy.
Oh, and BMalion: I haven’t read that, I just watch a lot of Good Eats. 
All very interesting, but here on the Straight Dope there is only one garlic press: the Zyliss. My Zyliss press can take out a cat at twenty paces from the sheer force that shoots the garlic from the press.
If anyone can’t guess, I’m with the “press your own” crowd. Those jars of garlic are scary, and I never thought it inconvenient to squoosh (or even chop when I’m especially energetic) a clove of garlic.
I use the Swanson’s Organic or low-sodium (I prefer Organic but can’t always find it) chicken stock when I need to. And always feel guilty about it. Yes, it’ll do in a pinch, but there’s really no comparison between canned stock and real stock.
I wish someone would make real canned stock. You know, the lovely geletiny stuff that can be reduced to thicken. The stuff in a can always lacks this one element. I wonder why?
Oh you must. It’s fascinating!
Instant couscous, breads, and stock…like most everyone else, I guess. Fresh pasta isn’t so hard to find around here that it doesn’t count as a convenience food, so I guess that counts. I keep a stock of dried herbs and spices in case I’m out of fresh. Hmm. Canned corn, unless it’s central to the dish. Pre-shredded coconut. I’ll use a jarred chutney if it’s a subcomponent of a curry or something. Lastly, mustards and hot sauces.
Chicken and beef stock/broth. I never quite figured out the difference between stock and broth…
Premade Gnocchi
Couscous (i also wonder if theres an alternative to this…)
Corn Tortillas
And by the way, I don’t really consider dried pasta a convenience food unless its something like ravioli. For some types of pasta dishes, dried is better. For others, fresh is better.
I also am against jarred garlic. I suck at cutting up garlic, but i still think its not nearly that inconvenient to resort to pre-chopped. Plus, that garlic swimming in liquid doesn’t make sense to me…
Zyliss garlic press owners - do not turn the press over to look at it while it is loaded. Treat it like a firearm and assume it’s always loaded. You really, really don’t want a nice squirt of garlic in your eye. Just trust me on this.
Other presses I have used really do suck, though. You don’t get very much garlic out of them. You can use the Zyliss through the cast off skin of the last clove though, if you’re feeling lazy - it’s just that powerful.
It takes me longer to use a press and clean it than it does to chop a couple cloves myself.
Yeah, I use stock. I mean. . .it’s a pale, distant memory of making stock from scratch, but it’s the one thing that the convenience is so much greater.
Stock. . .jesus. I need to store carcasses in my freezer for months, set aside a Sunday, get a cooler full of ice, make sure all of my tupperware containers are ready. And then, once I make it I love it so much that all I eat is vichysoisse, chicken noodle, and rissotto for a week then it’s gone. It’s a wonder that I even make it twice a year, if that.
The Zyliss garlic press really is a different beast to others. Much better. I still don’t use it much, but it is good.
I don’t use bottled garlic, but bottled lemongrass is pretty good.
Nothing wrong with canned fish eggs 
I’m not sure what the exact product name is, but Swanson’s in the brand of broth/stock that I use. Of the major commercial brands, it’s supposed to be the best, according to some foodie magazine I read in the last few years (sorry for the poor cite.)
Jarred garlic is awful.
The jars of stuff at the Asian grocery are always very good. I normally have on hand: fermented black bean paste, tom yum paste, red curry paste, red chili and garlic paste.
I also always have some crazy ramen or rice noodle packs on hand–not the ones with the one flavoring packet, but the one that comes with dehydrated vegetables, a seasoning packet, and an oil packet. My favorite probably is kim chee ramen.
Oh, and there’s always some 5-for-$10 brand of pizza in the freezer for those nights I really don’t feel like doing anything.
In addition to stocks, tomatoes and others, I prefer some storebought pastries.
I make my own shortcrust and sweet pie crusts, but when it comes to puff pastry and phyllo pastry, I go for storebought everytime.