I had a roommate from Germany who made something similar: the main ingredients were pork medallions, bananas, ketchup and whipping cream. He translated it as “banana pan”.
Oh come on! There’s a world of difference between the recipe in the OP and an actual lasagne. Sure, it’s carbs and tomatoes and cheese… but so is a taco, a grilled cheese with tomatoes, and a plate of spaghetti and meatballs. I think we all can agree that these are functionally very different things.
And I’m hip to the comfort food thing. But the thing is - most people don’t adopt comfort food as adults, and you don’t often trot them out as a great meal for guests or anything like that. I make and love grilled cheese with Kraft singles, and tuna casserole made with canned soup. But I also admit that they’re not very good food in general and not especially healthy.
This reminds me of when I made fried chicken from scratch awhile ago. It was a ton of work, counting the unholy mess to clean up afterwards, and chicken from Popeye’s or KFC would’ve tasted better anyway. Probably cheaper too.
Well, you kind of picked a pain-in-the-ass example here. Fried chicken IS a ton of work, especially considering clean up, and in most towns, there’s a pretty good place to pick it up pre-made.
Roast chicken, on the other hand, is dead easy to make, easy to clean up after, and is really tasty.
My point is that in terms of fat and calories and cheese to meat to carb ratios, it’s not exactly novel.
I didn’t see anything in the blog that suggested they were suggesting it as a dinner party dish. It’s a pretty standard casserole dish that’s heavy on the processed foods like a shit-ton of other convenience-based entrees. Yes, the flavor’s gonna be simplistic and bland. My advice is to not eat it, then.
Can we all at least agree on Simply Sara’s macaroni salad? 
What I like about the recipe in the OP is that about the only halfway healthy thing is optional.
This thread is for gawking at those convenience-based entrees that are heavy on the processed foods. Fine if you want to eat them, but stop defending it. It is gross.
Yes, it’s disgusting and if someone brought that to a potluck, I wouldn’t eat it.
Yay, I found common ground.
The other thing I like about the cream-of-whatever soups is that they’re actually quite low on calories for the creaminess they impart to the dish. A can is like 225-250 calories. That’s not bad when I just want to make a quick creamy sauce for, say, a chicken breast dish.
I’ve got a nagging evil voice in my head saying, “Try Simply Sara’s…try Simply Sara’s…”
Listen to the voices in your head, and post back from the hospital telling us how it was.
It’s not a bad recipe, just overly exuberant. Cut out the SCM, bring the sugar and vinegar down to a couple of tbsps or so, swap white vinegar for a nice flavored vinegar, reduce the mayo to maybe half a cup and add some dill or maybe thyme and I think it could be quite tasty.
Edit: I mean, I grew up in the land that invented Snicker Salad so I’m not unfamiliar with things doused with SCM, but let’s be reasonable.
Well, that’s basically changing the entire essence of the recipe, though. You’ve just given the recipe for a normal type of pasta salad, which most of us can agree on is at least okay. There’s nothing weird about normal pasta salad. And, like I said above, I think her sickly sweet version might work if you used about 1/10 of the amounts given.
Serious question… Why not just use cream?
I can’t imagine what they have to do to preserve cream soup at room temperature but I just think it can’t be good.
Swapping the vinegar and adding herbs is, yes, but I maintain that when you have a jar of mayonnaise and a can of SCM and a cup of sugar AND a cup of vinegar, you’ve lost everything. The SCM can go right out because the mayo provides a creamy mouthfeel and the sugar provides the sweetness. A tbsp or so each of vinegar and sugar adds tang and sweet without overpowering the flavor of the veggies and half a cup of mayo coats everything nicely without losing the crispness of the veggies. I don’t think that it’s really all that different, just not gaggingly sweet.
It’s just easier for me than using cream, and making a roux, and all that. It’s not like I eat this food every day or even every week. For the times I want to make something tasty and relatively low calorie, reaching for the cream-of-soups is convenient. I don’t particularly worry about preservatives and food additives and all that stuff.
I agree up to the last sentence. I think it’s a completely different salad–a normal pasta salad–which is why Sara’s Salad is so exceptionally crazy. The SCM and sugar AND entire jar of mayo is what makes it so “special.” Otherwise, you’re just talking run-of-the-mill pasta salad.
Because I don’t have cream at home. I don’t KEEP cream at home. I do have CofM soup at home. Cream is a lot more expensive than a can of soup. And it doesn’t taste the same. I don’t go shopping every day - if I’m going to make a special meal, yeah, I’ll go shopping. But for Tuesday night dinner? I’m NOT going to the store.
If the husband asks me for meatballs for dinner, I make the meatballs the way he likes them - and that includes using the Lipton Hearty Beef Onion Soup mix, the canned garlic and herb breadcrumbs, and after browning them, cooking them in the two jars of Heinz Savory Beef Gravy that he likes. Goes great with mashed potatoes. Convenient and it’s good - and it’s cheap. And I can’t replicate the taste of the store bought ingredients. I’m good, but I ain’t a miracle worker.
When I think about all the other crap I have to worry about and that’s gone in my body in the last 46 years, a little bit of preservatives really is the LEAST of my concerns. 