I loved the day a friend was helping me unpack my shopping. She saw an instant potato pack and said “ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww” and then went back to crunching up her Pringles chips.
So clearly, when it comes to food police, it is alright to eat dried potato flakes if they are reconstituted, deep fried and covered in flavourings.
Lib, you have to cook it longer. If it’s still tasting like flour or cornstarch, it’s not done. And mix the cornstarch or flour with cold water, not warm. No lumps that way.
I don’t live in the US, and I love cooking (as proved by my website). Some times my SO and I watch the commercials in the American TV channels and just ponder what makes people be so lazy as to not actually COOK their food. I mean, it’s not like in the old days when you actually had to grow your food and decapitate your chicken for heaven’s sake! What comes next? Pre-chewed food?
Damnit I thought I had gotten over those mashed potato pregnancy cravings but you lot just had to start talking about them did you.
:: wanders off to find a restaurant that will serve mashed potatoes at 3.42 in the afternoon ::
Me too. Give me my instant mashed potatoes please. My mom always made them from real potatoes, but I really don’t give a rat’s ass myself. I hate peeling potatoes. Sure, they tase different, but I am not a potato freak so I DON’T CARE. Put some gravy on them and all I taste is gravy.
Whatever is easier is what I do.
You had peanut butter? All we ever got was a handful of salted in the shell peanuts and a hammer.
I prefer Stove Top and Butterball stuffing to the homemade stuff.
As for cake mixes-my mother always used the mix, but made her own icing. Sometimes, it’s just a time issue.
I, however, cannot cook. Wait-no, I CAN. But I don’t like to cook.
While I make gravy from the pan drippings, the reason your average person here doesn’t by pre-made gravy, but sticks with the packet mixes is because gravy in a jar is so damned expensive.
I generally don’t like the taste of instant mashed potato, but I used to always use instant in preference to fresh when making salmon patties - they held together a lot better if I used instant made with very little fluid.
DDG, what price are they selling this package for? Because my ULTIMATE convenience food is either a TV dinner (roast with vegies) or frozen lasagne, both of which are well under $5 our money (about $US2.50).
It’s interesting to learn that Lipton sells products other than tea in other countries.
There’s a column in the Taste section of the Star Tribune called Tidbits that pokes fun at new food products.
Two things that the columnist has mentioned are the cold cereal “kit”, mentioned above, and the pre-made, crustless, frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
OK, my daughter is 6, and there are two things that she can make all by herself: cold cereal and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. So, who buys this stuff? If you can’t find the time to make your own PB&J sandwich, something’s very, very wrong (and like you’d remember to thaw your sandwich ahead of time, anyway! Don’t say “use the microwave”, 'cause in the time the microwave takes, you could have made a fresh sandwich. Of course, if you’re that time-strapped, perhaps you could really use that time while the microwave is doing its magic to make that direly-needed trip to the bathroom or something. Then again, if you have to choose between making a PB&J sandwich and using the bathroom, something’s wrong!)
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pre-made, crustless, frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.
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Please tell me you’re kidding. I thought it was bad enough that you can buy pre-peeled, pre-sliced vegetables here…
Does anyone happen to know what price they charge for the abovementioned sandwiches? Pre-packed sandwiches here are really expensive - I could buy a Happy Meal for what a sandwhich costs at my kids schools. I could buy 4 loaves of bread for what a sanwich costs at the school canteen.
No. This is just…*wrong. *
I don’t say this just as a parent with children who would eat PBJ all day, every day if I’d let them. I say this as a full-grown adult who would eat PBJ all-day, every day if I’d let me.
I’ve got nothing against convenience foods, believe me. Hamburger Helper, ramen noodles, and boxed mac & cheese are staples in my house. But…instant PBJ?
No. That is so wrong it just makes me want to cry. It’s wrong, wrong, wrong.
BTW, the breakky pack I can understand - it’s great for truckies and other people on the road who don’t want to carry around with them food and utensils, and it’s cheaper than eating breakfast at a truckstop each day.
I was in Wal-Mart today, and they had a complete (if rudimentary), fully-cooked turkey dinner in a box for sale for about $25. I can imagine situations in which this might be an option, but if I were in such a situation, I’d almost certainly just go out somewhere.
I encountered the most inexplicable “convenience food” ever back in college, when my roommate’s girlfriend’s mother worked for a company that provided food for school lunchrooms. She gave him a whole bunch of “egg dogs”–frozen scrambled-egg-like-substance in the shape of a hot dog that one could microwave. He loved them.
I timed it one day, and it took me about one minute more to cook actual scrambled eggs than it took him to prepare a frozen egg dog, and that was only if you counted cleaning the pan.
Dr. J (whose 16-lb. Butterball is brining as we speak)
The funny thing about this is: I haven’t been able to choke down a mashed potatoe in years.
yarg I kinda like french fries… I’ll eat them if I’m hungry and I only have time to run to a jack in the box.
Potatoes are icky.
I simply don’t eat certain foods (like peanut butter) enough to justify buying a whole jar of it for one sandwich. If I had a really bad craving for one I might buy a premade one rather that buying a jar of peanut butter and a jar of jelly. Those are all things I don’t buy regularly.
Same with potatoes - why buy a whole bag to make mashed potatoes - a dish I eat maybe twice a year?
Can you not purchase potatoes loose in the US? You can buy them in the bag here, but you can also purchase them by the kilo. So if you only want one or 2 or 12 potatoes, you don’t need to buy a bagful. It’s usually CHEAPER to buy bagged vegies here, but there isn’t any fruit or vegetable that you can ONLY purchased pre-packed (the only exception to this rule I can think of is strawberries).
I never thought of buying them seperately. Still, I prefer the ease of instant.
Quoth Al Sicherman (The man who writes the Tidbits column I linked to before):
Given that US money is worth almost double ours, they are hella expensive sandwiches…
You guys must pay heaps over there for peanut butter and jam. You could make a lot more than 4 sandwiches here for $US1 ($AUD2) if you bought the ingredients and made them at home.
I pay roughly $1 per loaf for bakery bread, which has 23 slices. That’s about 50 cents your money.
Sounds like it’s about time for another “how much do staple foods cost where you live” thread.
I saw the frozen PB&J dealie in the freezer section of my grocery store, they did not look right on the box. I think peanut butter and jelly come in at just under USD $2 for a jar of 18-20 ounces.
I am out of both and have to get more, when i go getgroceries next.
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