But what if you’re making a salad for one or two tonight and you’re at the market after work. And you like something besides one type of lettuce in your salad? Sheesh, you Dopers are harsh!
I like the refrigerator pickles. It’s not something I’d do instead of buying pickles but I didn’t realize I could make pickles on the weekends. I always thought they took months and boiling and sterilizing and science to make.
And how long does it take to clean the food processor afterwards? 
I think of macaroni and cheese as easy.
I think exists for the benefit of people who don’t have an avocado tree in their backyards. Or backyards.
Hell yeah. Avocados in Indiana are really hit-or-miss. Sometimes premade guacamole is good enough.
I’ve dabbled in just about every feminine/homemaker art. I made my own curtains for a baby’s room…once. That was enough. They were nice enough, heavy patterned linen on the outside with a satin lining, but I was too burnt out to make the matching crib linens, etc. I still have all the fabric somewhere (and we’ve moved, so the drapes are useless now). I can crochet anything in the apocalypse if you give me sufficient yarn. I can make serviceable bread (ONLY if I use bottled water…I think the tap water here has too much chlorine…and my attempts at sourdough make shitty hooch instead). I’m pretty adept at identifying good “yard salad” (foraging). No mushrooms or nightshade or carrot/hemlock relatives, though…I’m not that arrogant/confidant. I may or may not have made a cruddy version of opium in my youth thanks to a manic relative’s poppy garden. :eek:
Hmm…I can make mayo but prefer Hellman’s, though my hollandaise is serviceable (I believe another member said the same thing). I cannot, for the life of me, make cookies–especially chocolate chip. I don’t know why. Maybe I’m just too slapdash with measurements. But I can make a gumbo/goulash/jambalaya/bisque/paprikash/borscht/whatever stew to knock your socks off. I’m going to try cheesemaking and pickling soon, and I feel pretty confident about those. I have a deep-seated desire to make “mushroom ketchup” as well, because I’ve just got to know what that tastes like.
What else? Um, making baby/toddler clothes and pajamas on the sewing machine is easy, and so is hemming, taking waists in, sewing buttons on, etc. But I don’t always do it. Ironing is “easy,” but so is the dry cleaners. We pick and choose according to other constraints. I can make a home remedy for most simple dermatological complaints.
That’s all I can think of off the top of my head.
Pallet Rack
I don’t remember the episode, but the Alton Brown recipe I used from the Food Network site had problems that came down to that without stating it, he is apparently assuming that you’re working with hard avocados. If you have them at just the right stage of ripeness, this business with the potato masher is unnecessary and gratuitous.
In any case, it is relatively easy to make guacamole, but even if you keep the other ingredients on hand, you buy the avocados a few days ahead of time, then you’ve got to chop tomatoes, onions, garlic, cut up a lime. Or whatever you put in there. Then you can’t really judge how it tastes until it’s been sitting in the fridge for a while. It’s interesting to do, but your grocery store probably does have a guacamole they make out of avocados that are just past the peak, using a formula that tends to produce a tasty and consistent product. It might even save you money, given that avocados are often pricey.
I do find that tortillas can be made readily enough from long-lasting ingredients I have on hand, so I don’t usually bother to buy them. I’m not saying it’s not work, but you can throw it together on short notice.
250 g flour
5 ml baking powder
5 ml salt
50 g lard or shortening
150 ml warm water
Mix flour, baking powder and salt. Rub in fat. Pour in water and mix. Knead lightly to distribute fat softened by warm water. Split into 12 pieces (about 35-40 g each). Let sit, covered, for 15 minutes. Meanwhile, put a pan or griddle on medium heat.
Roll very thin, about 15 cm round, and fry one at a time, turning when they begin to form bubbles, and removing when both sides show the amount of browning you expect from a tortilla.
You may wish to re-read the thread title.
But then you have to clean the damn thing.
Seriously though; those things ARE dirt simple to make. Traditional chili powder has 4 ingredients- powdered chiles, garlic powder, Mexican oregano and cumin. You can add other stuff, but those 4 in the right ratios are pretty much it. Same for five-spice and garam masala, except that there’s more variation. Most of their ingredients you can even buy in powdered format.
That said, there’s no problem with buying them if you like the flavor profile of a particular brand. My mom’s chili just isn’t quite right if it’s not made using Gebhardt chili powder, and I’m sure there are people out there who feel the same way about particular brands of garam masala and five-spice powder.
My wife and I tend to make everything by scratch at least once (that we can), and then evaluate the results vs. the trouble. Some things are worth it in our estimation:
[ul]
[li]home baked bread[/li][li]homemade jam (assuming you have a source of really good, fresh fruit)[/li][li]home cured meats (corned beef, for example)[/li][li]macaroni and cheese (I’m partial to the Modernist Cuisine recipe)[/li][li]home-grown tomatoes[/li][li]home-grown asparagus[/li][/ul]
Others aren’t even close- growing normal bell peppers for example. Taste just like the store-bought ones, and we took up 1/4 of our garden for months! We could have put that space and time in the garden to better use.
Others that aren’t really worth the time & trouble vs. the payoff:
[ul]
[li]home-grown cabbages[/li][li]home-grown broccoli[/li][li]homemade pie crusts[/li][li]homemade yogurt[/li][/ul]
And… to shift topics a little, don’t your food processors go in the dishwasher? My Cuisinart specifically recommends dishwashing the parts. Makes cleaning up easy as could be. The manual literally says:
At my house, I am the dishwasher. My old-as-dirt food processor isn’t that much trouble to clean by hand, though. It’s just three parts, maybe four if I take the little cup thing out of the lid.
Speaking of pie crusts, I can’t make a decent flour pie crust to save my life. But I can make a graham cracker crust: beat a pack of crackers into crumbs, add melted butter, mix together, pat onto the pie plate. However, my older sister’s cream cheese pie doesn’t taste the same without the pre-made graham crust. It’s all what you’re used to.
(If you do make your own graham cracker crust I highly recommend using cinnamon grahams. They taste so much better.)
I made a crust for a cheesecake using some specific flavor of Teddy Grahams. I felt like a mass murderer putting them in the food pro.
Now you tell me!:smack:
This.
Here’s a few tips to maximize your investment in bagged salads:
-Examine potential purchases thoroughly, looking for signs of browning, discoloration, sliminess, too much moisture, etc. These factors and others limit shelf life.
-When you want a salad, open the bag and remove as much as you want QUICKLY. The bag is pressurized with nitrogen gas to help keep the the contents from oxidizing. This info came from 2 salesmen for the salad corporations my company bought from(it might’ve been bull, but sounded logical)
-Lay a paper towel over the remaining greens, this is particularly helpful if the contents appear overly-wet.
-Exhaust the air in the bag, then flatten as delicately as you can. Fold over the top of the bag.
-Slip this bag into a zipper-closure plastic bag, and seal it quickly and refrigerate immediately.
-Do the above and it’s POSSIBLE to keep the contents edible until you finish them.
-If you buy greens in rigid plastic containers, transfer them to plastic bags and include the paper towel. Exhaust and seal as above.
If you have an immersion blender, easiest mayo recipe ever. Bonus: you can use decent oil and flavor it however you want.
And even more so than cookies? Brownies. One saucepan, one baking pan, and Bob’s your uncle. And you don’t even have to form individual dough balls like you do for cookies. Damn, now I want to make some brownies…nothing beats warm ones straight from the oven.
For those who don’t make, or like to make, pie crust try this:
One cup flour
1/3 cup corn oil
1/4 tsp salt
up to 3 tbsp of cold water.
Put flour and salt in a bowl, add oil on one side of the bowl and blend flour into it with a fork, Just blend a little bit at a time, working the flour into the oil until all the flour is moist. Add a tablespoon of COLD water at a time until the dough feels elastic instead of crumbly. You often only need two tablespoons of water for this. Roll out the crust as normal.
Working with lard or butter isn’t easy because the room temperature and overmixing can affect the dough texture. Oil doesn’t cause those problems. Why corn oil? Because I’ve tried others. Olive oil can burn at pie cooking temperatures and the texture doesn’t seem to turn out as well with canola or blends.
Sacrilege! You need to used shortening so its peas can melt and form flakiness.
That’s if you want to bottle them and/or keep them unrefrigerated. I’ve never had any problems with fridge pickles as long as they stay in the refrigerator when not in use. (Of course, there generally aren’t any left a day or so after they’re ready to eat, so I’m not sure I’ve given their keeping powers a fair test.)
Ha. Try my version. It’s very flaky.
For non-food items, I’d say bamboo skewers, aluminum wire hangers, flower bouquets, party hats, party masks.