Tomato sauce, I could believe in some brands. Not paste.
(Well now I feel like a big ol’ jerk. I didn’t see that you’d ceded the point as I was copying ingredient labels, NitroPress. I truly do apologize.)
Try being on a low-sodium diet. It’ll get you making most of your own stuff from scratch really quick.
Reading this thread has me craving some home made chicken and egg noodles. Making the noodles is kind of messy, but it’s not difficult, and they’re ten times better than bagged dried ones and lots cheaper than the non-dried store-bought ones.
Potato ricer. Think garlic press on steroids. Boil up the potatoes, quarter them and press them through the ricer. Leaves the skins behind, puts little potato squiggles in your bowl. Add butter, then add milk, whip. Done.
It would actually cost me more in money and time to change my own oil, but the price charged for a boiled egg or sliced veggies is a lot more. Access to a kitchen is pretty common, at least compared to bulk oil and car lifts.
I’ve changed my own oil. It was cheaper than having someone else do it, but it took longer.
Sounds pretty equivalent to convenience foods in general.
While I believe that and it has been true in the past, the last time I priced oil and a filter it was a wash. So the supplies cost around the total price including labor.
On the other hand many convenience foods are 5 times or more the the price of the ingredients for around 1 minute of work. Or simply tossing something together.
For example, I noticed my grocery store was having a sale on the salad bar. It was around 6.99 a pound. I don’t think a single item in the salad bar by itself was more than $2/lb. Same goes for olive bars and similar. Lots of the stuff there was much less. And the same items are sold conveniently - like bags/heads of lettuce. Most vegetables and fruit are pennies per serving. I could buy 3 heads of romain, a pound of carrots, a whole bell pepper, a cucumber and whatever for less than 1lb salad bar. Croutons are like 5 cents a serving and people are buying them by the pound at the cost of a steak.
I can’t wrap my brain around anyone purchasing pre-made guacamole. It is SO easy to make and I can’t imagine what they have to put in it to keep it “fresh” tasting/looking.
I do find that a little hard to believe, even if it was just cheese or olives or pepperoni. Lots of salad things are a lot more than 2 dollars a pound. The lettuce itself, maybe not. (I don’t tend to eat lettuce, so I don’t know what it costs.)
I clicked on this thread hoping someone would trip up and say mayo.
I don’t doubt that your homemade mayo tastes better, but really, Hellman’s figured it out, I promise. The standard 30 fl oz jar is only 4 dollars.
This is what I have learned about myself: just looking at a head of lettuce does not motivate me to make a salad. If I open up the fridge door and see salad parts, I’ll just say “fuck it I’ll go out” and make a run to the gas station for hot dogs.
So I buy the pre-mixed salad bags. Open bag -> rinse on plate -> eat. That is within anybody’s ‘eating healthy’ motivation level.
I could buy the parts ($3) and pretend I’m saving $1 over the bag ($4), but the truth is I’m really wasting $3 because experience has shown that I’ll let them wilt before I bother to rinse, peel, cut, and toss.
I’m not gaffa, but I make my own mayo too. I do love the taste of the good brands like Hellmans, but I can’t eat it all the time because I’m diabetic and the store bought mayo has a ton of sugar in it. That’s why it tastes so good, I think. That goes for a lot of products, I think. Once you look for it, it’s amazing how many products have sugar in it.
When I make my own mayo, and I’ve been doing it for years, it lasts for weeks. I don’t know what people are talking about when they say it only lasts for a few days. I have never had a problem with it going bad. Maybe it’s the lemon juice.
Essured, since gaffa doesn’t seem to have seen your post yet, here’s my mayo recipe. He got it from me anyway so it’s the same. This is not a “pure” recipe. I’ve made several modifications to the original recipe I found on a web site years ago, just to suit my own tastes. I even modify it from batch to batch. I’m sure gaffa’s made his own modifications too (probably not as much mustard). You can make your own modifications.
1/2 cup of olive oil (light or dark, it’s up to your taste)
1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil
3 tablespoons of lemon juice (I use bottled, makes no difference to me)
1 whole egg
2 egg yolks
tiny dash of pepper
2-3 large pinches of kosher salt
1 heaping tablespoon of mustard
I sometimes use more lemon juice (4 or 5 tablespoons) because I really like the lemon flavor, and I often use 2 whole eggs and 1 yolk which makes it thicker. 3 whole eggs makes it way too thick for me. I’ve found that room-temperature eggs work best, and they don’t have to be straight-from-the-chicken fresh.
In a blender I put the olive oil, eggs, salt, pepper, lemon juice and mustard, then blend for a couple of minutes. The original recipe called for a 30 second initial blend but I’ve found it comes out with a nicer texture the longer I blend the initial ingredients. I stop and start the blender a couple of times to scrape down the sides.
I then take the lid off the top of the blender and while it’s running I somewhat slowly pour in the 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil. Not too slowly. It all gets in within 15-20 seconds. The mayo will quickly thicken up considerably and will stop blending! I have to stop the blender and use a long-handled scraper spatula to reach all the way to the bottom and stir it manually for a few seconds. Do not do this while the blender is running unless you like silicon-flavored mayo. I take out the spatula, scrape the excess mayo back into the blender jar and start it up again. While the blender is running I use one hand to hold the handle (to keep the blender steady) and with the other hand I carefully scrape the sides down so the mayo is constantly moving and blending. I blend like that for about a minute or so more. Then I pour it into a Tupperware container I use specifically for mayo. Some of the mayo will be too thick to pour so use my scraper again to get it all out. I put the lid on, put it in the fridge and that’s that. It takes longer to write it than to do it.
And again, a batch lasts me for a long time. I’ve never had it go rank on me.
I hate to break up sauce/dressing chat, but if this is true:
then I nominate coffee. Even people who know enough to avoid the stale, low-grade, pre-ground stuff tend to pay exorbitant prices for what are too often stale beans of mediocre quality. It is easy and inexpensive to roast your own coffee*, and there’s nothing quite like having control over the process from green bean selection to cup.
- I am not affiliated with sweetmariasDOTcom.
I’m not sure why this seems to be a recurring theme in the thread, but it isn’t accurate to say Hellman’s has a ton of sugar in it. It has a minuscule amount of sugar in it.
Huh? There’s not enough sugar in Hellman’s for me to notice (also diabetic.) In fact, though it does list sugar as an ingredient, it’s not enough to even add one carb per serving. Even when I eat a fair bit of it - like in tuna salad or something - I don’t see a change in blood sugar.
Not disagreeing that homemade tastes better. But truly, there’s not enough sugar/carbs in Hellman’s to make a difference.
Why the hell do people buy steaks instead of slaughtering their own cattle in the backyard?
Heh. Actually, we live in the boonies and a few neighbors finish steer on their land. We’ve considered it, but my gf is afraid she’d get too attached to an animal to eat it.
I know that freshly-roasted coffee is important, but I totally get why people may not want to stink up their house/set off their smoke alarm with roasting coffee at home. I split the difference by buying coffee from a neighborhood coffee shop that roasts their own beans fresh a few times a week (and the owner’s family has owned a coffee plantation in Mexico for decades). If I didn’t have that, I’d go with a roaster like Intelligentsia that stamps the roasting date on their bags.
Edit: This does not apply to my “oh my god I need caffeine now!” moments. Then I slap a K-cup in the Keurig. 
I’m unclear why being judgemental is the greatest sin in existance lately and why someone so sensitive they go weep because my horrible judgement hurt them is even reading a message board.
BUT on the good side this thread had inspired me to bring out my new brand of individually packaged eggs, just open the packet and pour into the pan! No more tiresome SHELLS to crack and break your wrist and make a mess!
Only $19.99 for a dozen!
Personally, pancake mix is the one I don’t quite get, mainly because making pancakes from scratch is almost exactly as complicated.
Aunt Jemima mix still has you add milk, eggs, and oil to the batter. I mean, you’ve come pretty damned close to making pancakes from scratch already. In fact, you already have a basic crepe recipe just substituting flour for Aunt Jemima. Add some baking powder, and a little salt and sugar, and you’ve got American style pancakes.