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I'm getting ready to do something I said I would never do - buy minced garlic in a jar. I hate mincing fresh garlic, and I see a lot of good cooks on YouTube using the jarred garlic so I'm going to try it.
I'm not sure you'll like it. I used to use it and found I was using like 4 times as much to get any flavor out of it. I still use it on occasion like in meatballs because it mixes better than freshly minced but for the most part I went back to using fresh.
I make a gallon of iced tea every day. It is NOT something that plan to buy as I can make it using Winco Foods tea bads for about $0.20 per gallon.
One thing that I USED to make in my younger days is mayonnaise. I used to make it by the gallons but it is too much of a hassle.
One thing that I do not usually make is spaghetti sauce. It is too easy to buy a premade sauce for cheap and then doctor it to my tastes.
Mayonnaise is extremely easy to make. Take a small around container, dump in the ingredients. Take an immersible blender. Push it down once slowly, pull back up and you have the best mayonnaise you ever saw. That is the way people make it today. Old way was hard, new way is easy.
Wow! I am impressed. I confess that when I made spaghetti before I reduced the carbs in my diet, I used jarred sauce. I chose carefully, and I feel I could never make it as well. But I often added things to it.
I too make soup from chicken and turkey carcasses. I've learned to do this in a slow cooker. I stopped making pancakes about 7 years ago, but I will make French toast using whole grain, seeded bread which is now our staple. I've messed around with a bread machine years ago, but I don't bake my own bread. I have made my own yogurt but not in a couple of decades. I was just thinking about that recently. I wouldn't mind doing that again.
The reason I don't make mayo is because I don't think we would use it up before it spoiled. But I really ought to try anyway. I know it would taste better than the stuff we buy.
I found that Whole Foods makes a very acceptable guacamole. I like to make it but I have a terrible time getting avocados to be ripe when I want guac.
I don't bake cakes very much anymore, and frankly I was never very good at it. Cookies, biscuits, cornbread, brownies, pie crust I can do. But I don't do them often, and so I can't say the quality is as good as it was 20 years ago.
I make chili from scratch. Often I will precook the beans the night before. Then I make the chili the next day. I love making chili! I often will cook beans in my pressure cooker. But I use canned beans too.
I liked reading about all the stuff home cooks on CD are doing. Its so nice to know that some of us still cook!
Has anyone else noticed this? Iced tea for instance. I grew up making iced tea with Lipton tea bags and boiling water. I poured it over ice, and added a little sugar and lemon. I was probably making it for my dad when he was mowing the lawn. Later I learned to drink it without sugar. Does anyone make it fresh any more? It is quite easy to do.
Biscuits. This is another easy food. You make them a few times and you've got it down pat. Does everyone get theirs out of a can now?
Pie crust. I get this. Piecrust is sort of hard, and if you don't have time to learn how to do it, then I understand why a store bought crust beats no crust at all. I still make mine, but am I practicing a dying art?
For that matter, does anyone brew hot tea in a teapot any more? I seem to surprise my kids when I brew tea in a pot and pour into their mugs. They seem to prefer having a separate tea bag for each mug. They normally pour hot, not boiling, water into each separate mug. This is not efficient. Of course you could make an acceptable mug of tea in the micro, I guess.
I make all my salad dressings, my hummus, my guacamole. None of this is hard. Does anyone else do this?
I have also never used cookie dough bought in the dairy case.
I make both hot & iced tea using tea bags, it is so simple. I was talking a teenager one day, & she said the drug store had ice tea on sale for cheap, I asked her how much, she said a dollar a bottle, I said, that's expensive, I make mine at home for pennies using tea bags, that really perplexed her, she did not know it could be home made.
Mayonnaise is extremely easy to make. Take a small around container, dump in the ingredients. Take an immersible blender. Push it down once slowly, pull back up and you have the best mayonnaise you ever saw. That is the way people make it today. Old way was hard, new way is easy.
When i can BUY a gallon of mayonnaise for $1, it makes little sense to make it as the ingredients are far more expensive.
My problem with homemade anything is the short shelf life. For instance, I've made creme fraiche, but the amount I make has to be eaten in about 5 days and I can't do that. I'd rather just get sour cream that's been pasteurized to last a month.
I can and have made bread and baguettes, but I don't like to freeze bread (I think it tastes funny when it's thawed), so if I don't eat a loaf within a week, it gets moldy. So I buy most of my bread.
I don't make too many desserts like pies and cake - I'm not a big cake fan. I just made iced tea for the first time and it was pretty good. I just need to make sure there's no caffeine in it - caffeine for me is a big no.
I'll make butter out of cream if I get cream and it's going to expire before I use it. I found a jarred spaghetti sauce I like and so far I haven't found a spaghetti sauce recipe yet that I like, so I guess I'm sticking to the jarred kind. And I like the taste of the pancake mix that you just add water to.
Otherwise, about the only thing I make from scratch is Teriyaki sauce because it tastes better than anything I've found in the stores. I have yet to find a recipe for orange sauce or sweet and sour sauce I like.
And I used the jarred minced garlic as well as using Trader Joe's Parmesan cheese, instead of shredding my own. I also don't grind pepper or grate nutmeg.
The one thing I do insist on when I have them is fruits and what few vegetables I eat (except salad) need to be fresh picked. To me, that's what gives food the flavor and all these store bought fruits and vegetables are just gross. If I can't make a blueberry danish with fresh blueberries, I won't make one.
I'm jealous of you all, as I cook/bake virtually everything from scratch. It tastes better, but is usually more expensive & takes up a lot of time.
I have too many allergies & reactions from foods, like itchy red rashes, breathing problems & headaches, that it's bloody daunting trying to figure out what caused it, so much so, that I just do it all myself. I've been doing it for so long, I've gotten it down to a science & slow cooking in cast iron is a fave (that's what I call fast food)... stuff everything in 1 pot, slow bake in oven.
Now that I'm in SoFla, I do it on top of the stove, so it's not as tasty & takes more time as I have to be there to watch the stove (boo!), but it's too hot to turn on the oven. If I wanted a dessert, which is rare, I'd also cook/bake it all from scratch. I love to make cookies, cakes, pies & pastries, but I don't enjoy sugar & wish to remain under 300-lbs, so I've only made them for others.
I used to always enjoy cooking... it's beginning to become something I don't look forward to as much, so sometimes I eat fresh fruit & vegs for days, as much organic as I can, so I don't have problems. I'm also beginning to eat more simple meals, rather than gourmet, which is my palate's preference, just because I've hit that jag where I'm not really into it.
If I ever become a millionaire, I'd hire a chef. Driver would be 2nd... I abhor driving, but that's another post.
You should get an Instant Pot. It's perfect for those days when you can't bear to turn on the oven.
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