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What an interesting thread. I took the question in a completely other direction. Rather than thinking what I make a real effort to create for myself, I took the question to mean holy cow can you believe the "convenience" foods at the store?
Yesterday, in the chilled produce aisle, I saw a peeled, sliced apple in a little plastic container. $2.00. Umm. I stopped and stared at it.
In the frozen food aisle, there are pre-made frozen peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Like, boy that saves me a TON of work making my own peenyjay! Ain't nobody got time for that!!
I mentor kids in elementary school, and on one outing I brought a little tupperware container of peanut butter crackers - 2 saltines with peanut butter in the middle. She said where did you get these? I said from my house. They said no where did you BUY them? We just kind of stared at each other for a moment and I said I made them, with saltines and peanut butter. She smiled and said yeah, you can make your own peanut butter crackers! So then we made playdough. ;D Because you can make that, too.
I much prefer pie crust made at home that is combo butter/shortening. Although my vegan butter yields slightly worse results.
My Dad is a cook, and I have very fond memories of my grandmother (his mom) making wonderful meals. This colors what I chose to do as well, like using a teapot.
I've found with many things, it is also cheaper to make at home.
Yes, I agree. I don't understand why anyone would buy salad dressing when it is so much cheaper to make. And, really, I prefer vinegar and oil anyway most of the time.
I am so happy to hear that people are still brewing their own iced tea.
Ha..maybe she has one of those $30 "ice tea makers" for people who can't boil water.
Don't knock it till you've tried it. I love having fresh brewed, cold iced tea in under 5 minutes. I can't do that with a tea kettle. It's nice to have something freshly made that doesn't require hours of advanced planning.
Don't knock it till you've tried it. I love having fresh brewed, cold iced tea in under 5 minutes. I can't do that with a tea kettle. It's nice to have something freshly made that doesn't require hours of advanced planning.
Hours? don't you have ice cubes? cold brew tea? I'll even use hot tap water if I don't feel like boiling it, since my tap is pretty darn hot already.
Yes, I agree. I don't understand why anyone would buy salad dressing when it is so much cheaper to make.
The bottom line with any of this is that it might be cheaper to make than to buy, but when you buy something you don't have to exert any effort other than opening a container. Like, sure, it might be cheaper for me to make stock out of scraps and whatnot that I've stashed in the freezer over time, but I'd rather just pop open a can, because that involves zero effort. And the soup's just as good than if I'd spent hours boiling and straining beforehand.
Some things are easy to make by yourself but can be a pain to prepare or clean. Breading chicken is easy but leaves you with flour, egg, and bread crumbs all over the counter. Annoying. Same thing with making fresh juice in your blender. 5 minutes to make, 25 minutes to clean up
Alfredo sauce is also easy to make at home, but parmesan cheese is expensive af. Actually cheaper to buy it in a bottle, even if it tastes worse. Same with pesto. A jar of pesto is $5, whereas basil+pine nuts alone comes out to $12
Anyway, a cup of mayonnaise is basically 1 egg and 1 cup of oil, which is pretty cheap no matter how you look at it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dirt Grinder
So it isn't just an egg and some oil.
You're having a little reading comprehension problem. Notice that I did not say mayonnaise is "just" egg and oil, I said it was "basically" egg and oil. Basically, mayonnaise IS egg and oil. Since we were discussing the cost of making mayonnaise, the majority of that cost is egg and oil. The cost of a tablespoon of vinegar and a teaspoon of salt, etc., is insignificant.
My point was that I can not imagine what grade of eggs and oil are being used in the dollar store gallon of mayonnaise. 1 gallon = 16 cups. Someone is getting roughly 16 cups of oil and 16 eggs for enough under $1 to allow both the store and the manufacturer to make a profit?
Hours? don't you have ice cubes? cold brew tea? I'll even use hot tap water if I don't feel like boiling it, since my tap is pretty darn hot already.
I saw your post on my thread about iced tea saying that you make your iced tea with 1 tea bag for a gallon of water. I think it's fair to say that we have different opinions about how iced tea should taste, so not surprising we have different methods of making it. I cannot get tea that tastes good *to me* in just a few minutes by another method besides my iced tea maker. I was actually very skeptical of them before I bought one and also scoffed about how difficult could it be to boil water. But the convenience of having cold, freshly brewed tea any time I want it has been well worth the $20 or so I paid for my iced tea maker at least a dozen years ago, and it's still going strong.
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