Loosely related to my earlier post

[conuly]

Use of convenience foods does not actually reduce cooking time.

I gotta say, that surprised me.

Comments

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

I don't know, they're comparing using 50% or more convenience foods (and I never considered jarred pasta sauce or frozen vegetables to be convenience foods before) with 20-50%. I think if they really want a fair comparison of convenience food use to non-convenience food use they should do it the right way and compare it to completely scratch cooking. Or at least less than 20% convenience foods considering their definition of the term.

[siderea]

Yeah, and I gotta say, if you aren't saving time using convenience foods (1) you're doing it wrong, cause I can use them to have dinner in 16 minutes or (2) you're using them for some reason other than convenience. For instance, it's a food -- e.g. jarred spaghetti sauce -- that is too laborious or time consuming to make from scratch. In that situation using a convenience food is "convenient" in the sense of compared to making that item from scratch not compared to anything else one could make in the allowed time, so what it's really doing is increasing diversity of foods that are convenient enough to have for dinner. Or it's for some completely other value, like taste; there are people who eat Kraft macaroni and cheeze strictly for the flavor.

One other value, which is why I like some convenience foods, is that their preparation requires less supervision. If I am cooking something on the stove, if I neglect it, it will boil over, burn, etc. If, however, I put a microwave dinner in the microwave, and then go toodle on my computer, the worst that happens is that it gets cold while I forget about it. They claim the researchers paid attention to how "hands on" the meals were, but that's not the same thing as "neglectable".

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

^^ Yeah, that. And also, with things like frozen vegetables the convenience comes somewhere other than food preparation. They take just as long to prepare as fresh vegetables, but you don't have to shop for fresh vegetables every couple of days and you generally dont' have to worry about them going bad before you get to them.

[conuly]

Spaghetti sauce takes, when I make it, some 30 minutes, only a little longer than the pasta itself. Though every time I do it, I wonder if I really *need* onions in it - I hate chopping onions. (And honestly, every time I do it, I also end up with cold pasta sauce, or overcooked pasta sauce, because I anticipate that it'll take far longer than it ends up requiring.)

If I am cooking something on the stove, if I neglect it, it will boil over, burn, etc.

Once, my sister burned the pasta. I still remind her of it from time to time.

[siderea]

Oh, I've successfully burned pots of water. :T

There's a reason I try to make sure everything in my house that gets hot also either turns off automatically or screams if neglected.

[siderea]

So, how do you make pasta sauce from scratch in 30 min?

[conuly]

Well, first I go "Aaaaaaaah! I'm so sick of pasta! Gah! I hate making pasta sauce! WHY ME?????"

Then I spend a few minutes frantically trying to find a can opener. I pause, then start sauteeing onions and garlic in olive oil ("AAAAAAAAH! MY EYES! I HATE CHOPPING ONIONS! WHY MEEEEEEE???????"), then resume my search. Once I find the can opener, I open a can of tomatoes ("AAAAAH! THEY'RE WHOLE! I HATE CHOPPING TOMATOES! WHEN WILL PEOPLE LEARN TO JUST BUY CRUSHED? WHAT IS THE FLIPPING POINT OF CANS OF TOMATOES IF I STILL HAVE TO CHOP THEM? WHY ME?????") and dump it in. Simmer, simmer, simmer - hey, maybe I should add some tomato puree! How much... oh, I'll just dump the whole thing in, whatever. Simmer, simmer... oh, fennel. So I add fennel, and run out to the garden for fresh rosemary and basil (or use the spices we have in the house), and run in, and simmer, and simmer, and remember to start the pasta, and simmer, and simmer, and sooner or later it's done, and I assume it's only half an hour because I do this when I realize it's my night for dinner and I have nothing to eat, so if it took longer, I would make chili instead.

I do, as you note, use some convenience foods, such as the canned tomatoes, but they're only a little convenient because I hate using can openers, even when I can find them.

[conuly]

I wouldn't believe it if I didn't do it. It may take as long as 45 minutes, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't. The mind does boggle somewhat, but I'm actually totally serious on that part.

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

When I've seen the canned tomatoes they cost almost as much as a jar of pasta sauce (about $2, I only buy the jarred stuff when it's $2.50-$3). Add to that the cost of the fresh onion and everything else and I'm financially better off just getting the jar.

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

Tinned tomatoes and tomato puree :) Propper thickend italian preserved tomatoes take about 5 hours to cook, most of which is pressure cooking reduciton. Shove it inna mason jar, cap it off, and it will be sstill good and ready to use in a year.

Note i am personaly horribly alergic to tomatos (acid rflux of DOOM, yuck) and so dont ever bother making em like this... but yeah, withi a half a day, a box of slightly overripe tomatoes form the local market, and a pressure cooker its possible to eliminate tinned tomatoes from the equasion all together.
If you wanna get realy gung ho, you can add herbs and salt too at this point.

[conuly]

Over here, the canned tomatoes come in huge-ass cans for, what, a dollar fifty? And the jars are full of salt and sugar (that's the name-brand ones!) that you can taste, and something like almost three dollars. High-quality ones are even more expensive (naturally) and, unfortunately, most of the ones I've tried do something weird where they make the roof of my mouth burn. I don't understand it, but I have the same problem with most Hershey chocolates, and with parsley if there's enough of it, so I assume it's a minor food intolerance related to... I don't know, something they do that I don't.

And onions are cheap. And they go in everything.

[conuly]

I refuse to even contemplate making five hour tomato sauce. If it's that much better than what I make now, I might end up never having pasta again, and I really don't want that.

And our tomatoes at the supermarket are never overripe. Underripe, yes. Overripe, no. I can't wait until summer, when we have our own tomatoes again....

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

Chopping onions is the worst! It's my least favorite part of making my most favorite recipe, tortilla soup. I no longer do all the chopping by hand,* but the thought of chopping onions still keeps me from making tortilla soup as often as I would like to.

*I thought my eyes were going to fall out the first two times I did it all by hand! Now, I cut the onion in half. I store one half, and cut the other into quarters. I put the quarters into my mini food processor one at a time and let it do the work. My eyes still sting a little.

[conuly]

My sister broke the lid of my food processor.

[neurotica0.livejournal.com]

Bummer.

I feel kind of bad about the mini food processor because Nathan got it for me for $4 and it has rendered our $40 (standard size) food process nearly useless. That full-size bad boy is so much more difficult to clean that I opt to make several runs with smaller portions through the mini processor instead of hassling with the large one.

[conuly]

So I guess the point to make is that the cost is about the same, and the taste is better, so it's worth it for me.

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

the point is you make enough in 5 hours to last a year once its in preserving jars.
and arrrrgh, UNDER RIPE TOMATOES SO MUCH WORSE



ahem, pardon the shoutiness. Benifits to living withen walking distance of a farmers market number 1

[rantinan.livejournal.com]

That is a philosophy worth embracing.

[peebs1701.livejournal.com]

That's the way I look at making pancakes from scratch.

[cumaeansibyl.livejournal.com]

I bought a premade meatloaf because I had a coupon for it, and then I discovered that it takes like an hour and a half to cook this premade meatloaf.

... now I don't have my meatloaf recipe on hand, but I'm pretty sure that it doesn't take an hour and a half to cook a damn meatloaf once you've defrosted your pound of ground beef. And it doesn't take that long to mix your pound of ground beef with your breadcrumbs and other shit anyway. So I'm pretty sure this article is right, as long as you're talking about recipes that don't just need to be warmed up for serving.

[conuly]

Ah. Five hours for a years supply, that's a different kettle of fish altogether. Or even of pasketti sauce!

[leora.livejournal.com]

The article seems to contradict itself. It says that families tended to either save about 10 to 12 minutes, which is a significant total amount of the work time involved or to make more dishes overall. So, either you are getting more total result or saving work.

I don't use convenience foods to save time; I know they often don't, because the base cooking time for the pasta won't vary that much and that's a large part of my cooking time. But I do it to either save energy or be able to eat healthier with the same amount of energy. And it does say that the amount of work is decreased with convenience foods.

[leora.livejournal.com]

Oh gods no. The convenience of frozen pre-cut peppers is so much more convenient than washing and cutting up peppers myself. Plus, less risk of me accidentally cutting myself (which I don't usually do with peppers anyhow, but still, natural-born klutz here). And convenience foods tend to involve much less cleanup. I don't have to cleanup the cutting board and knife I didn't use, in that case. And I don't have the peppers go bad while I'm waiting until I want to use them. Since I can't go shopping every week (physically can't) canned vegetables are a huge boost to my health, since without them I have to have periods of produce just after shopping and then fallow times until I can shop again.

[conuly]

Frozen is better than canned. And, to be honest - if you're buying from a supermarket, frozen can be fresher than unfrozen, too. Which is depressing, but a bit beside the point.

[conuly]

Never made meatloaf. That sounds insane.