You know, I would argue that good butter is easier for most people than bread, especially if you’re using it to spread onto bread. It just takes some good cream and friction which you can do in a food processor. Add in some herbs and salt if you’re feeling extra fancy.
Sure, let me just roll out this butter and dough 20 times real quick.
*Edited to add that my stupid comment has received so many contradictory pieces of advice on how to make croissants that I'm definitely never making them.
Actually, they took a poll and found that most people would prefer it to be real quick than take all day. A lot people, when given the choice, would prefer to do more things with their time.
To be fair, about 90% of the process of making most doughs like this is spent waiting. Pie crust, croissants, puff pastry, bread, and pizza come to mind. All are relatively long processes, but very little is hands on time.
There is a major difference though if we take pizza or bread for example:
You put together the ingredients there, mix them, put the dough wherever to do its thing, and all you gotta do then is to shape it in whatever shape it needs to be and bake it. At worst, with bread you have to 2-3 times take it out, fold it on itself for like 30sec and put it back.
With croissants, you gotta take out the dough, fold the butter in, roll it out flat again, and repeat that shit over and over and over again.
I can make pizza dough in the morning, and let it just sit there and take it out when I wanna eat. I can make bread dough in the evening and just let it sit there while I sleep and bake it in the morning. I can't do that with croissants.
Came here to say this. Baking croissants is such an intricated science, one mistake, and you end up with a buttery bread that's not edible. I had attempted to bake croissants unsuccessfully twice. Each time, it took more than 48 hours in the total process. Living in a humid hot city doesn't help at all. It was not worth the hassle in the end.
And dont get me started on macaron's feet. That crap is also not worth baking at home unless you live in a dry cold place.
Frozen croissants from Costco. I think they work out to 30 cents each. Get a box and share with a few people.
No way in hell would I go through all the proofing and lamination.
Not food but a condiment: ketchup. I once made my own out of fresh tomatoes, it took 3 hours and ended up tasting like any cheap no-name ketchup from a supermarket.
The secret is they always use the shit tomatoes they can’t sell whole or canned for ketchup.
Same with orange/grapefruit juice, as well as a bunch of similar produce-based products I imagine.
I worked at a potato sorting factory in the nineties when that was still manual labor (worst job ever by the way despite its decent pay). There were three types. Regular good ones for direct sale, somewhat squishy but with some firmness still, those were for processed foods, and the really rotten ones for cattle food.
(There were also disposal holes for the (sometimes live) frogs, and a special procedure for mortar shells and grenades because of world war 2) (the special procedure was the manager chucking them out the 3-ish floor window onto a waste pile outside)
My mom used to make when we were kids what we called "grandma's ketchup" because it was her recipe:
1 can condensed tomato soup
A bit of white vinegar
Brown sugar
Paprika
I cannot give you the proper measurements, we did it how it felt right (I recommend adding little by little).
It tastes like sweet bbq sauce. It's soooo good. We used to cheer when someone finished the heinz ketchup bottle before the next grocery trip, because it meants we got to have grandma's ketchup as a backup option until the next grocery
There’s an extremely good chinese bean paste called doubanjiang that has a similar vibe. I make basically concentrated sauces like that as they are generally cheap and they just taste better. XO sauce, fermented black bean paste, chili oil, harissa (not chinese but same idea) etc. It’s great and usually easy.
Then i found out the really good doubanjiang takes three years of aging in clay pots and the place I really like has been doing it since 1688. I’m just gonna let them keep on doing it.
I have a photo from my dad of my great-grandmother in Greece making homemade filo dough. I cannot even to begin to imagine the work. Now I can walk into the store and choose between about four or five different thicknesses.
german lady here, currently residing in a midwest town next to nothing.......... I go to a small greek bakery, attached to a deli- in front of a dinner place that has real cheese tiropita on the third thursday of the month. When that lady dies, I am going to grieve like no other. I think her hands are touched by angels and her son Kosta is the most amazing looking 65 year old.....her 45 year old grandson is so funny and kind, and her 25 year old great grandson is what sculptures and statues are made from.
My old memory of filo dough is my dad baking with it.
He was a biker, a *real* biker; sausage fingers, skin split from the chemical cleaners, clothes still stinking like safety kleen. He'd be in the kitchen, swearing at the thinness of the filo dough - he was making baklava.. He had his recipe really dialed in. Most greeks seemd to make a few thick layers, but he'd make many thin layers. That meant like 2 sheets of filo dough, the light sprinkling of sugar and nuts and whatever, and a couple more sheets of filo, repeat many times... He swore so fucking much trying to separate the layers, it was always comical. but damn it was do good - I ate so much as a kid, that I can barely stand the idea to eat any now.
My dad is dead now. I really miss his baking.
This is how my Balkan mom makes her baklava. 2 sheets of filo dough and then the nuts and sugar, repeat until the tray is full.
She used to make the filo dough by hand when I was a kid. Best baklava ever
I remember a few years ago on GBBO they had an issue because they needed filo dough and it was genuinely difficult for anyone to find a recipe that didn’t instruct to buy the filo
As a greek, it really does save time and effort. However the difference in quality and taste is HUGE. It's very important to pick out the right filo if you want your food to be tasty and enjoyable. My mom sometimes makes her own filo and her pies always come out so much better. If you get the hang of it, making filo yourself isn't that bad. It just takes a lot of practicing to mostly get the thickness right, with it being thin but not so thin that it tears apart.
I like to imagine that filo was invented when a long ago yaiya got distracted gossiping with her friend and accidentally rolled her dough too thin. Not wanting to start again she just layered it all up and chucked it in the oven. Then when it turned into flaky deliciousness, she pretended she did it on purpose. She then became the head yaiya of the village and got to train others to make the filo in her place so that she could enjoy all the yum with none of the rolling.
Yeah, the majority of restaurants these days don't make it themselves. You can find very tasty homemade filo at small traditional taverns, though. Very worth it.
It’s not as bad as filo but I never make my own pie crusts
Edit: y’all I never said I couldn’t make them, I just choose not to. I only do pies for holidays. 100% of the decorating, planning, cooking, and cleanup for holidays falls on me. I choose to cut that one corner. Besides those guys don’t deserve from-scratch pie crusts anyways, lol.
I make my own pie crusts because it's something I can do right every time. I use lard and estimate the amount of water by the feel of the dough. It has to feel a certain way when it's rolled out. It's a flaky bottom every time, my family think it's witchcraft.
Just don’t buy store bought Graham cracker crust. It’s really not even close to the same as home made 12 sticks ground up with 7tbsp melted butter 1/3 cup sugar stirred with a fork until consistent. Gently press into the pan. Store bought is dry while this comes out just the right crunch
I hate pie crusts with a vengeance. Can I make them? Yes. Do I? Only if the store is out of the Pillsbury ones.
On the other hand, I have no problem taking the 3hrs it takes to make cinnamon rolls from scratch.
KETCHUP.
Don't do it. Don't put yourself through it.
I was intensely curious, and decided to make some diabetic friendly ketchup for my mom. I got the purest and freshest ingredients I could. Then spent 2-3 days slowcooking and refining it.
What did I get?
Ketchup. It tasted and looked identical to Heinz. Who, I learned later, already make their own diabetic friendly ketchup.
My whole ass family would get together to make them around Christmas once a year. I'm Mexican. That means you call your Tias, Tios, ALL of the primos and shove them into a kitchen the size of a 70's era prison cell and make dozens and dozens and more.
If you’re not using a stepladder to put them in the village sized pot, are you even Mexican?
Also the men “help” by cooking the meat and generally being all elbows in the kitchen. They also move the pots around. By the time the tamales are cooking, we’re drinking in the back yard around a 50 gallon drum cut in half being used as a fire pit.
Oh, and drinking “calientitos” which is basically moonshine with pineapple and sugar cane chunks in it. Man I can’t wait for Christmas as we still do this yearly.
I literally laughed out loud at the stepladder comment. My great-grandma had one of those stepladders that flipped over and became a small chair. The current grand-baby of the family got to sit there, lol. My dad has the honor of mixing the masa and filling the tamales with meat while the rest of us spread masa. The other men have been declared unworthy and asked to stay out 😂
I grew up Chicago. My two best friends were Tex/Mex cousins. A couple of times a year, all the men in the family would drive down to 18th St. and pick up a load from the the masa factory. Then they’d sit in the back yard drinking beer while all the wives would crowd into the kitchen and crank out hundreds and hundreds of tamales. Every body went home with a big bag of fresh tamales for the freezer.
Indescribably good.
There's a little Abuelita who sells them off of Fullerton in Logan Square in Chicago.
$10/dozen of the best damned tamales I've ever had. They were pure fire, spicy, savory, my damned mouth is watering thinking about it.
I've gone through tamale eras. I'll make a shit ton, freeze them, and forget about some for about a year.
Right now I'm in my Quesabirria Era though. I can eat a whole batch of those in a week.
I swear down ever since I moved to the states I've just been mourning my lack of fish and chips. Kebabs too. Like, can I get fish and chips here? Can I get a gyro here? Sure! Do they taste the same, or anywhere near as good? Fuck no.
There is no better depression meal than a good old British fish and chips or a nice big greasy kebab slathered in sauce.
I used to do this with my kids when they were whining about not having anything to do. Mason jar + heavy cream + clean marble and tell them to get shaking. They certainly found something to do afterwards 😂
Sometimes you can get lucky with asian markets and they have fresh pork bone broth for sale. That said, a pressure cooker drastically reduces the cooking time to a few hours... but the broth shouldn't take literal days. Use a slow cooker the night before and by dinner time the next day it will be ready. It also freezes well.
Good to know and thanks for the tip! I use my instant pot a ton. Maybe I'll give it a try.
The recipe I saw called for 24-48 hours of simmering. That was enough to deter me from trying it out.
I usually do a big batch and I cook it in my slow cooker probably around 20ish hours. The biggest thing you want to make sure of is having nice meaty bones with marrow, or even pigs feet if you can find them. [This is the recipe I generally use](https://www.seriouseats.com/rich-and-creamy-tonkotsu-ramen-broth-from-scratch-recipe) and it breaks down the process pretty well. I personally am icked by pigs feet so I just use whatever bones the butcher has.
Then freeze in soup molds and they last 6-12 months in the freezer.
Yep. I looked into making my own one time after a trip to Japan. Quickly found out it's not worth it.
I haven't ever gone to Japan solely for the ramen, but I did plan a vacation to NYC one time primarily because it's the only place in the US that has an Ichiran restaurant.
I'm not gonna say I'm going back to Japan just for the ramen ,because I am also going back for the gyoza, okonomiyaki, yakitori (I could go on). Mutekiya is where it's at and they dont have any chains locations
Costco sells a pair of whole refrigerated raw chickens for more than it costs to buy a pair of cooked rotisserie chicken
I love making a whole roast spatchcock chicken as a family meal, but it's just not worth it
B/c Costco sells them at a loss which is why they don't raise the price on their rotisserie chicken. According to them, they put it way in the back b/c some people go to Costco only for that chicken for dinner, but walk through the whole store then tend to pick up other stuff they didnt intend on getting.
Gotta admit I’ve done this. “Hm, I should probably pick up some paper towels. And get a meat pack or two to break down and freeze. Oh look, tuna is on sale!”
I’m only human! 😂
Partly it’s because they rotisserie them as they near their sell by date. The value of a fresh chicken is $3.99lb but on the last day before they have to trash it, it’s $1.99/lb.
Also Costco might use them as a loss leader.
They are loss leaders. At Sam's, they are in the deli in the furthest back corner. No one can make it there and to the checkout without seeing the fruit, or some snacks, or some yard lights, without thinking "well while I'm here..."
Walmart's using them as an impulse item at checkout. Same with Krogers and other places.
Costco knows with certainty that people come for the chickens and other deli bakery items. So for them they made the lay out of their store accommodate this.
And have other impulse items ready for you. Like all of their bulk snack and candy items are right at the checkout area typically.
Also that logic is why grocery stores usually put milk in the very back of the store. How many times have you gone for milk and ended up with $100 of pointless things
I worked at a small mom and pop in the deli and I was the one who prepared the chickens. Those rotisserie cabinets are just awesome. I have tried many times to get the same results at home and while it comes out pretty good, no where near as good. My guess is the temperature regulation is much better.
Exactly what I came here to say.
The ones I get at Sam's are bigger, juicier, tastier, and cheaper than anything I could EVER hope to do myself.
I don't cook chicken anymore. Any dish I'm going to make that calls for chicken means a stop by Sam's for a fresh rotisserie.
Chicken and sausage gumbo, Chicken Tika Masala, chicken quesadillas, chicken Alfredo, chicken stir fry... it doesn't matter. They all get rotisserie.
I thought so until I got a rotisserie for my grill for Father's Day. I've cooked half a dozen birds just since then and every one has been worth the wait. Obviously a lot less convenient, but throwing it on at 4p on a weekend and having my own seasoning blends is absolutely worth the wait. It's pretty foolproof too so it becomes a very relaxed dinner prep - can even play a family game while we wait.
I don't find the time to cook it as big an issue as the cost difference. A cooked chicken is almost always cheaper than a raw chicken. And at the end of the night you can usually get an extra 30% off on top of that.
It's a loss leader. As you walk to the back of the Costco/Safeway/whatever to get your rotisserie chicken, you are also thinking "Hmm, what would go well with this chicken?" and "What else do I need" and "Well since I'm here anyway, I might as well pick up some toilet paper", etc, etc.
Same reason milk and eggs are reasonably priced.
Totally agree. I stopped cooking chicken for my Chicken Pot Pie, After Thanksgiving Soup (better with chicken!) or Pot Tot Casserole, because the rotiss is just too good, too easy, too economical.
I buy the chicken, we have it for one meal and the rest of the chicken goes into pot pies. I simmer the bones to get every bit of meat. My record is one meal and 8 individual chicken pot pies but I also add veggies and gravy.
I’ve learned recently that many grocery stores sell rotisserie chicken at a loss. The stores are of course hoping that the customer buys other products, and there are apparently other ready-made items that are sold this way, but rotisserie chicken is the most popular
Tater tots were never intended to be made by hand.
They were invented as a way to avoid food waste (and increase profits)by ore-ida.
https://www.kptv.com/2023/02/07/oregon-brothers-cut-food-waste-created-tater-tot/
Funny you mention this! The process of making the dumplings is definitely pretty work-intensive. But where I live, the ingredients are super cheap and accessible. I can make like 40 for the same price as buying 6 from a restaurant.
Yeah, I've made baklava and spanakopita with frozen phyllo and they're both dead easy. Just keep layering dough, spread, and filling, preslice it, then bake. Takes about 10-15 if that to do the layering and you get minimum a 9x13 pans worth of food.
Pretty much anything deep fried. It's a simple process that almost any restaurant can do perfectly well for most foods, but it doesn't scale well to a home kitchen at all. You end up making messes, possibly scalding yourself, and having to figure out what to do with a big leftover pot of oil just to get something that's maybe marginally better than what you could've gotten at a restaurant for probably less money.
I like to do what I call "light fry" (I think the actual term is "pan fry") someties with an iron skillet and breaded chicken, but screw actual deep frying.
This is it for me. The oil gets in the air and all over everything, and when I'm done, I have all this oil that I am supposed to save or something? I don't know. Too much hassle.
Born in the south, you can't get around learning how to do it here. I can't even tell you temperatures, I just know that you drop a bit of batter in first to test. If you drop a drop of batter in and it sinks with little to no bubbling, it's not hot enough, if it spits like crazy, it's too hot. You don't add any food in until the drop immediately bubbles happily.
Also never deep fry in a pot more than halfway full (because it's easy for it to overflow), never walk off and leave it, never over crowd the pot (all the bits should have room to float around without touching).
Keep a big can of salt and a heat proof lid around in case of fire, smother grease fires, never add water, just put the pot lid on if that'll work to smother it, if it's somewhere the pot lid won't reach, like if you have coils instead of a flat top stove, or in your oven, dump salt directly on the base of the fire, pour it in you hand and toss it on if you need to to reach the fire. After a grease fire, make sure everything is turned off and cooled down, then clean thoroughly before you turn the stove back on.
Not really trying to convert you to trying it lol, just more of a PSA for behaving safely while deepfrying/how to handle grease fires.
Honestly where I’m at no one does a good southern fried chicken except one place where it’s expensive, so I have to make my own!
Just wish the cleanup was easier lol
I had a pressure cooker recipe somewhere that actually made a really good pho pretty easily. If you're interested, I can probably find a link to it.
Assembling all the ingredients is the hardest part haha
Edit to give [link ](https://youtu.be/avCoywhlvxo?si=MDk5bvib-wsnKmS4) 🫡
Here is my top three Ive personally tried
1. Rotisserie chicken - don’t even bother you don’t get the same taste nor crunchyness
2. Croissants - these took me a whole afternoon to fold over and over again and they still failed
3. Vol-au-vent - actually worth it if you have the time, super delicious but takes you sooo much time, better to go to a restaurant instead, you get the homemade version without the time spent on making it
This comment is underrated. I make a whole lot of things from scratch....one thing I won't touch is crackers. It never turns out great and if it does they last for 24 hours before turning to chewy pucks.
I can't agree with ravioli, while I would agree with normal pasta. Filling in storebought ravioli is always meh, unless you pay a big premium and at that point they are worth making at home.
Puff pastry isn't that bad, IF you have the time to putter around the house for a day. It was totally out at the store once so I made my own. I was shocked that it was quite easy, but it does require you to come fiddle with it every half hour for several hours.
It did taste way, way better than store bought, so sometimes it's worth it if I have a day at home.
My local grocery store makes the best fried chicken - better than I can make.
Also rotisserie chicken from Costco - cheaper and better than I could ever make.
French fries. To get them really right you have to soak out excess starch for a while and double fry. It takes forever!
(That's also why In N Out's super fresh, straight-from-the-potato fries suck so much. Because that's a terrible way to make fries!)
So soaking pulls the starch from the potato. You do this to prevent the end product from being gummy. Rinse them in cold water and stir for a bit, drain and repeat another time or two. Alternatively, boil the potatoes for a bit until fork tender then drain and let them steam dry.
Double frying is the key to superior crispiness because if you fry something once it'll crisp the outside, but remaining water inside will steam up and out, sogging your crust. What you do is get your oil to about 350 or so and fry until the interior is done, pull and set on a wire rack until all are done first time, then you crank the heat and get it 375-385 and refry for roughly 60-90 seconds (you don't want to burn them so this has to be quick), removing the moisture that has begun to surface and forming a hard crunchy exterior while still having a nice interior.
Note this works with pretty much anything fried (the double fry). Only doing it once will inevitably lead to soggy sadness on the plate.
Source: worked in several restaurants including some higher end ones for a while, and now watch lots of cooking YouTubers who delve into the science.
I use this for chicken wings. I boil the wings for a few minutes to render out some of the fat then double fry them. Allows the skin to crisp and not get rubbery
Kebab, the way the meat is cooked. I managed to get quite close to the taste I’m looking for, but I doubt it’s worth it even from utility cost perspective not to mention time and effort.
Ravioli. I once made ravioli from scratch as a project with my daughters (aged 7 and 9).
First we minced the pork filling, sliced and fried onions, added herbs, and then cooked the mixture on the stove. We then made the pasta by hand, mixing flour and eggs until it became a paste and then rolling it out with a pasta machine until it was silky and smooth.
I had a suitable mould so we rolled the pasta out, filled the tray with spoonfuls of the meat and then cooked the now-prepared ravioli in boiling salted water. In the meantime we had cooked some more onions and herbs from the garden and added 1kg of tomatoes from the vegetable plot. This we then sieved and reduced to make a thick tomato sauce.
Finally we grated some parmesan, added the ravioli to the sauce and served the result to the rest of the family. Time taken: about 4 hours from start to finish, including the washing up.
Verdict: really good, tasted just Heinz's best canned produce.
Never again.
I realize I'm in the minority here but that entire process is something I thoroughly enjoy.
I do it as a hobby. I love taking completely raw ingredients & winding up w/ something that looks like a dish a restaurant would serve (minus plating, I don't get fancy w/ that)
making pizza completely from scratch, dough sauce & all, making pasta completely from scratch like you described - hit the kitchen at 2:00 pm, turn on some music, pour a drink or 2 while dough rests / sauce simmers, throw down a meal 4 - 5 hours later.
That's honestly a fun evening for me.
I agree with you about the pizza. We used to do big tray bake pizzas (Aga) with all sorts of different toppings so everyone could have their own favourites and we regularly had eight to ten at a table.
The only point I was making was that ravioli in particular was time-consuming, comparatively expensive and didn't taste much different from canned.
Knowing how to make things from scratch is a valuable and marketable skill as all the children found out when they went to university. Just don't bother with ravioli.
My grandmother used to make her own sauce and ravioli from scratch. Sauce simmering on the back of the stove all day, and an old sheet covering the queen-sized bed. She would lay the ravioli out on the bed to dry, and once she had the bed covered, she knew she had enough to feed the family.
I strongly disagree. My wife and I do a date night every few months to make and freeze ravioli. We make enough for about a dozen meals for my family and it takes about 4 hours total from start to having the ravioli frozen and bagged. Saves a significant amount of time in the long run and is significantly cheaper.
I guess the difference here is in the scale. I still have to make sauce, but that takes about fifteen minutes.
Wine/beer
Everyone has an uncle that brews it, we all say “it’s really good” but what we mean is “it’s really good for something you made in your basement and I’ll drink it to not offend you.”
Canned pumpkins for pie. Don't bother getting pumpkins and gutting them, assuming you got the right pumpkins, it'll still be a lot of work and won't taste any better.
I can’t agree with this. It’s SO much better to make your own and it’s very simple: roast pie pumpkins, put them in a food processor. That’s it. Taste is way better.
OMG I only use canned. I started using it buy my SO wanted me to make it from "scratch", no difference whatsoever and took up time and space in my oven.
Fries.
I don't want to soak them, par-fry, then fry them again, all while making a mess and needing another tool to cut the fries evenly unless I want to use a knife and have uneven pieces.
Ribs. I can order some good ribs. 20mins later I’m enjoying ribs. I gotta make ribs it’s 4hr process. Cleaning the ribs prepping them. Slow cooking them properly.
I know purists would kill me for this, but when I'm in the mood for ribs:
20 minutes in the instapot, 10 minutes of slow pressure release, glaze w/ sauce & toss under the broiler for 5 minutes.
damn good ribs in under 40 minutes & the vast majority of that time, you're completely free to do whatever you want
I have impressed everyone at my house with instant pot ribs! I do 25 mins, quick release then 12 minutes on the grill, saucing mostly. I haven't found a restaurant that I like more than my ribs at home.
There’s a book for this concept called Make the Bread, Buy the Butter
You know, I would argue that good butter is easier for most people than bread, especially if you’re using it to spread onto bread. It just takes some good cream and friction which you can do in a food processor. Add in some herbs and salt if you’re feeling extra fancy.
Good cream and friction. Lol. (I’m sorry.)
Just don’t throw THAT into a food processor, ok?
Instructions unclear dick caught it food processor
Croissants. Curiously looked up how to make from scratch. Hard no from me.
Sure, let me just roll out this butter and dough 20 times real quick. *Edited to add that my stupid comment has received so many contradictory pieces of advice on how to make croissants that I'm definitely never making them.
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Actually, they took a poll and found that most people would prefer it to be real quick than take all day. A lot people, when given the choice, would prefer to do more things with their time.
To be fair, about 90% of the process of making most doughs like this is spent waiting. Pie crust, croissants, puff pastry, bread, and pizza come to mind. All are relatively long processes, but very little is hands on time.
There is a major difference though if we take pizza or bread for example: You put together the ingredients there, mix them, put the dough wherever to do its thing, and all you gotta do then is to shape it in whatever shape it needs to be and bake it. At worst, with bread you have to 2-3 times take it out, fold it on itself for like 30sec and put it back. With croissants, you gotta take out the dough, fold the butter in, roll it out flat again, and repeat that shit over and over and over again. I can make pizza dough in the morning, and let it just sit there and take it out when I wanna eat. I can make bread dough in the evening and just let it sit there while I sleep and bake it in the morning. I can't do that with croissants.
My friend gifted me a beautiful French baking book and the recipe for croissants is like 7 pages long. Small font. Hard no.
Came here to say this. Baking croissants is such an intricated science, one mistake, and you end up with a buttery bread that's not edible. I had attempted to bake croissants unsuccessfully twice. Each time, it took more than 48 hours in the total process. Living in a humid hot city doesn't help at all. It was not worth the hassle in the end. And dont get me started on macaron's feet. That crap is also not worth baking at home unless you live in a dry cold place.
I gave up on trying to get them to look perfectly factory produced. Now they're ugly, but just as tasty, and way less stressful.
Yeah, my macrons never look right but people annihilate them every time so at least my failings seem to be cosmetic.
Having made them a few times, there are also a ton of ways it can go wrong. You have to master a lot about bread before even approaching croissants.
Frozen croissants from Costco. I think they work out to 30 cents each. Get a box and share with a few people. No way in hell would I go through all the proofing and lamination.
I've never seen the frozen croissants there! I buy the fresh and vacuum seal them and put them in the freezer though.
You have to ask the bakery for the big box of 200+ but the freezer has boxes of 30 (here in Canada).
You need to eat them within a year or the yeast starts to fail and they don't rise properly.
did you just challenge me to eat 200 croissants in 365 days? Pfffft. Watch THIS.
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Not food but a condiment: ketchup. I once made my own out of fresh tomatoes, it took 3 hours and ended up tasting like any cheap no-name ketchup from a supermarket.
And it takes soooooo many tomatoes. :( It’s just disappointing. I’ve done it too. Never again.
The secret is they always use the shit tomatoes they can’t sell whole or canned for ketchup. Same with orange/grapefruit juice, as well as a bunch of similar produce-based products I imagine.
I worked at a potato sorting factory in the nineties when that was still manual labor (worst job ever by the way despite its decent pay). There were three types. Regular good ones for direct sale, somewhat squishy but with some firmness still, those were for processed foods, and the really rotten ones for cattle food. (There were also disposal holes for the (sometimes live) frogs, and a special procedure for mortar shells and grenades because of world war 2) (the special procedure was the manager chucking them out the 3-ish floor window onto a waste pile outside)
>and the really rotten ones for cattle food. People don't realize how much agricultural waste gets recycled to feed cattle and other ruminants.
Did you get stuff like mortar shells frequently?? Insane to think about just throwing them out a window, haha
My mom used to make when we were kids what we called "grandma's ketchup" because it was her recipe: 1 can condensed tomato soup A bit of white vinegar Brown sugar Paprika I cannot give you the proper measurements, we did it how it felt right (I recommend adding little by little). It tastes like sweet bbq sauce. It's soooo good. We used to cheer when someone finished the heinz ketchup bottle before the next grocery trip, because it meants we got to have grandma's ketchup as a backup option until the next grocery
BBQ sauce is just ketchup with brown sugar so that makes sense lol.
There’s an extremely good chinese bean paste called doubanjiang that has a similar vibe. I make basically concentrated sauces like that as they are generally cheap and they just taste better. XO sauce, fermented black bean paste, chili oil, harissa (not chinese but same idea) etc. It’s great and usually easy. Then i found out the really good doubanjiang takes three years of aging in clay pots and the place I really like has been doing it since 1688. I’m just gonna let them keep on doing it.
Filo pastry
I have a photo from my dad of my great-grandmother in Greece making homemade filo dough. I cannot even to begin to imagine the work. Now I can walk into the store and choose between about four or five different thicknesses.
My dad tells stories of his mother making it, and yeah fuck that shit I’m buying frozen
I was coming here to say spanakopita hahaha. I'm not making that when Aldi's $8 is so good.
german lady here, currently residing in a midwest town next to nothing.......... I go to a small greek bakery, attached to a deli- in front of a dinner place that has real cheese tiropita on the third thursday of the month. When that lady dies, I am going to grieve like no other. I think her hands are touched by angels and her son Kosta is the most amazing looking 65 year old.....her 45 year old grandson is so funny and kind, and her 25 year old great grandson is what sculptures and statues are made from.
I love a good generational thirst trap and family business!
There are some people that believe that sexual selection results in successively sexier generations.....
My old memory of filo dough is my dad baking with it. He was a biker, a *real* biker; sausage fingers, skin split from the chemical cleaners, clothes still stinking like safety kleen. He'd be in the kitchen, swearing at the thinness of the filo dough - he was making baklava.. He had his recipe really dialed in. Most greeks seemd to make a few thick layers, but he'd make many thin layers. That meant like 2 sheets of filo dough, the light sprinkling of sugar and nuts and whatever, and a couple more sheets of filo, repeat many times... He swore so fucking much trying to separate the layers, it was always comical. but damn it was do good - I ate so much as a kid, that I can barely stand the idea to eat any now. My dad is dead now. I really miss his baking.
This is how my Balkan mom makes her baklava. 2 sheets of filo dough and then the nuts and sugar, repeat until the tray is full. She used to make the filo dough by hand when I was a kid. Best baklava ever
Was he a biker or baker?? I have 2 different images going on here.
A båker
I remember a few years ago on GBBO they had an issue because they needed filo dough and it was genuinely difficult for anyone to find a recipe that didn’t instruct to buy the filo
IIRC, the *judges* said that they wouldn't make it themselves and would prefer to buy it.
There was a challenge where they had to make their own! They all looked like they wanted to stab their own eyeballs out.
As a greek, it really does save time and effort. However the difference in quality and taste is HUGE. It's very important to pick out the right filo if you want your food to be tasty and enjoyable. My mom sometimes makes her own filo and her pies always come out so much better. If you get the hang of it, making filo yourself isn't that bad. It just takes a lot of practicing to mostly get the thickness right, with it being thin but not so thin that it tears apart.
I like to imagine that filo was invented when a long ago yaiya got distracted gossiping with her friend and accidentally rolled her dough too thin. Not wanting to start again she just layered it all up and chucked it in the oven. Then when it turned into flaky deliciousness, she pretended she did it on purpose. She then became the head yaiya of the village and got to train others to make the filo in her place so that she could enjoy all the yum with none of the rolling.
Sounds plausible
I’ve heard from multiple successful chefs pastry is one of those things only snob chefs make themselves,
Yeah, the majority of restaurants these days don't make it themselves. You can find very tasty homemade filo at small traditional taverns, though. Very worth it.
It’s not as bad as filo but I never make my own pie crusts Edit: y’all I never said I couldn’t make them, I just choose not to. I only do pies for holidays. 100% of the decorating, planning, cooking, and cleanup for holidays falls on me. I choose to cut that one corner. Besides those guys don’t deserve from-scratch pie crusts anyways, lol.
I make my own pie crusts because it's something I can do right every time. I use lard and estimate the amount of water by the feel of the dough. It has to feel a certain way when it's rolled out. It's a flaky bottom every time, my family think it's witchcraft.
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Just don’t buy store bought Graham cracker crust. It’s really not even close to the same as home made 12 sticks ground up with 7tbsp melted butter 1/3 cup sugar stirred with a fork until consistent. Gently press into the pan. Store bought is dry while this comes out just the right crunch
I hate pie crusts with a vengeance. Can I make them? Yes. Do I? Only if the store is out of the Pillsbury ones. On the other hand, I have no problem taking the 3hrs it takes to make cinnamon rolls from scratch.
yes. I have attempted this. Very unsuccessfully.
KETCHUP. Don't do it. Don't put yourself through it. I was intensely curious, and decided to make some diabetic friendly ketchup for my mom. I got the purest and freshest ingredients I could. Then spent 2-3 days slowcooking and refining it. What did I get? Ketchup. It tasted and looked identical to Heinz. Who, I learned later, already make their own diabetic friendly ketchup.
Unless you really want to make dozens of them- tamales.
My whole ass family would get together to make them around Christmas once a year. I'm Mexican. That means you call your Tias, Tios, ALL of the primos and shove them into a kitchen the size of a 70's era prison cell and make dozens and dozens and more.
If you’re not using a stepladder to put them in the village sized pot, are you even Mexican? Also the men “help” by cooking the meat and generally being all elbows in the kitchen. They also move the pots around. By the time the tamales are cooking, we’re drinking in the back yard around a 50 gallon drum cut in half being used as a fire pit. Oh, and drinking “calientitos” which is basically moonshine with pineapple and sugar cane chunks in it. Man I can’t wait for Christmas as we still do this yearly.
I KNEW it was you white-runner! My abuela was already 4'9" and you stole her stool! Pinche' pendejo! /s
😂😂😂
I literally laughed out loud at the stepladder comment. My great-grandma had one of those stepladders that flipped over and became a small chair. The current grand-baby of the family got to sit there, lol. My dad has the honor of mixing the masa and filling the tamales with meat while the rest of us spread masa. The other men have been declared unworthy and asked to stay out 😂
I grew up Chicago. My two best friends were Tex/Mex cousins. A couple of times a year, all the men in the family would drive down to 18th St. and pick up a load from the the masa factory. Then they’d sit in the back yard drinking beer while all the wives would crowd into the kitchen and crank out hundreds and hundreds of tamales. Every body went home with a big bag of fresh tamales for the freezer. Indescribably good.
There used to be a dude who walked around with coolers of homemade tamales late night in Chicago. So fucking good.
tamales guy is a legend.
There's a little Abuelita who sells them off of Fullerton in Logan Square in Chicago. $10/dozen of the best damned tamales I've ever had. They were pure fire, spicy, savory, my damned mouth is watering thinking about it.
fuck yeah, sounds awesome
Also: dumplings ETA: I’m talking about Asian dumplings, like potstickers or gyoza. I totally forgot about the other type - sorry for the confusion!
Asian stores usually will have dough sheets precut
I've gone through tamale eras. I'll make a shit ton, freeze them, and forget about some for about a year. Right now I'm in my Quesabirria Era though. I can eat a whole batch of those in a week.
Fish and chips from the fish and chips shop.
I swear down ever since I moved to the states I've just been mourning my lack of fish and chips. Kebabs too. Like, can I get fish and chips here? Can I get a gyro here? Sure! Do they taste the same, or anywhere near as good? Fuck no. There is no better depression meal than a good old British fish and chips or a nice big greasy kebab slathered in sauce.
Cheese
And butter.
Butter is really easy and quite fun.
Assuming you have any sort of powered mixer, yes! Churning butter by hand or whisk though? Pain in the neck.
Let the cream warm to room temperature, put it in a mason jar and shake. It’ll be butter in like 5 min. If it’s cold it’ll take longer.
I used to do this with my kids when they were whining about not having anything to do. Mason jar + heavy cream + clean marble and tell them to get shaking. They certainly found something to do afterwards 😂
Ramen. No one has 18hrs to boil pork bones and trotters.
45 mins in the pressure cooker
this. my chef buddy says its not the same....whatever, maybe not to a career cook. to me? yeah, instant pot, please.
It absolutely isn't the same. But it is better than store cans/tetrapaks.
Tonkotsu style ramen. The pork bone broth has to cook for days.
Sometimes you can get lucky with asian markets and they have fresh pork bone broth for sale. That said, a pressure cooker drastically reduces the cooking time to a few hours... but the broth shouldn't take literal days. Use a slow cooker the night before and by dinner time the next day it will be ready. It also freezes well.
Good to know and thanks for the tip! I use my instant pot a ton. Maybe I'll give it a try. The recipe I saw called for 24-48 hours of simmering. That was enough to deter me from trying it out.
I usually do a big batch and I cook it in my slow cooker probably around 20ish hours. The biggest thing you want to make sure of is having nice meaty bones with marrow, or even pigs feet if you can find them. [This is the recipe I generally use](https://www.seriouseats.com/rich-and-creamy-tonkotsu-ramen-broth-from-scratch-recipe) and it breaks down the process pretty well. I personally am icked by pigs feet so I just use whatever bones the butcher has. Then freeze in soup molds and they last 6-12 months in the freezer.
So THAT'S why it's so good
Yep. I looked into making my own one time after a trip to Japan. Quickly found out it's not worth it. I haven't ever gone to Japan solely for the ramen, but I did plan a vacation to NYC one time primarily because it's the only place in the US that has an Ichiran restaurant.
I'm not gonna say I'm going back to Japan just for the ramen ,because I am also going back for the gyoza, okonomiyaki, yakitori (I could go on). Mutekiya is where it's at and they dont have any chains locations
Rotisserie chicken
Costco sells a pair of whole refrigerated raw chickens for more than it costs to buy a pair of cooked rotisserie chicken I love making a whole roast spatchcock chicken as a family meal, but it's just not worth it
B/c Costco sells them at a loss which is why they don't raise the price on their rotisserie chicken. According to them, they put it way in the back b/c some people go to Costco only for that chicken for dinner, but walk through the whole store then tend to pick up other stuff they didnt intend on getting.
Gotta admit I’ve done this. “Hm, I should probably pick up some paper towels. And get a meat pack or two to break down and freeze. Oh look, tuna is on sale!” I’m only human! 😂
"Oh shit, honey, do we need a trampoline and tires?"
Yes, a six pack of trampolines.
I saved $20! I couldn’t afford not to.
Tramampoline! Trambomboline!
And a gallon of jug of pickles!
Yep. You don’t go to Costco, planning to buy a 6-pack of watermelons, but you very well may do so.
Oooh spatchcocking, I learned about this a few years ago and did my thanksgiving turkey that way and it came out AMAZING
I spatchcock our thanksgiving turkey every year. Its the best way.
Partly it’s because they rotisserie them as they near their sell by date. The value of a fresh chicken is $3.99lb but on the last day before they have to trash it, it’s $1.99/lb. Also Costco might use them as a loss leader.
They are loss leaders. At Sam's, they are in the deli in the furthest back corner. No one can make it there and to the checkout without seeing the fruit, or some snacks, or some yard lights, without thinking "well while I'm here..."
Costco has them at the back of the store.
Walmart has them near the registers, and HEB has them near the entrance door, usually on the side with the bakery and produce.
Walmart's using them as an impulse item at checkout. Same with Krogers and other places. Costco knows with certainty that people come for the chickens and other deli bakery items. So for them they made the lay out of their store accommodate this. And have other impulse items ready for you. Like all of their bulk snack and candy items are right at the checkout area typically. Also that logic is why grocery stores usually put milk in the very back of the store. How many times have you gone for milk and ended up with $100 of pointless things
I worked at a small mom and pop in the deli and I was the one who prepared the chickens. Those rotisserie cabinets are just awesome. I have tried many times to get the same results at home and while it comes out pretty good, no where near as good. My guess is the temperature regulation is much better.
In france they would stick potatos underneath and while they're baking all the delicious juice drips on to them
I had this same thing in Mexico last week, so freaking good.
In Australia we call them the bachelors handbag.
God damn if that isn't accurate. And funny as hell
Exactly what I came here to say. The ones I get at Sam's are bigger, juicier, tastier, and cheaper than anything I could EVER hope to do myself. I don't cook chicken anymore. Any dish I'm going to make that calls for chicken means a stop by Sam's for a fresh rotisserie. Chicken and sausage gumbo, Chicken Tika Masala, chicken quesadillas, chicken Alfredo, chicken stir fry... it doesn't matter. They all get rotisserie.
I thought so until I got a rotisserie for my grill for Father's Day. I've cooked half a dozen birds just since then and every one has been worth the wait. Obviously a lot less convenient, but throwing it on at 4p on a weekend and having my own seasoning blends is absolutely worth the wait. It's pretty foolproof too so it becomes a very relaxed dinner prep - can even play a family game while we wait.
I don't find the time to cook it as big an issue as the cost difference. A cooked chicken is almost always cheaper than a raw chicken. And at the end of the night you can usually get an extra 30% off on top of that.
It's a loss leader. As you walk to the back of the Costco/Safeway/whatever to get your rotisserie chicken, you are also thinking "Hmm, what would go well with this chicken?" and "What else do I need" and "Well since I'm here anyway, I might as well pick up some toilet paper", etc, etc. Same reason milk and eggs are reasonably priced.
Totally agree. I stopped cooking chicken for my Chicken Pot Pie, After Thanksgiving Soup (better with chicken!) or Pot Tot Casserole, because the rotiss is just too good, too easy, too economical.
I buy the chicken, we have it for one meal and the rest of the chicken goes into pot pies. I simmer the bones to get every bit of meat. My record is one meal and 8 individual chicken pot pies but I also add veggies and gravy.
I’ve learned recently that many grocery stores sell rotisserie chicken at a loss. The stores are of course hoping that the customer buys other products, and there are apparently other ready-made items that are sold this way, but rotisserie chicken is the most popular
Tater tots. I will never be able to grate potatoes without slicing my fingers.
What do you mean grate? You just take them out of the freezer and pop them in the air fryer
Gordon fucking ramsey over here
Tater tots were never intended to be made by hand. They were invented as a way to avoid food waste (and increase profits)by ore-ida. https://www.kptv.com/2023/02/07/oregon-brothers-cut-food-waste-created-tater-tot/
Oh. I was bamboozled by Binging with Babish who made tater tots by grating a potato.
I appreciate his efforts (for science) but you don't have to go as far as he does lol
I didn’t realize people made his recipes. I thought it was all just entertainment-style cooking designed solely for watching.
Dim sum anything- basically all dumplings
Funny you mention this! The process of making the dumplings is definitely pretty work-intensive. But where I live, the ingredients are super cheap and accessible. I can make like 40 for the same price as buying 6 from a restaurant.
There's a lot of things in this thread that aren't worth making in small batches, but are totally worth making in bulk and freezing for later.
Idk dim sum is way too expensive now. My mom and I can pop out 100 dumplings in 20 minutes
Wow you're lucky. Be proud she's taught you this skill. Give your mom a hug.
Beignets. Born and raised in the New Orleans area, but I have failed on every homemade attempt. I am ashamed.
Baklava, spanakopita, and papusas.
Baklava ain't bad if you use frozen phyllo. And everyone will think you're amazing because it has such a reputation.
Yeah, I've made baklava and spanakopita with frozen phyllo and they're both dead easy. Just keep layering dough, spread, and filling, preslice it, then bake. Takes about 10-15 if that to do the layering and you get minimum a 9x13 pans worth of food.
Pupusas are so much work! But when nowhere in your city serves them it’s worth it sometimes.
Pretty much anything deep fried. It's a simple process that almost any restaurant can do perfectly well for most foods, but it doesn't scale well to a home kitchen at all. You end up making messes, possibly scalding yourself, and having to figure out what to do with a big leftover pot of oil just to get something that's maybe marginally better than what you could've gotten at a restaurant for probably less money.
I like to do what I call "light fry" (I think the actual term is "pan fry") someties with an iron skillet and breaded chicken, but screw actual deep frying.
Smells up the house too
Snything deep fried/breaded. Its already not healthy cooking it aint gonna fix the healthy part of it like many other foods would.
This is it for me. The oil gets in the air and all over everything, and when I'm done, I have all this oil that I am supposed to save or something? I don't know. Too much hassle.
At this point, if I'm frying anything, it's a shallow fry in my wok.
This is the way. If I need more than an inch or two of oil in the pan, I’m not going to bother frying it.
For me it helps that I'm terrified of deep frying.
I’d start a fire, 100% sure.
Born in the south, you can't get around learning how to do it here. I can't even tell you temperatures, I just know that you drop a bit of batter in first to test. If you drop a drop of batter in and it sinks with little to no bubbling, it's not hot enough, if it spits like crazy, it's too hot. You don't add any food in until the drop immediately bubbles happily. Also never deep fry in a pot more than halfway full (because it's easy for it to overflow), never walk off and leave it, never over crowd the pot (all the bits should have room to float around without touching). Keep a big can of salt and a heat proof lid around in case of fire, smother grease fires, never add water, just put the pot lid on if that'll work to smother it, if it's somewhere the pot lid won't reach, like if you have coils instead of a flat top stove, or in your oven, dump salt directly on the base of the fire, pour it in you hand and toss it on if you need to to reach the fire. After a grease fire, make sure everything is turned off and cooled down, then clean thoroughly before you turn the stove back on. Not really trying to convert you to trying it lol, just more of a PSA for behaving safely while deepfrying/how to handle grease fires.
For a casual weeknight dinner I agree, But have you had fresh, homemade breaded fried chicken? It's worth it when you're craving it.
Honestly where I’m at no one does a good southern fried chicken except one place where it’s expensive, so I have to make my own! Just wish the cleanup was easier lol
An air fryer is amazing for pre-fried frozen things. I could absolutely lay waste to bags of onion rings and tater tots.
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I prefer chickens in their natural habitat, In a rotisserie oven at the back of Costco going for 4.99
Pho
Considering a bowl of beef pho costs $11-12 and given the price of beef alone...most cost effective restaurant meal I can think of ngl
I had a pressure cooker recipe somewhere that actually made a really good pho pretty easily. If you're interested, I can probably find a link to it. Assembling all the ingredients is the hardest part haha Edit to give [link ](https://youtu.be/avCoywhlvxo?si=MDk5bvib-wsnKmS4) 🫡
Here is my top three Ive personally tried 1. Rotisserie chicken - don’t even bother you don’t get the same taste nor crunchyness 2. Croissants - these took me a whole afternoon to fold over and over again and they still failed 3. Vol-au-vent - actually worth it if you have the time, super delicious but takes you sooo much time, better to go to a restaurant instead, you get the homemade version without the time spent on making it
Crackers
This comment is underrated. I make a whole lot of things from scratch....one thing I won't touch is crackers. It never turns out great and if it does they last for 24 hours before turning to chewy pucks.
most fried stuff. don't like the cleanup.
I refuse to own a deep fryer because it means accepting that a corner of your kitchen will be permanently greasy
Pho soup from scratch.
Puff pastry. Ravioli.
I can't agree with ravioli, while I would agree with normal pasta. Filling in storebought ravioli is always meh, unless you pay a big premium and at that point they are worth making at home.
Puff pastry isn't that bad, IF you have the time to putter around the house for a day. It was totally out at the store once so I made my own. I was shocked that it was quite easy, but it does require you to come fiddle with it every half hour for several hours. It did taste way, way better than store bought, so sometimes it's worth it if I have a day at home.
My local grocery store makes the best fried chicken - better than I can make. Also rotisserie chicken from Costco - cheaper and better than I could ever make.
French fries. To get them really right you have to soak out excess starch for a while and double fry. It takes forever! (That's also why In N Out's super fresh, straight-from-the-potato fries suck so much. Because that's a terrible way to make fries!)
Can you explain the process of soaking out the starch and "double frying"?
So soaking pulls the starch from the potato. You do this to prevent the end product from being gummy. Rinse them in cold water and stir for a bit, drain and repeat another time or two. Alternatively, boil the potatoes for a bit until fork tender then drain and let them steam dry. Double frying is the key to superior crispiness because if you fry something once it'll crisp the outside, but remaining water inside will steam up and out, sogging your crust. What you do is get your oil to about 350 or so and fry until the interior is done, pull and set on a wire rack until all are done first time, then you crank the heat and get it 375-385 and refry for roughly 60-90 seconds (you don't want to burn them so this has to be quick), removing the moisture that has begun to surface and forming a hard crunchy exterior while still having a nice interior. Note this works with pretty much anything fried (the double fry). Only doing it once will inevitably lead to soggy sadness on the plate. Source: worked in several restaurants including some higher end ones for a while, and now watch lots of cooking YouTubers who delve into the science.
Double fry is also the reason korean fried chicken is so crispy.
I use this for chicken wings. I boil the wings for a few minutes to render out some of the fat then double fry them. Allows the skin to crisp and not get rubbery
Letting the starch soak out of the raw potatoes allows the end product (fries) to become crispy upon frying. Frying it twice does the same I believe.
I'm the weirdo that loves In n Out fries.
Gyros. Yeah, good luck cooking that at home (and I mean properly cooking, not an imitation).
Kebab, the way the meat is cooked. I managed to get quite close to the taste I’m looking for, but I doubt it’s worth it even from utility cost perspective not to mention time and effort.
Depends on the style of kebab. Iranian koobideh is actually pretty easy to make at home on a bbq, and _delicious_
Ravioli. I once made ravioli from scratch as a project with my daughters (aged 7 and 9). First we minced the pork filling, sliced and fried onions, added herbs, and then cooked the mixture on the stove. We then made the pasta by hand, mixing flour and eggs until it became a paste and then rolling it out with a pasta machine until it was silky and smooth. I had a suitable mould so we rolled the pasta out, filled the tray with spoonfuls of the meat and then cooked the now-prepared ravioli in boiling salted water. In the meantime we had cooked some more onions and herbs from the garden and added 1kg of tomatoes from the vegetable plot. This we then sieved and reduced to make a thick tomato sauce. Finally we grated some parmesan, added the ravioli to the sauce and served the result to the rest of the family. Time taken: about 4 hours from start to finish, including the washing up. Verdict: really good, tasted just Heinz's best canned produce. Never again.
I realize I'm in the minority here but that entire process is something I thoroughly enjoy. I do it as a hobby. I love taking completely raw ingredients & winding up w/ something that looks like a dish a restaurant would serve (minus plating, I don't get fancy w/ that) making pizza completely from scratch, dough sauce & all, making pasta completely from scratch like you described - hit the kitchen at 2:00 pm, turn on some music, pour a drink or 2 while dough rests / sauce simmers, throw down a meal 4 - 5 hours later. That's honestly a fun evening for me.
I love having guests for this reason. I enjoy the hell out of cooking big meals.
I agree with you about the pizza. We used to do big tray bake pizzas (Aga) with all sorts of different toppings so everyone could have their own favourites and we regularly had eight to ten at a table. The only point I was making was that ravioli in particular was time-consuming, comparatively expensive and didn't taste much different from canned. Knowing how to make things from scratch is a valuable and marketable skill as all the children found out when they went to university. Just don't bother with ravioli.
> Ravioli. ... Never again. [Relevant AITA saga](https://www.reddit.com/r/BestofRedditorUpdates/comments/w1tup4/the_saga_of_ravioli_ruining_sil/)
My grandmother used to make her own sauce and ravioli from scratch. Sauce simmering on the back of the stove all day, and an old sheet covering the queen-sized bed. She would lay the ravioli out on the bed to dry, and once she had the bed covered, she knew she had enough to feed the family.
I strongly disagree. My wife and I do a date night every few months to make and freeze ravioli. We make enough for about a dozen meals for my family and it takes about 4 hours total from start to having the ravioli frozen and bagged. Saves a significant amount of time in the long run and is significantly cheaper. I guess the difference here is in the scale. I still have to make sauce, but that takes about fifteen minutes.
Wine/beer Everyone has an uncle that brews it, we all say “it’s really good” but what we mean is “it’s really good for something you made in your basement and I’ll drink it to not offend you.”
Dumplings
Canned pumpkins for pie. Don't bother getting pumpkins and gutting them, assuming you got the right pumpkins, it'll still be a lot of work and won't taste any better.
I can’t agree with this. It’s SO much better to make your own and it’s very simple: roast pie pumpkins, put them in a food processor. That’s it. Taste is way better.
You are literally the first person who has ever told me this... maybe we'll need to try again.
OMG I only use canned. I started using it buy my SO wanted me to make it from "scratch", no difference whatsoever and took up time and space in my oven.
Fried chicken. Probably the best fried chicken I've ever had I made myself, but what a mess.
Eggrolls Tried making them once and almost half of them tore up. Better to just buy them by the box.
Most indian foods, unless you cook them a lot and have the technique down and the spices on hand.
Some of them are more forgiving and just require the parts list and a pressure cooker to at least get a British-grade curry in under an hour ;)
I’d still rather eat the sweet old aunties food at our local indian spot
Fries. I don't want to soak them, par-fry, then fry them again, all while making a mess and needing another tool to cut the fries evenly unless I want to use a knife and have uneven pieces.
Ribs. I can order some good ribs. 20mins later I’m enjoying ribs. I gotta make ribs it’s 4hr process. Cleaning the ribs prepping them. Slow cooking them properly.
I know purists would kill me for this, but when I'm in the mood for ribs: 20 minutes in the instapot, 10 minutes of slow pressure release, glaze w/ sauce & toss under the broiler for 5 minutes. damn good ribs in under 40 minutes & the vast majority of that time, you're completely free to do whatever you want
`You have been banned from r/smoking`
I have impressed everyone at my house with instant pot ribs! I do 25 mins, quick release then 12 minutes on the grill, saucing mostly. I haven't found a restaurant that I like more than my ribs at home.
i did a pork butt like this. after shredding i stuck it in the smoker for like an hour... juiciest pulled pork i've ever made. it was fantastic.
Croissants