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You know what really pisses me off?
The pre-made food that have no damn excuse being pre-made.
I get pre-made pie crust... not everyone can do piecrust. And as I work full time, I a not a stranger to frozen shepards pie, perogi, quiche, etc. I get it pre-fab food because I am not home 12 hours of the day.
But pre-made, frozen cinnamon apples? Seriously? They freaking package something you can make in 5 minutes or less? Or pre-shredded cheese, which you can shred and freeze yourself in baggies for about a quarter the cost. Or frozen spinach. Why would you freeze spinach, which you can grab by handfuls and chop in 30 seconds? WTF levels of lazy have we come to?
(yes, my pain levels are high today, so rational thought is not my forte)
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by MamatothaMax on -
I like frozen spinach just because I never use all the fresh before it goes bad. We freeze bread, various doughs (pizza, pie crust, gnocchi etc), butter, and herbs in oil. I really like the idea of freezing my own veggies, cheese, and such. We are looking for ways to lower our grocery bill.
We also can a bunch. Right now we have two kinds of preserves and 12 jars of baked pumpkin waiting to be used for something.
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Permalink Reply by Boring User Name on -
Yeah, I have no room to mock pre-made food anytime soon. Life is hectic around here and I've relied on it more and more. Cooking (and clean-up) takes time! I think we all make our choices about what we buy pre-made and pre-prepped and what we make from varying levels of scratch.
As for what I freeze: everything. Lots and lots of soup. I created my own shepherd's pie recipe that once I actually write down the ingredients, I'll post, but it works really well frozen. Bread, peppers, banana: if we won't get them eaten in time, I freeze them. We've been trying going vegan, so a lot of sauces that wouldn't freeze well if cream-based work fine now, so I have a tofu-based mushroom sauce in the freezer and a vegan bechemel sauce that goes well with spinach or kale in the freezer now. We have a stir-fry sauce in there, too. Basically, if I make it, I try to triple it and freezer the rest.
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Permalink Reply by DLBK on -
We buy frozen spinach all the time--for making spinach dip. It's a lot cheaper than buying fresh, and it's already chopped (it takes a lot longer than 30 seconds to wash it and chop it!).
We also buy some other frozen veggies and some frozen berries because they're cheaper than fresh.
Frozen PB&J sounds very lazy and sort of gross.
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Permalink Reply by Lady Grey on -
Maybe your spinach is hydroponically grown? I love fresh spinach but no matter how hard I try, it's almost always gritty. I don't mind, but my husband does. I usually make my own pie crusts (and will this year) but they are a bit of work. Earl Grey bought me pre-made ones last year from Whole Foods and they were pretty good. Maybe this year I should make a bunch of pie crusts and freeze them... I don't have a big freezer, so the only thing I stock up on is green chile. I buy a 30 lb sack, have it roasted, then I peel and seed it and put 3-4 peppers in a small ziploc bag and have enough to last me the entire year. Oh, I also will make a bunch of tortillas, or pancakes, or French toast and freeze those, too.
You can freeze cheese, but in my experience, it tends to be more crumbly upon defrosting.
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Permalink Reply by bethany on -
I buy pre-shredded cheese all the time. And don't forget the pre-packaged cheese sticks--my kids love those! It comes in lots of different varieties and is easier than shredding (or slicing) it myself, and if I'm willing to pay for it, and it's just as healthy, who cares? It's convenient and it doesn't sacrifice any nutrition. So if I want to pay for that convenience, why do you care?
I could tell you that my freezer is really small, because it is. I have a chest freezer scheduled for delivery in a week. But even with tons of freezer space, ain't no way I'm shredding cheese. Unless its fresh parmesan (on rare occasions) in the hand held spinny grater.
And, IMHO, loaves of sliced bread that have been frozen never taste as good when thawed.
I understanding being down on frozen, nutritionally-devoid, processed foods. (Although I do have an occasional weakness for the frozen White Castle cheesburgers). But why does anyone care if my kid gets a frozen pre-made PBJ (which for the record, I have never purchased) or I make it myself if the ingredients are the same???
Please don't kick me out of the commune just yet, though.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on -
Bethany, don't take my arthritic rant as anything other than me banging my cane on the ground and yelling at these damn kids to get off my lawn. If the work-saving thing of frozen cheese works for you, go nuts.
To me, it seems like a silly thing to spend money on, because if I can save 10$ buying my cheese in bricks and shredding it myself, that's a decent amount of chocolate I could be buying. Or when money was tighter, saving that meant I could buy chicken, or berries, or something more exciting than the bare staples.
I think where it breaks down for me is when we start talking about the economic realities of poverty or near poverty. So I work with college students, some of whom are (as we probably all remember from our own student days) just not quite making ends meet. One of these kids starts talking about how he's just going to lay in a supply of kraft dinner at $1 a box (which is actually on sale price where we live). I say "Why don't you just buy a brick of cheese on sale for $4, and two packs of macaroni, and make the equivalent of $20 of kraft dinner for $6?"
He stared at me, unwilling to believe until I brought in home-made mac&cheese and said "Look! You can make this! It's way cheaper and (marginally) better for you!". He had never seen homemade mac & cheese, much less grokked that you could make it as easily as KD. Or the fact that you can make 3 meatloaves from scratch for what it costs to buy one pre-made brick of meatloaf. Or buy a whole bag of apples for the price of 1 brand name jar of apple sauce.
I know there are more serious issues in poverty than wether you make your KD from scratch or not (obviously, like access to food, ability to store and cook food), but I do feel like there is a shrinking pool of how to cook and how to buy smarter when it comes to groceries.
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Permalink Reply by bethany on
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Well said, Wookie. Now I understand your point much better. And I realize I'm lucky to be able to buy for convenience.
wookie said:Bethany, don't take my arthritic rant as anything other than me banging my cane on the ground and yelling at these damn kids to get off my lawn. If the work-saving thing of frozen cheese works for you, go nuts.
To me, it seems like a silly thing to spend money on, because if I can save 10$ buying my cheese in bricks and shredding it myself, that's a decent amount of chocolate I could be buying. Or when money was tighter, saving that meant I could buy chicken, or berries, or something more exciting than the bare staples.
I think where it breaks down for me is when we start talking about the economic realities of poverty or near poverty. So I work with college students, some of whom are (as we probably all remember from our own student days) just not quite making ends meet. One of these kids starts talking about how he's just going to lay in a supply of kraft dinner at $1 a box (which is actually on sale price where we live). I say "Why don't you just buy a brick of cheese on sale for $4, and two packs of macaroni, and make the equivalent of $20 of kraft dinner for $6?"
He stared at me, unwilling to believe until I brought in home-made mac&cheese and said "Look! You can make this! It's way cheaper and (marginally) better for you!". He had never seen homemade mac & cheese, much less grokked that you could make it as easily as KD. Or the fact that you can make 3 meatloaves from scratch for what it costs to buy one pre-made brick of meatloaf. Or buy a whole bag of apples for the price of 1 brand name jar of apple sauce.
I know there are more serious issues in poverty than wether you make your KD from scratch or not (obviously, like access to food, ability to store and cook food), but I do feel like there is a shrinking pool of how to cook and how to buy smarter when it comes to groceries.
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Permalink Reply by Kiwi on -
I have no problem with convenience foods. If you can afford it and want to buy it knock yourself out. You can open my fridge just about any day of the week and you'll find frozen veggies and shredded cheese. I've never tried those PJB things but they just look wrong... a round sandwich? That's not right.
A big food issue that no one seems to speak to is that most people living in poverty live in food deserts. I just finished helping my friend do some research and I was stunned by the numbers. Of all households in the United States, 2.3 million live more than a mile from a supermarket and do not have access to a vehicle; another 3.4 million more live at least a half mile (this data is from a 2009 USDA publication).
I grocery shop every two weeks for a family of four. I cannot begin to imagine tackling transporting my purchases without a car. I sure as hell couldn't walk them home. I am fortunate enough to live in the heart of a major city with bus service. However, a trip to my nearest grocery stores (3 miles) takes two buses and an hour of travel time (if I managed to get out exactly when a bus is coming and both buses run on time). Previously when we lived in the suburbs there was no mass transit and the grocery store was 2.5 miles away.
That box of Kraft mac and cheese is much more portable than the ingredients for making it from scratch.
When local transit system don't afford easy transportation to supermarkets people use convenience stores (and fast food restaurants) for meeting their foods needs because they are readily available.
The last time I was in 7-11 a single banana cost $1 but the candy bars started at $0.49.
wookie said:
I know there are more serious issues in poverty than wether you make your KD from scratch or not (obviously, like access to food, ability to store and cook food), but I do feel like there is a shrinking pool of how to cook and how to buy smarter when it comes to groceries.
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Permalink Reply by wookie on
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I used to read a lot on "alas, a blog" so I know that access to food, access to the ability to store food (electricity, refrigeration) and access to things to cook with (stove, microwave, utensiles) as well as cost vs calorie density are all at play at food issues in our respective countries. I am well aware that this is a privileged, middle class rant.
But I also think that in the upper brackets of the economy, there is a lack of education contributing to choices, and marketing of convenience over everything else has played heavily into that gap.
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Permalink Reply by StitchyWench on -
I sometimes buy preshredded cheese, but only the Mexican blend at Costco, because I have cut back to VERY little cheese in our diet and I don't use enough to merit bulk cheese purchases anymore. I could try freezing I guess, but then I still have to have somebody else shred it because let us just say I cannot be trusted with a cheese grater - bad bloody things happen to me EVERY freakin time!
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Permalink Reply by TeacherJ on -
I didn't you could freeze cheese, either! That's awesome!
I buy frozen spinach (and other veggies) because I only grocery shop every other week. And fresh spinach goes bad by then. So to me having spinach to eat that's not rotting into weird sliminess is totally with it.
But I'm with you all on the peanut butter and jelly. That's just silly.
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Permalink Reply by G.G. on -
Wait! You can freeze milk?? Dude.
I try to shop every 2 weeks with a stop or two for fruit/veggies in-between. $200 yesterday for just me and El D. (that included shampoo, etc) I'm considering turning into one of those coupon freaks...
I do some pre-prepped food. Like sweet potato fries... I suck at cooking and there are just 2 of us so I don't feel too bad. I used to do daily menus and shop for that... I was good. Oh well.
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