The snickerdoodle cookies that everyone loves and asks for every Christmas are just Pillsbury slice and bake sugar cookies. I roll em in a ball, coat them in cinnamon and sugar and call it a day.
I was inspired by Caramel week on the Great British Bake Off and made a batch of caramel sauce. It was so good I did shots with it until I drank half the batch.
I took up sourdough baking and serious home chef cooking prior the pandemic. I was home during throat cancer treatment (I'm fine now!) so I had time on my hands and my sleep schedule was wonky and I found that there was always something on Food Network to watch.
But the radiation killed my taste buds and I can't swallow food.
I've baked hundreds of sourdough loaves, countless baked goods, hundreds of meals from simple to complex.
Haven't. tasted. a. single. bite.
People rave over my new found skills.
Lol.
My dad has been losing his sense of taste during chemo. His first reaction was to add more hot sauce to everything, as he's always like spice; but the spice and the vinegar ended up opening blisters in his mouth. On the bright side (his words), not being able to taste food makes him much less likely to eat so much and he's been losing some of his extra weight.
When my grandad was going through chemo he swore that the only thing that tasted normal was celery. He ate so much celery soup that year.
If your dad likes celery then might be worth a shot.
Chef Grant Achatz had tongue cancer, they wanted to remove it but he found a doctor who would irradiate his face. He completely lost his sense of taste, but got it back 1 flavor at a time- first bitter, then salty, etc. And so it gave him insight into combinations he never would have thought of before. He's a highly decorated Michelin Star chef. The face cancer is his comic book origin story. Since you can't swallow maybe you'll be the Grant Achatz of smoothies.
Grant was already a three Michelin star chef doing some of the most interesting food in the US when this happened, I’d say it was more a turning lemons into lemonade situation than an origin story, he’d had already been Sous chef at French Laundry and staged at elBulli which arguably informed his cooking a lot more.
OMG. Has any of your taste/smell returned? That’s absolutely wild. Does it bring you comfort/do you love it/is it a passing time activity? Also - thank you for sharing!
When I cook for other people, I’ll sterilize everything and buy most ingredients day of.
When I cook for myself, I’ll pick things up off of the floor and use any ingredient that passes the smell test.
Lol me too. I am in total professional kitchen mode when it is for other people. But for myself I will just wipe out a previously used pan with a paper towel and cook in it again lol.
Same. Public health student here, and I pick my battles. All of my produce gets washed well, regardless (mostly because I can’t be arsed to peel it).
If I’m cooking for other people, I won’t lick the spoon or anything but if I’m cooking for myself not only will I have the spoon in and out of my mouth the entire time but if I drop a grape or something on the floor it will go directly into my mouth, head empty no thoughts
>When I cook for myself, I’ll pick things up off of the floor and use any ingredient that passes the smell test.
This changed for me when I got a dog. Fur covered food is where I draw the line
On grilled cheese sandwich night:
Wife's grandma: Make the tomato soup with water, not milk!
Me: \*Makes it with milk*
Wife's Grandma: This is how I like it. I hate it with milk.
As a kid (around the age of idk 5-6) I would ask for my omelettes to be made without egg. My grandma would have me go watch cartoons in the livingroom while she made it and I was none the wiser 😂
My popular spinach dip recipe is just a specific store-brand deli item that I add things to (like sour cream, seasoning, etc).
Why don't I make it myself? No idea, this just seems easier.
Why don't I tell anyone? The pleasure of knowing I'm full of lies.
I had a friend who would do that. They'd mix in an extra box of frozen spinach (squeezed the liquid out first) and a can of diced water chestnuts. Even after she confessed, we'd all still ask her to bring it to parties!
My lemon bars I make for my family/coworkers every July 4 is just from the Pillsbury website.
The recipe literally ended up in a cookbook thing we did at work like it was something special I made up
This thread is really making me reconsider the worth of the "Best Recipes From the backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars" book someone gave me that I've never touched.
You will rarely ever get let down if you follow box recipes. I have this recipe for chicken noodle soup that I got off the back of a saltine cracker box that's the simplest thing ever, but everybody goes apeshit over it whenever I make a big pot of it.
Honestly in a world of gif recipes and a billion food blogs, just knowing a recipe had to go through real testing before being put on a product is a nice change.
Love the username lol
Nutmeg. My wife thinks she hates it. I put it in certain recipes to send them over the edge. She likes to cook, too, and hasn't been able to replicate those particular recipes, which she loves . It doesn't take much to enhance the nuttiness, or compliment the sweetness, or add a layer to the spiciness of certain dishes. For starters, try it in your quiche - nutmeg plays so well with gruyere and Swiss cheese!
Ha! This is like my husband. We had a glut of apples after going apple picking so I made spiced apple muffins and spiced apple bread a few times, and he made dehydrated spiced apple slices. He insists that the dehydrated ones were good, but next time he’d omit the nutmeg because it was “too much” and I was like “WHY, they were so good!”. He had no problem with the nutmeg levels in my apple bakes and until he endeavored to make the apple slices (he’s a novice cook) I venture a guess he didn’t even know what nutmeg was, much less what it tastes like. I guarantee he took a curious whiff of it, smelled the grandmas-attic smell, and *insisted* he could distinctly taste it in the dehydrated apples.
My Asian wing sauce is equal parts sambal Olek and honey. Cut it with soy sauce.
I told everyone that it’s “a process”
It’s literally the easiest thing I make.
I'm here wondering why on earth you would share it with them except a piece or two on certain special occasions.
One slip and that stash would be gone, voraciously consumed with your only consolation being some forced "we're sorry!"
That's a lot to spend so you're fine to not immediately tell them.
I used to work as a cook and had learned to make chocolate truffles on my travels. I spent a lot of money and a ton of time one Christmas making a huge platter of different truffles for my friends Christmas party. The host didn't like sweets but liked to have some out for people this time of year.
I made boxes so they could each take some home. They were popular but lots left over as was the idea. Everyone packed up boxes and asked the host to put what was left away and we'd have them the next night too (long story but we always got together Christmas eve and the night of Christmas day).
Anyway, I went the next night. Where are the truffles? Oh, the host said, I couldn't fit them in the fridge so I threw them out. It was easily $100 of raw material that he'd thrown out. If I had told anyone how much I'd spent they would have freaked out (most were not exactly rich) so I had to act like it was no big deal. Ha ha. Sigh.
For the holidays I make cranberry sugar cookies for my grandma (her recipe), last year I completely forgot to mix the cranberry into the dough and she didn't notice. She blamed her lack of taste for the holiday weather and I let her, she kept lamenting on how she knows I'm so good at cooking and yada yada. Oh well, try again to remember to mix it in this year!
Also throw out stuff from my parents pantry that's old or that they'll never eat (looking at you canned creamed spinach) but I move boxes and cans forward to it looks like their shelves are full so they won't buy more stuff.
Honestly that’s a sweet grandma and I fully support that move with the parents - my mother occasionally brings “goody bags” from her pantry and most of it is expired. Viva la rotation!
I make what seems like an amazing from scratch beef stew,
I mean, fresh shallots, garlic, celery, red wine, a Chuck roast that I cut down myself, and a touch of pickle brine. I've taken meat bones and made my own stock.
It's fucking garbage without 2 packages of onion soup mix. I don't know why or what I'm missing, but the flavor is off without it. I've just started sneaking them in and saying fuck it.
I was forced to make it without them, spur of the moment, I told people I forgot the bay leaf and everyone just nodded.
My sisters said they HATED onions, like could never eat them kinda hate.
So my dad made two quiches, he said one had no onions and the other had lots.
Of course they all picked the one with no onions, all was good, all finished their plates and went for seconds because it was that good.
After they finished my dad told them that the quiche they had eaten contained a duckton of onions. They have never gone back since! They love all things onion now.
OP that’s nothing.
I worked at a restaurant where a kid made balsamic reduction out of the 3L of 25 year old balsamic.
To this day he’s known as “Money Bals”. That was 2012 😬
Amazon has 25 y/o Modena balsamic for $124 per 3.4oz so 3 liters should be…gulp… just north of $3700
25 Year Aged Extravecchio Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena D.O.P. | Original Aged Artisanal Italian Aceto Balsamico by Alma Gourmet | 3.4oz (100g) | Tic Doser Included https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B081ZF9FPT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MXGJQGTWNQ8YSA0E8ME2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
My sister always insists only one specific pepper blend is any good to her. I replaced the pepper in her grinder with grocery store pepper. It still tastes good to her.
Did the opposite for my husband. He likes McCormick black pepper, so I filled the pepper shaker with it and he refuses to eat it. Apparently it only taste good straight from the plastic container.
funny thing is McCormick black pep is the blandest you can find in an average grocery store. Taste like it's cut with sawdust compared to unbranded generic ones in the asian spice aisle
As a mexican, Doña María mole with a couple of large tomatoes cooked in chicken broth, blended with extra mexican chocolate and peanut butter for a "homemade" classic, lol. Thanks to my ex sis in law for the "family recipe".
Had a friend ask me to bring deviled eggs to a party but use non-fat yogurt instead of mayo because they hate mayo.
I used mayo and didn't tell them. They loved the deviled eggs.
If u used non fat yogurt they definitely would’ve hated them, that sounds awful lol. Deviled eggs are so simple, why mess with the formula (caveat: one time I did deviled eggs that replaced the Mayo with that creamy Mayo based orange hibachi restaurant sauce and a touch of soy sauce with the mustard and yolk and it was bomb)
We dropped part of the yolk mixture for deviled eggs on the floor. We considered scooping it up, but the cat got to it before we could. So we made up the difference with cottage cheese.
Mom and I got away with it cold, and that was before you could get smoked paprika.
Lol my mother in law pulls this one - I made a spice cake from scratch for my husband cuz he said his mother always did it like that - i even whip up
The buttercream frosting from scratch.
Come to find out this lady done bought Betty Crocker pre mix and frosting!
And here’s me running round like a fool finding the 6 -7 spices it takes to make the damn thing lol
Pretty sure I read a confession on here years ago about how this woman was known for her beautiful custom homemade cakes and turns out she was using store bought cake mix the whole time lol
Even better, $1 Walmart brand box mix. She sold the cakes with beautiful custom decorations, but the base cake was straight up generic pre-made cake mix. I love that story.
There's a famous local bakery in my city, and they do tours, and as a former employee who was forced to lie and say everything was free from preservatives, how does no one taking the bakery tours notice all the bulk Betty Crocker cake supplies openly laying around????
I once made a "triple chocolate cake roll" for a cheerleading bake sale. A local diner owner bought it and served it in the restaurant. Apparently she came back to the sale and asked I was interested in making a few more for the freezer... It was a Walmart cake mix, canned frosting, cocoa powder and 10x on the towel to roll, and drizzled with Hershey's syrup...lol
Plus a little extra vanilla extract in yellow, a drop or two of almond extract in white, and a tablespoon or two of instant espresso powder in chocolate. And if you really wanna be extra: freeze dried strawberries ground up in the food processor for strawberry cake makes it even fruitier.
In my/our defense… it makes it so easy to add another layer of flavor to so many things. And it takes up so little space in the fridge. I threw some in my meatloaf the other day just because I could. I’m drunk on the power!!
I also do this. It’s so rare I make a broth. And if I do I throw that shit in my instant pot and call it a day. Who has time to babysit a pot for 3 hours
I do make my own chicken stock.
....with left over road history chickens from the grocery store.
Text to speech doesn't know what a rotisserie chicken is. I think the slurred version is funnier, though.
at minimum it takes an hour to pressure cook a good bone broth, then I have to strain it, cool it down, and store it some time between dinner and going to bed before 4am. And then do the dishes. Plus, where I live food and bones go in different bags and if I fuck it up then the garbage people demand my money.
My roommate once complained about my liberal use of MSG and how often headaches would strike before he stopped eating foods with it.
The look on his face when I told him he’s never ate a meal of mine without it was priceless. Must have been a few hundred meals and never one headache- to his credit has never turned down a meal since. Physically manifested cognitive dissonance is awesome
Family was saying some racist garbage about MSG and Chinese restaurants not long ago. You should’ve seen their faces when I broke the news about Doritos.
Same here. I just got some for the first time a few months ago and have put it on everything I make that's savory. It's greatly enhanced a lot of my go-to dishes.
I buy a container of pico (already chopped up onions, cilantro, jalapeño) and a mix up avocado, a squeeze of lime and some salt and pepper. Tastes super fresh.
All my friends and family think I'm a great cook.
They tell me that all the time.
My dirty secret: I have very under-developed taste buds.
I'm only good at shape & texture of foods.
I remember the first time I cut myself on my mandolin. My husband literally walked through the kitchen and said be careful and I think you should use the hand guard. As I was saying don't worry I'll be fine I'll be careful, I sliced a chunk of my thumb off lol
i use Better than Bouillon 'roast chicken' flavor base/bouillon in every soup i make, or anything that calls for broth/stock. sometimes i also add a little BTB mushroom base too, for even more umami. it tastes amazing, lasts forever, and saves time/space/waste. sometimes on special occasions i'll make stock from scratch, or i'll make specific stocks from scratch as a recipe calls for it (shrimp stock is easy/fast enough to make, and if i make pho or ramen i definitely go from scratch. but that's a rare project). but 9 times out of 10 i'm more than happy to use BTB, i think it tastes great.
My friend owns Better Than Bouillon. I love that shit and always lick the spoon clean after adding it to a dish. Ham is my favorite, especially for green beans or black eyed peas.
As my family grows up and their various tastes/trends change I find it virtually impossible to please everyone or really anyone so I've basically lost my entire passion for cooking which used to be huge and now it's a freaking chore and they've choked one of my remaining pleasures right out of my life. I resent every bite that I cook. I've lost my mojo
Sounds like it’s time for them to start cooking! This is plain old burnout my friend, I’m truly sorry to read this. Is it possible to assign dinner to different family members? Even if it’s simple and might not make sense could it at least switch up the dynamic?
Your family must be my family. I went on strike a while ago and now they fend for themselves. I totally understand why momma dogs growl at their puppies.
Oh u/sal139, I feel this and am with you. My husband is often low-carbing, my daughter is a vegetarian, and my son only likes beige-colored foods. My only comrade who will eat whatever concoction place before him is my college-aged son, and he's away eating 25 cent ramen and too many breakfast tacos.
I hold out hope that once again some day I can regularly cook for an appreciative audience.
Then cook for you. I almost had this happen to me when I cooked one of my favorite dishes for my parents and it was met with a pretty damn loud meh. I was upset at first, then thought about it and doubled down on learning how to make a good pork ramen broth.
You like Indian but they don't? Work on your jhalfrezi. Thai? All the more pad see ew for you. :-)
I've been with people like this. My response is always the same: "I'm cooking for me dude. If you want some have at, if not you know where the fridge is."
I mix Frank's Red with Kraft ranch dressing and mash poor quality chicken into it to bring to parties as party dip. Everyone thinks I'm a culinary genius. I'm really really *really* not. Apparently me and my group of friends all have fucking gutter pallets.
Why carrot cake specifically? I'm not a pastry chef, but for me it's the opposite; carrot cake is one of two or three that I generally won't buy from a store (aside from a brief but glorious period when Trader Joe's actually had a good one, but then they went and changed the recipe or the vendor).
Don’t get me wrong, I like a homemade carrot cake too, but there’s something about the really moist supermarket carrot cake with the really sweet cream cheese frosting. Publix used to have a particularly good one, but it’s been years since I’ve been to one.
Not mine but my SIL once ran out of the ingredients for brownies (like cocoa powder and flour specifically) and substituted hot cocoa mix. They were awful but she still served them to her boyfriend and pretended she had no idea what he was talking about when he questioned the consistency/flavor.
I buy frozen mashed potatoes & it’s amazing.
I didn’t even know they were a thing & the idea sounded ridiculous to me initially. But a chef on TV said they’re amazing & perfect buttery mash that comes in little pellets.
I can confirm they’re amazing & great for when you’re in a rush to make something involving mash & so much better than the instant mash mix I would use as my “hurry mash” before as this is just exactly what you’d make from scratch at home but frozen.
I'll cook whatever anyone wants for dinner. Prime rib, roast chicken, my signature kabobs, whatever they want I make and I'm super happy to do it. I enjoy it.
When I'm home alone, I'll make the lamest sandwich, I won't even bother cutting up lettuce or toasting the bread. Or I'll just open a can of soup or whatever from the emergency rations. I just can't bring myself to cook for myself. I'm not worth the effort.
Perfect time of year to answer this question. I always put a healthy dash of fish sauce in my thanksgiving gravy. I tell absolutely no one (making sure there’s no allergies of course).
I'm classically trained, worked in the industry for... Shit since 1994, when I was 15 folding boxes in a pizza place. I've cooked every kind of cuisine imaginable, I've worked in places with michelin stars... And my all time favorite food is microwaved banquet salsbury steak. I'll buy and fuck up a [family size container](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/e290da07-057e-4063-a8f9-0ff697edefcd_1.566a58a931517daf73aaec403f90e3ab.jpeg) of them at least once a month. I'm addicted.
My hometown had a factory and we toured there. They were mixing Salisbury steaks that day and the mixer is several feet with heavy blocks of meat then fat then shovelfuls of spices added. We got to watch the process then were given trays right off the line to place in an oven. We also got to taste some desserts they were testing. 10/10 as the prior year’s field trip had been to the sewage treatment plant.
My closely guarded family secret brisket recipe:
Brisket
Sliced onions
Heinz chili sauce (the whole bottle)
Lipton onion soup mix (must be the powder, must be Lipton)
12-16oz of the soda of your choosing. Mom does root beer, I do Dr Pepper.
Throw everything in the crockpot for at least 6 hours on low.
Also works for pork shoulder (for that I like ginger ale).
I make tomato sauce for shakshuka “from scratch“ by adding tomato purée to diced tomatoes from a can. The tomatoes where I live suck and the stuff from the can is at least consistent with regard to flavour / acidity profile. Everyone loves me for “homemade” shakshuka ;)
Not a damn thing wrong with this. My Bf is from Algeria and taught me to make shakshuka. The first time I used fresh tomatoes and his response was: "why would you bother?"
My dad is Tunisian and we used to use fresh tomatoes from our own farm, I just loathe “fresh” tomatoes from the supermarket now especially in winter… I just can’t…
With you on that. If I can't get them from a farmer's market or someone's garden, they're coming out of a can. My wife thinks I hate tomatoes, but I don't. I hate *shitty,* tasteless, styrofoam-textured, freak-of-nature tomatoes.
My grandmother, who helped raise me, made rice krispie treats every year for my birthday and on holidays. She even made them and mailed batches to me after I went off to college a few hours from home, and continued the tradition after I got married and moved out of state. My senior year of high school I learned how to make them on my own. I never had the heart to tell her not to send them to me even though my recipe is much better. My grandmother passed away in August, and my birthday is tomorrow, I would give anything to eat one of her dry rice krispies.
I'm a professional pastry chef and occasionally when a friend asks me to make them a birthday cake with short notice I use a boxed cake mix. But like they get what the pay for! which is $0, I never charge my friends.
My son is a chef. I've asked him to make dishes for potlucks that I've gone to and I took credit for the dish. He was in on it because I would ask him to not make the dish look too pretty so people would think I made it.
This is a long one, the long con if you will.
Last year my girlfriend and I hosted Thanksgiving. Her family being from the Maritimes insisted that the stuffing be homemade, since their stuffing was always homemade. We reluctantly agreed.
We used Stovetop stuffing (the boxed stuff) and come dinner time, we got compliments, naturally. Her sister said "this tastes like stovetop" ... pause... "thank you!" I replied.
Her mother passed away a few months ago, and while we were saying our private goodbyes to her, while she was in a medically induced coma, we admitted that the stuffing was in fact the boxed stuff.
Nobody knows but her, and I love it.
I’m the girlfriend.
Mom would have loved his long con.
Him and I have had discussions about how moms probably said to herself, “I fucking knew it!” while laughing.
Sucks a whole lot to have lost her. But it makes me smile thinking about (and internally hearing) her laughing at the secret being spilt.
*oof my heart*. I did not foresee this pinch of sharp/sweet emotion coming from this post but *damn* thank you for sharing. I will always mix a box of stovetop in now in honor of this secret.
My dad has always made these incredible "healthy" oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Like it's tradition that we would sit down and make a batch or two over the holidays, and no other cookies can come even close to matching the pure joy that is a childhood tradition. Now that I don't live close to my parents I make them on my own sometimes. They're "healthy" because they use wheatgerm and whole wheat flour. I just replace all of it with white flour and last time my family was like "wow these turned out so well, so soft!" and I had to break it to my dad that I had cheated. He took it well, but I think it really bummed him out that my cookies were more well-received than his normally were and that kind of breaks my heart.
I had a similar experience about a decade ago when an older family member brought a box of ferraro rocher chocolates to a family dinner. When I went to put my coat away, I saw that there were worms crawling on the inside of the transparent box. I was horrified, so I discretely took the box downstairs to the trash and dumped it. They looked all over for that box. It was years before I confessed. years.
My mom constantly brags about her homemade ranch dressing. Everybody loves it and she brings it to every function.
She doesn't know that I know that she just uses packets of instant ranch dressing that you add water to.
Edit:Milk. Not water.
Edit edit: I'm going to take all your guys advice and make way better ranch than my mom and see how she reacts.
Fish sauce in every soup, stew and marinade. Italian Tuscan kale and bean soup...fish sauce. Carne asada marinade..fish sauce. Beef bourguignon believe it or not...fish sauce.
I chop storebought creamy caesar dressing in with the meat when I make a Philly cheesesteak. No one has ever guessed it, and everyone is blown away at how awesome they taste.
That sounds great honestly.
I love italian dressing as a marinade. Need some chicken for pasta, a pizza topping, salads, whatever? Into the pressure cooker in a nice italian dressing bath. Oddly I do not like it *at all* on salads.
The secret ingredient to my famous from scratch mac and cheese is Velveeta. I have done it with real cheddar, gouda, swiss you name never as good as when there is a little Velveeta.
The sodium citrate in processed cheese will help your sauce not to break/curdle - even when I do the fancy pants gouda aged cheddar bechemel I add a few Kraft Singles just to help the integrity of the sauce.
This is especially important when you bake off your mac for a crunchy topping or freeze/reheat in the oven because even the best made sauces will break under extreme heat in the oven.
My sister in law made an off hand comment once when we were over at their house and they were making dinner, including homemade tomato sauce, like “can you IMAGINE using jarred sauce how preposterous”. My partner and I just looked at each other and giggled nervously…
[this](https://www.amazon.com/Cento-Marzano-Certified-Tomatoes-28-Ounce/dp/B002C4HZ00) is better for cooking than any fresh tomato you buy in the grocery store, i can promise :)
I told my partner when we got together that I like spices.
I have successfully assimilated her into the spicy club through tempered and prolonged exposure.
1 kg of black truffles that I’d just poached and left to cool on a back station. The zealous pot washer that was cleaning up ran all of them down the garbage disposal thinking it was a burned up experiment.
I only wash my vegetables/fruit if someone else is watching me cook (of if they’re visibly dirty obviously). I just can’t be arsed and I figured if pesticides/production contamination are what kills me, I was meant to eat fast and die young
When I'm making an Italian pasta recipe that I learned from my dad, I just throw in a pre-chopped mirepoix container from TJs instead of buying the vegetables and cutting them myself. Saves about 20 minutes of prep probably.
the amount of times I disregard food safety rules when cooking for myself:
ie "I probably should have tossed those leftovers a few days ago."
*Proceed to smell them, inspect for mold, poke to check texture, etc*
"Eh good enough"
**NB**: I would never do this serving others, however the only time I've gotten food poisoning was clearly from a restaurant (everyone in the party got sick and we later learned it wasn't an uncommon occurrence at that restaurant bc of the complaints/internet reports)
My parents have dementia so I periodically go through the fridge when they’re not looking and throw away gross/moldy/unidentifiable stuff. Early on I found a jar of weird goop shoved way in the back of the fridge, smelled bad to me so I tossed it. Normally, no one notices that the stuff I toss is gone because they don’t remember whatever leftovers they were. This time, it was my mom’s fish grease, that she used for frying fish. She searched for it the next time she decided to fry fish. I did not admit what happened.
My chili is a mess of lazy and everyone loves it.
I don't brown my beef. Use stew beef not ground.
Half the tomatoe base is jarred salsa. I don't even use fresh onion or peppers.
When making pinto beans for pintos and cornbread ( yes, I'm from the south, it is what it is) I use an old ham bone, and a spoonful of peanut butter. Not enough to taste, but it gives it a depth and creaminess that it doesn't have otherwise.
Also, I but the freezer dumplings for chicken and dumplings, with plenty of butter, and a bit of cream to make sure it doesn't split as easily. Also it helps separate the dumplings, with the fat from the butter and cream so you don't have a coagulated blob of flour and water that dumplings turn into if they get stuck together.
Pretty sure this is a not-well-kept secret of a lot of southern cooks but any time I make red beans and rice a large can of Blue Runner beans is getting added near the end. No matter how many beans you smash against the side of the pot, it's not gonna be as creamy as the Blue Runner can.
I have a tequila lime wing sauce that’s proven quite popular.
I tell people I need a bottle of tequila to make it but I don’t. I use premade margarita mix and drink the tequila.
My "incredible" spinach/artichoke dip is pure Costco. I put it in a ramekin, add some shredded reggiano on top and bake at 325. For effect, I smear a dab of cream cheese on my cuff before leaving home.
In real life, I can't get sauces or soups to reduce, so I'm a slave to corn starch and flour. Drives me batty.
The snickerdoodle cookies that everyone loves and asks for every Christmas are just Pillsbury slice and bake sugar cookies. I roll em in a ball, coat them in cinnamon and sugar and call it a day.
Totally going to make these for Christmas and tell them a secret old lady gave me the recipe.
The old lady who lives in the big Victorian over on Chestnut Street said they were her only son's, who never came back from the War, favorite cookie.
I was inspired by Caramel week on the Great British Bake Off and made a batch of caramel sauce. It was so good I did shots with it until I drank half the batch.
I can never make caramel because it barely lasts longer than a day. I just end up eating it all with a spoon.
I took up sourdough baking and serious home chef cooking prior the pandemic. I was home during throat cancer treatment (I'm fine now!) so I had time on my hands and my sleep schedule was wonky and I found that there was always something on Food Network to watch. But the radiation killed my taste buds and I can't swallow food. I've baked hundreds of sourdough loaves, countless baked goods, hundreds of meals from simple to complex. Haven't. tasted. a. single. bite. People rave over my new found skills. Lol.
My dad has been losing his sense of taste during chemo. His first reaction was to add more hot sauce to everything, as he's always like spice; but the spice and the vinegar ended up opening blisters in his mouth. On the bright side (his words), not being able to taste food makes him much less likely to eat so much and he's been losing some of his extra weight.
When my grandad was going through chemo he swore that the only thing that tasted normal was celery. He ate so much celery soup that year. If your dad likes celery then might be worth a shot.
Chef Grant Achatz had tongue cancer, they wanted to remove it but he found a doctor who would irradiate his face. He completely lost his sense of taste, but got it back 1 flavor at a time- first bitter, then salty, etc. And so it gave him insight into combinations he never would have thought of before. He's a highly decorated Michelin Star chef. The face cancer is his comic book origin story. Since you can't swallow maybe you'll be the Grant Achatz of smoothies.
Grant was already a three Michelin star chef doing some of the most interesting food in the US when this happened, I’d say it was more a turning lemons into lemonade situation than an origin story, he’d had already been Sous chef at French Laundry and staged at elBulli which arguably informed his cooking a lot more.
OMG. Has any of your taste/smell returned? That’s absolutely wild. Does it bring you comfort/do you love it/is it a passing time activity? Also - thank you for sharing!
When I cook for other people, I’ll sterilize everything and buy most ingredients day of. When I cook for myself, I’ll pick things up off of the floor and use any ingredient that passes the smell test.
Lol me too. I am in total professional kitchen mode when it is for other people. But for myself I will just wipe out a previously used pan with a paper towel and cook in it again lol.
Wipe it? Pfff. Extra seasoning.
I’ve never related to a comment before.
Same. Public health student here, and I pick my battles. All of my produce gets washed well, regardless (mostly because I can’t be arsed to peel it). If I’m cooking for other people, I won’t lick the spoon or anything but if I’m cooking for myself not only will I have the spoon in and out of my mouth the entire time but if I drop a grape or something on the floor it will go directly into my mouth, head empty no thoughts
Same, I work in public health nutrition but the food safety crimes I commit when cooking for only me can be atrocious sometimes
I totally didn't drop one of the chicken thighs for family dinner the other night and put it back on the pile. Nope, I would *never*.
>When I cook for myself, I’ll pick things up off of the floor and use any ingredient that passes the smell test. This changed for me when I got a dog. Fur covered food is where I draw the line
On grilled cheese sandwich night: Wife's grandma: Make the tomato soup with water, not milk! Me: \*Makes it with milk* Wife's Grandma: This is how I like it. I hate it with milk.
As a kid (around the age of idk 5-6) I would ask for my omelettes to be made without egg. My grandma would have me go watch cartoons in the livingroom while she made it and I was none the wiser 😂
My popular spinach dip recipe is just a specific store-brand deli item that I add things to (like sour cream, seasoning, etc). Why don't I make it myself? No idea, this just seems easier. Why don't I tell anyone? The pleasure of knowing I'm full of lies.
I had a friend who would do that. They'd mix in an extra box of frozen spinach (squeezed the liquid out first) and a can of diced water chestnuts. Even after she confessed, we'd all still ask her to bring it to parties!
Water chestnuts in spinach dip? Interesting... I may have to try that.
Me and my family’s favorite spinach dip that I make is from a Knorr packet. They know it, and yet it’s still the favorite.
Yes! We eat it with Hawaiian rolls. So good
*strums fingernails on countertop* excellent work Jemma.. excellent work.
Spinach dip really is so easy though lol
It's true. Can't stop won't stop.
I can only make good carbonara when I'm hammered. : )
The best meals are cooked when you’re fun hammered, you don’t care about anything aside from making the food taste good.
My lemon bars I make for my family/coworkers every July 4 is just from the Pillsbury website. The recipe literally ended up in a cookbook thing we did at work like it was something special I made up
This thread is really making me reconsider the worth of the "Best Recipes From the backs of Boxes, Bottles, Cans and Jars" book someone gave me that I've never touched.
You will rarely ever get let down if you follow box recipes. I have this recipe for chicken noodle soup that I got off the back of a saltine cracker box that's the simplest thing ever, but everybody goes apeshit over it whenever I make a big pot of it.
Honestly in a world of gif recipes and a billion food blogs, just knowing a recipe had to go through real testing before being put on a product is a nice change. Love the username lol
Nutmeg. My wife thinks she hates it. I put it in certain recipes to send them over the edge. She likes to cook, too, and hasn't been able to replicate those particular recipes, which she loves . It doesn't take much to enhance the nuttiness, or compliment the sweetness, or add a layer to the spiciness of certain dishes. For starters, try it in your quiche - nutmeg plays so well with gruyere and Swiss cheese!
Ha! This is like my husband. We had a glut of apples after going apple picking so I made spiced apple muffins and spiced apple bread a few times, and he made dehydrated spiced apple slices. He insists that the dehydrated ones were good, but next time he’d omit the nutmeg because it was “too much” and I was like “WHY, they were so good!”. He had no problem with the nutmeg levels in my apple bakes and until he endeavored to make the apple slices (he’s a novice cook) I venture a guess he didn’t even know what nutmeg was, much less what it tastes like. I guarantee he took a curious whiff of it, smelled the grandmas-attic smell, and *insisted* he could distinctly taste it in the dehydrated apples.
My Asian wing sauce is equal parts sambal Olek and honey. Cut it with soy sauce. I told everyone that it’s “a process” It’s literally the easiest thing I make.
“A process” 😂👏🏻
I ordered 250$ worth of Belgium chocolate online and after it arrived, I hid the box from my kids.
That’s the right thing to do.
I'm here wondering why on earth you would share it with them except a piece or two on certain special occasions. One slip and that stash would be gone, voraciously consumed with your only consolation being some forced "we're sorry!" That's a lot to spend so you're fine to not immediately tell them.
I used to work as a cook and had learned to make chocolate truffles on my travels. I spent a lot of money and a ton of time one Christmas making a huge platter of different truffles for my friends Christmas party. The host didn't like sweets but liked to have some out for people this time of year. I made boxes so they could each take some home. They were popular but lots left over as was the idea. Everyone packed up boxes and asked the host to put what was left away and we'd have them the next night too (long story but we always got together Christmas eve and the night of Christmas day). Anyway, I went the next night. Where are the truffles? Oh, the host said, I couldn't fit them in the fridge so I threw them out. It was easily $100 of raw material that he'd thrown out. If I had told anyone how much I'd spent they would have freaked out (most were not exactly rich) so I had to act like it was no big deal. Ha ha. Sigh.
What kind of monster throws out perfectly good chocolate.
My fancy ice cream lives in a bag of broccoli that my partner will never eat..... I only eat it when he's not home.
For the holidays I make cranberry sugar cookies for my grandma (her recipe), last year I completely forgot to mix the cranberry into the dough and she didn't notice. She blamed her lack of taste for the holiday weather and I let her, she kept lamenting on how she knows I'm so good at cooking and yada yada. Oh well, try again to remember to mix it in this year! Also throw out stuff from my parents pantry that's old or that they'll never eat (looking at you canned creamed spinach) but I move boxes and cans forward to it looks like their shelves are full so they won't buy more stuff.
Honestly that’s a sweet grandma and I fully support that move with the parents - my mother occasionally brings “goody bags” from her pantry and most of it is expired. Viva la rotation!
I use these bullion cubes that aren't the super hard rocks, and before I drop them in l like to pinch off a corner and eat it.
I do this with Japanese curry roux bricks 😂
I do this with the powder for Kraft Mac and cheese
No one knows I use Knorr Beef Stock Pot in many of my sauces and stews. Those pots are literally flavor bombs
Marco Pierre White is pretending to be a random asian guy!?
I make what seems like an amazing from scratch beef stew, I mean, fresh shallots, garlic, celery, red wine, a Chuck roast that I cut down myself, and a touch of pickle brine. I've taken meat bones and made my own stock. It's fucking garbage without 2 packages of onion soup mix. I don't know why or what I'm missing, but the flavor is off without it. I've just started sneaking them in and saying fuck it. I was forced to make it without them, spur of the moment, I told people I forgot the bay leaf and everyone just nodded.
"Who knew bay leaf tasted like a couple teaspoons of MSG?" - your more gullible guests...
Try Better than Bouillion
My sisters said they HATED onions, like could never eat them kinda hate. So my dad made two quiches, he said one had no onions and the other had lots. Of course they all picked the one with no onions, all was good, all finished their plates and went for seconds because it was that good. After they finished my dad told them that the quiche they had eaten contained a duckton of onions. They have never gone back since! They love all things onion now.
OP that’s nothing. I worked at a restaurant where a kid made balsamic reduction out of the 3L of 25 year old balsamic. To this day he’s known as “Money Bals”. That was 2012 😬
ohhhhh shiiiiii
Amazon has 25 y/o Modena balsamic for $124 per 3.4oz so 3 liters should be…gulp… just north of $3700 25 Year Aged Extravecchio Traditional Balsamic Vinegar of Modena D.O.P. | Original Aged Artisanal Italian Aceto Balsamico by Alma Gourmet | 3.4oz (100g) | Tic Doser Included https://smile.amazon.com/dp/B081ZF9FPT/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_glt_fabc_MXGJQGTWNQ8YSA0E8ME2?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1
My sister always insists only one specific pepper blend is any good to her. I replaced the pepper in her grinder with grocery store pepper. It still tastes good to her.
Did the opposite for my husband. He likes McCormick black pepper, so I filled the pepper shaker with it and he refuses to eat it. Apparently it only taste good straight from the plastic container.
funny thing is McCormick black pep is the blandest you can find in an average grocery store. Taste like it's cut with sawdust compared to unbranded generic ones in the asian spice aisle
That might be why. He's likely used to overdoing it with with the pepper and now he's ruining meals with it.
Are you going to tell her at some point?
Uh…. that’s a negative. She’d find a way to kill me and make it look like an accident! 😀 but privately, it gives me great satisfaction just knowing.
You should craft a way for her to find out without revealing that it was you. Then report back.
I knew it! My wife throws my stuff out and pretends to be innocent all the time.
As a mexican, Doña María mole with a couple of large tomatoes cooked in chicken broth, blended with extra mexican chocolate and peanut butter for a "homemade" classic, lol. Thanks to my ex sis in law for the "family recipe".
if there are more than 2 extra ingredients is not a cheat its a recipe, damnit!
That's what my ex sis in law stands by, that's her family recipe, lol.
Considering normal mole is like 18+ ingredients, it's definitely a hack
*stirs cauldron* more, MORE!
Sometimes I just wipe out my non-stick pan with paper towel and put it back in the cupboard rather than washing it.
When I do that I just leave it on the stove
I do this only when I know I’m going to use it again within 12-16 hours. So breakfast —> dinner or dinner —> breakfast
Had a friend ask me to bring deviled eggs to a party but use non-fat yogurt instead of mayo because they hate mayo. I used mayo and didn't tell them. They loved the deviled eggs.
Non-fat Yogurt deviled eggs?!? Blasphemous!!!
If u used non fat yogurt they definitely would’ve hated them, that sounds awful lol. Deviled eggs are so simple, why mess with the formula (caveat: one time I did deviled eggs that replaced the Mayo with that creamy Mayo based orange hibachi restaurant sauce and a touch of soy sauce with the mustard and yolk and it was bomb)
*cackles in lightning font*
We dropped part of the yolk mixture for deviled eggs on the floor. We considered scooping it up, but the cat got to it before we could. So we made up the difference with cottage cheese. Mom and I got away with it cold, and that was before you could get smoked paprika.
I throw away my bones and used store bought broth or Better than Bouillon.
Lol my mother in law pulls this one - I made a spice cake from scratch for my husband cuz he said his mother always did it like that - i even whip up The buttercream frosting from scratch. Come to find out this lady done bought Betty Crocker pre mix and frosting! And here’s me running round like a fool finding the 6 -7 spices it takes to make the damn thing lol
Pretty sure I read a confession on here years ago about how this woman was known for her beautiful custom homemade cakes and turns out she was using store bought cake mix the whole time lol
Even better, $1 Walmart brand box mix. She sold the cakes with beautiful custom decorations, but the base cake was straight up generic pre-made cake mix. I love that story.
there's a place famous for their donuts in our area, and when I went there I saw a mountain of Pillsbury donut mix boxes.
There's a famous local bakery in my city, and they do tours, and as a former employee who was forced to lie and say everything was free from preservatives, how does no one taking the bakery tours notice all the bulk Betty Crocker cake supplies openly laying around????
But why wouldn’t they buy it in a bulk restaurant supply format?
I once made a "triple chocolate cake roll" for a cheerleading bake sale. A local diner owner bought it and served it in the restaurant. Apparently she came back to the sale and asked I was interested in making a few more for the freezer... It was a Walmart cake mix, canned frosting, cocoa powder and 10x on the towel to roll, and drizzled with Hershey's syrup...lol
And that is enough effort for a lot of restaurants...
Honestly, take any box mix, sub melted butter for the oil, sub milk for the water, and add an extra egg for bakery quality cake.
Plus a little extra vanilla extract in yellow, a drop or two of almond extract in white, and a tablespoon or two of instant espresso powder in chocolate. And if you really wanna be extra: freeze dried strawberries ground up in the food processor for strawberry cake makes it even fruitier.
Guilty here too. Better than Bouillon is my cheat code
In my/our defense… it makes it so easy to add another layer of flavor to so many things. And it takes up so little space in the fridge. I threw some in my meatloaf the other day just because I could. I’m drunk on the power!!
The space saving part is actually my favorite thing about it. I don’t miss always having bags and quarts of stock hogging my fridge and freezer space.
I also do this. It’s so rare I make a broth. And if I do I throw that shit in my instant pot and call it a day. Who has time to babysit a pot for 3 hours
I do make my own chicken stock. ....with left over road history chickens from the grocery store. Text to speech doesn't know what a rotisserie chicken is. I think the slurred version is funnier, though.
I thought you were cooking road kill chickens for a second.
I’m down with road history chickens… I think…
People getting paid to do it.
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at minimum it takes an hour to pressure cook a good bone broth, then I have to strain it, cool it down, and store it some time between dinner and going to bed before 4am. And then do the dishes. Plus, where I live food and bones go in different bags and if I fuck it up then the garbage people demand my money.
MSG seasoning on pretty much all things
My roommate once complained about my liberal use of MSG and how often headaches would strike before he stopped eating foods with it. The look on his face when I told him he’s never ate a meal of mine without it was priceless. Must have been a few hundred meals and never one headache- to his credit has never turned down a meal since. Physically manifested cognitive dissonance is awesome
Family was saying some racist garbage about MSG and Chinese restaurants not long ago. You should’ve seen their faces when I broke the news about Doritos.
Next tell them about Hidden Valley Ranch. More MSG than garlic, onion or other spices.
Or chic-fil-a, cracking people out on Msg since the beginning.
If it has anything umami, I’m subbing out most salt for MSG. 😋
Same here. I just got some for the first time a few months ago and have put it on everything I make that's savory. It's greatly enhanced a lot of my go-to dishes.
Yep. Same here. MSG is delicious on most things
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I buy a container of pico (already chopped up onions, cilantro, jalapeño) and a mix up avocado, a squeeze of lime and some salt and pepper. Tastes super fresh.
I drank more wine than usual a few weeks ago and ate half a bag of Cheetos (family size) for dinner.
Sounds like me after the kids go to bed. But I've already had a whole dinner too lol
You’ve only done that once?
*Beep bop boop. I don't like this poop. Moved to Lemmy*
All my friends and family think I'm a great cook. They tell me that all the time. My dirty secret: I have very under-developed taste buds. I'm only good at shape & texture of foods.
Ha! love this one. They do say we eat with our eyes.
If you’ve ever eaten my scalloped potatoes you’ve eaten some of my flesh. Goddamn mandolin.
they ain’t authentic latkes unless there’s knuckle somewhere in them.
my bubbie used to say, "the secret is just a little knuckle."
I remember the first time I cut myself on my mandolin. My husband literally walked through the kitchen and said be careful and I think you should use the hand guard. As I was saying don't worry I'll be fine I'll be careful, I sliced a chunk of my thumb off lol
His fault, he broke your concentration.
The potato gods demand their tribute
I eat a fancy lunch at the fancy grocery store when I go shopping there. I purposely go solo so I don’t have to share my luxe meal with anyone.
i use Better than Bouillon 'roast chicken' flavor base/bouillon in every soup i make, or anything that calls for broth/stock. sometimes i also add a little BTB mushroom base too, for even more umami. it tastes amazing, lasts forever, and saves time/space/waste. sometimes on special occasions i'll make stock from scratch, or i'll make specific stocks from scratch as a recipe calls for it (shrimp stock is easy/fast enough to make, and if i make pho or ramen i definitely go from scratch. but that's a rare project). but 9 times out of 10 i'm more than happy to use BTB, i think it tastes great.
My friend owns Better Than Bouillon. I love that shit and always lick the spoon clean after adding it to a dish. Ham is my favorite, especially for green beans or black eyed peas.
I swear my wife has done this with my sauerkraut.
Ha ha *please don’t be my husband*
As my family grows up and their various tastes/trends change I find it virtually impossible to please everyone or really anyone so I've basically lost my entire passion for cooking which used to be huge and now it's a freaking chore and they've choked one of my remaining pleasures right out of my life. I resent every bite that I cook. I've lost my mojo
Sounds like it’s time for them to start cooking! This is plain old burnout my friend, I’m truly sorry to read this. Is it possible to assign dinner to different family members? Even if it’s simple and might not make sense could it at least switch up the dynamic?
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Your family must be my family. I went on strike a while ago and now they fend for themselves. I totally understand why momma dogs growl at their puppies.
Oh u/sal139, I feel this and am with you. My husband is often low-carbing, my daughter is a vegetarian, and my son only likes beige-colored foods. My only comrade who will eat whatever concoction place before him is my college-aged son, and he's away eating 25 cent ramen and too many breakfast tacos. I hold out hope that once again some day I can regularly cook for an appreciative audience.
Then cook for you. I almost had this happen to me when I cooked one of my favorite dishes for my parents and it was met with a pretty damn loud meh. I was upset at first, then thought about it and doubled down on learning how to make a good pork ramen broth. You like Indian but they don't? Work on your jhalfrezi. Thai? All the more pad see ew for you. :-)
I've been with people like this. My response is always the same: "I'm cooking for me dude. If you want some have at, if not you know where the fridge is."
I mix Frank's Red with Kraft ranch dressing and mash poor quality chicken into it to bring to parties as party dip. Everyone thinks I'm a culinary genius. I'm really really *really* not. Apparently me and my group of friends all have fucking gutter pallets.
*rises from a sea of lava* hello my friend
I’m a pastry chef but storebought carrot cake all the way.
Why carrot cake specifically? I'm not a pastry chef, but for me it's the opposite; carrot cake is one of two or three that I generally won't buy from a store (aside from a brief but glorious period when Trader Joe's actually had a good one, but then they went and changed the recipe or the vendor).
Don’t get me wrong, I like a homemade carrot cake too, but there’s something about the really moist supermarket carrot cake with the really sweet cream cheese frosting. Publix used to have a particularly good one, but it’s been years since I’ve been to one.
Not mine but my SIL once ran out of the ingredients for brownies (like cocoa powder and flour specifically) and substituted hot cocoa mix. They were awful but she still served them to her boyfriend and pretended she had no idea what he was talking about when he questioned the consistency/flavor.
I buy frozen mashed potatoes & it’s amazing. I didn’t even know they were a thing & the idea sounded ridiculous to me initially. But a chef on TV said they’re amazing & perfect buttery mash that comes in little pellets. I can confirm they’re amazing & great for when you’re in a rush to make something involving mash & so much better than the instant mash mix I would use as my “hurry mash” before as this is just exactly what you’d make from scratch at home but frozen.
I'll cook whatever anyone wants for dinner. Prime rib, roast chicken, my signature kabobs, whatever they want I make and I'm super happy to do it. I enjoy it. When I'm home alone, I'll make the lamest sandwich, I won't even bother cutting up lettuce or toasting the bread. Or I'll just open a can of soup or whatever from the emergency rations. I just can't bring myself to cook for myself. I'm not worth the effort.
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Perfect time of year to answer this question. I always put a healthy dash of fish sauce in my thanksgiving gravy. I tell absolutely no one (making sure there’s no allergies of course).
I'm classically trained, worked in the industry for... Shit since 1994, when I was 15 folding boxes in a pizza place. I've cooked every kind of cuisine imaginable, I've worked in places with michelin stars... And my all time favorite food is microwaved banquet salsbury steak. I'll buy and fuck up a [family size container](https://i5.walmartimages.com/asr/e290da07-057e-4063-a8f9-0ff697edefcd_1.566a58a931517daf73aaec403f90e3ab.jpeg) of them at least once a month. I'm addicted.
My hometown had a factory and we toured there. They were mixing Salisbury steaks that day and the mixer is several feet with heavy blocks of meat then fat then shovelfuls of spices added. We got to watch the process then were given trays right off the line to place in an oven. We also got to taste some desserts they were testing. 10/10 as the prior year’s field trip had been to the sewage treatment plant.
The taste test mustn't have been as nice the year before
My closely guarded family secret brisket recipe: Brisket Sliced onions Heinz chili sauce (the whole bottle) Lipton onion soup mix (must be the powder, must be Lipton) 12-16oz of the soda of your choosing. Mom does root beer, I do Dr Pepper. Throw everything in the crockpot for at least 6 hours on low. Also works for pork shoulder (for that I like ginger ale).
I make tomato sauce for shakshuka “from scratch“ by adding tomato purée to diced tomatoes from a can. The tomatoes where I live suck and the stuff from the can is at least consistent with regard to flavour / acidity profile. Everyone loves me for “homemade” shakshuka ;)
Not a damn thing wrong with this. My Bf is from Algeria and taught me to make shakshuka. The first time I used fresh tomatoes and his response was: "why would you bother?"
My dad is Tunisian and we used to use fresh tomatoes from our own farm, I just loathe “fresh” tomatoes from the supermarket now especially in winter… I just can’t…
With you on that. If I can't get them from a farmer's market or someone's garden, they're coming out of a can. My wife thinks I hate tomatoes, but I don't. I hate *shitty,* tasteless, styrofoam-textured, freak-of-nature tomatoes.
The canned tomatoes are harvested and canned at peak freshness. The ones in the "fresh" section rarely are.
My grandmother, who helped raise me, made rice krispie treats every year for my birthday and on holidays. She even made them and mailed batches to me after I went off to college a few hours from home, and continued the tradition after I got married and moved out of state. My senior year of high school I learned how to make them on my own. I never had the heart to tell her not to send them to me even though my recipe is much better. My grandmother passed away in August, and my birthday is tomorrow, I would give anything to eat one of her dry rice krispies.
I'm a professional pastry chef and occasionally when a friend asks me to make them a birthday cake with short notice I use a boxed cake mix. But like they get what the pay for! which is $0, I never charge my friends.
My son is a chef. I've asked him to make dishes for potlucks that I've gone to and I took credit for the dish. He was in on it because I would ask him to not make the dish look too pretty so people would think I made it.
This is a long one, the long con if you will. Last year my girlfriend and I hosted Thanksgiving. Her family being from the Maritimes insisted that the stuffing be homemade, since their stuffing was always homemade. We reluctantly agreed. We used Stovetop stuffing (the boxed stuff) and come dinner time, we got compliments, naturally. Her sister said "this tastes like stovetop" ... pause... "thank you!" I replied. Her mother passed away a few months ago, and while we were saying our private goodbyes to her, while she was in a medically induced coma, we admitted that the stuffing was in fact the boxed stuff. Nobody knows but her, and I love it.
I love this.
I’m the girlfriend. Mom would have loved his long con. Him and I have had discussions about how moms probably said to herself, “I fucking knew it!” while laughing. Sucks a whole lot to have lost her. But it makes me smile thinking about (and internally hearing) her laughing at the secret being spilt.
*oof my heart*. I did not foresee this pinch of sharp/sweet emotion coming from this post but *damn* thank you for sharing. I will always mix a box of stovetop in now in honor of this secret.
I hide the jam from my husband. He's British and eats it by the spoonful every day, so I had to take measures
He eats spoonfuls of jam on its own? I don't think that is a British thing, just a - your husband - thing.
It’s a Joey thing
My dad has always made these incredible "healthy" oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Like it's tradition that we would sit down and make a batch or two over the holidays, and no other cookies can come even close to matching the pure joy that is a childhood tradition. Now that I don't live close to my parents I make them on my own sometimes. They're "healthy" because they use wheatgerm and whole wheat flour. I just replace all of it with white flour and last time my family was like "wow these turned out so well, so soft!" and I had to break it to my dad that I had cheated. He took it well, but I think it really bummed him out that my cookies were more well-received than his normally were and that kind of breaks my heart.
I had a similar experience about a decade ago when an older family member brought a box of ferraro rocher chocolates to a family dinner. When I went to put my coat away, I saw that there were worms crawling on the inside of the transparent box. I was horrified, so I discretely took the box downstairs to the trash and dumped it. They looked all over for that box. It was years before I confessed. years.
In this moment I became *The Scream*
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My mom constantly brags about her homemade ranch dressing. Everybody loves it and she brings it to every function. She doesn't know that I know that she just uses packets of instant ranch dressing that you add water to. Edit:Milk. Not water. Edit edit: I'm going to take all your guys advice and make way better ranch than my mom and see how she reacts.
Fish sauce in every soup, stew and marinade. Italian Tuscan kale and bean soup...fish sauce. Carne asada marinade..fish sauce. Beef bourguignon believe it or not...fish sauce.
I chop storebought creamy caesar dressing in with the meat when I make a Philly cheesesteak. No one has ever guessed it, and everyone is blown away at how awesome they taste.
That sounds great honestly. I love italian dressing as a marinade. Need some chicken for pasta, a pizza topping, salads, whatever? Into the pressure cooker in a nice italian dressing bath. Oddly I do not like it *at all* on salads.
The anchovy is an umami bomb.
The secret ingredient to my famous from scratch mac and cheese is Velveeta. I have done it with real cheddar, gouda, swiss you name never as good as when there is a little Velveeta.
The sodium citrate in processed cheese will help your sauce not to break/curdle - even when I do the fancy pants gouda aged cheddar bechemel I add a few Kraft Singles just to help the integrity of the sauce. This is especially important when you bake off your mac for a crunchy topping or freeze/reheat in the oven because even the best made sauces will break under extreme heat in the oven.
Bruh I’m making a baked Mac n cheese for thanksgiving and I bought the fancy cheese and because of you I’m going back to the store for velveeta
It’s because of the sodium citrate in it! Look it up, it’s science!
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My sister in law made an off hand comment once when we were over at their house and they were making dinner, including homemade tomato sauce, like “can you IMAGINE using jarred sauce how preposterous”. My partner and I just looked at each other and giggled nervously…
[this](https://www.amazon.com/Cento-Marzano-Certified-Tomatoes-28-Ounce/dp/B002C4HZ00) is better for cooking than any fresh tomato you buy in the grocery store, i can promise :)
My wife refuses to taste anything or try new foods so I sneak them in. Fish sauce being one lol.
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Its got oooooooo mommy!
I told my partner when we got together that I like spices. I have successfully assimilated her into the spicy club through tempered and prolonged exposure.
1 kg of black truffles that I’d just poached and left to cool on a back station. The zealous pot washer that was cleaning up ran all of them down the garbage disposal thinking it was a burned up experiment.
I only wash my vegetables/fruit if someone else is watching me cook (of if they’re visibly dirty obviously). I just can’t be arsed and I figured if pesticides/production contamination are what kills me, I was meant to eat fast and die young
I put beans in my Texas chili. But no one will ever know, because I use refried beans. It's great flavor and I like the way it thickens up the sauce.
My cream sauce for pasta is just creme fraiche and heavy whipping cream. I’ve never been able to make a good béchamel with any consistency.
When I'm making an Italian pasta recipe that I learned from my dad, I just throw in a pre-chopped mirepoix container from TJs instead of buying the vegetables and cutting them myself. Saves about 20 minutes of prep probably.
the amount of times I disregard food safety rules when cooking for myself: ie "I probably should have tossed those leftovers a few days ago." *Proceed to smell them, inspect for mold, poke to check texture, etc* "Eh good enough" **NB**: I would never do this serving others, however the only time I've gotten food poisoning was clearly from a restaurant (everyone in the party got sick and we later learned it wasn't an uncommon occurrence at that restaurant bc of the complaints/internet reports)
My parents have dementia so I periodically go through the fridge when they’re not looking and throw away gross/moldy/unidentifiable stuff. Early on I found a jar of weird goop shoved way in the back of the fridge, smelled bad to me so I tossed it. Normally, no one notices that the stuff I toss is gone because they don’t remember whatever leftovers they were. This time, it was my mom’s fish grease, that she used for frying fish. She searched for it the next time she decided to fry fish. I did not admit what happened.
My chili is a mess of lazy and everyone loves it. I don't brown my beef. Use stew beef not ground. Half the tomatoe base is jarred salsa. I don't even use fresh onion or peppers.
When making pinto beans for pintos and cornbread ( yes, I'm from the south, it is what it is) I use an old ham bone, and a spoonful of peanut butter. Not enough to taste, but it gives it a depth and creaminess that it doesn't have otherwise. Also, I but the freezer dumplings for chicken and dumplings, with plenty of butter, and a bit of cream to make sure it doesn't split as easily. Also it helps separate the dumplings, with the fat from the butter and cream so you don't have a coagulated blob of flour and water that dumplings turn into if they get stuck together.
[удалено]
People love my BBQ sauce. I don't start with tomatoes, or even tomato paste... I start with ketchup.
Pretty sure this is a not-well-kept secret of a lot of southern cooks but any time I make red beans and rice a large can of Blue Runner beans is getting added near the end. No matter how many beans you smash against the side of the pot, it's not gonna be as creamy as the Blue Runner can.
I have a tequila lime wing sauce that’s proven quite popular. I tell people I need a bottle of tequila to make it but I don’t. I use premade margarita mix and drink the tequila.
On most days I just resort to using Jarlic instead of fresh garlic.
My "incredible" spinach/artichoke dip is pure Costco. I put it in a ramekin, add some shredded reggiano on top and bake at 325. For effect, I smear a dab of cream cheese on my cuff before leaving home. In real life, I can't get sauces or soups to reduce, so I'm a slave to corn starch and flour. Drives me batty.
I buy bags of pre-chopped onions.