What will you never buy since you learned to cook? What can you cook but still buy from the store?

CooCooPuff

I only learned about instant potatoes from trying to make culture for fruit flies.

My parents eat a lot of quick foods, but even now, they still make mashed potatoes.

beaglady

I'll never buy canned or boxed stock. I make homemade, and can it in ball jars with my pressure canner.

I've made homemade pierogies but they're too labor intensive to make more than once every 10 years. If I made home made ice cream, I would want to eat it all.

lemurcat12

beaglady wrote: »

I'll never buy canned or boxed stock. I make homemade, and can it in ball jars with my pressure canner.

A great idea that I read somewhere and use was to make it and freeze it in an ice tray, and use the cubes when making soup, etc.

(Of course, I don't have a pressure canner. Canning may be a project this year.)

pinuplove

lemurcat12 wrote: »

beaglady wrote: »

I'll never buy canned or boxed stock. I make homemade, and can it in ball jars with my pressure canner.

A great idea that I read somewhere and use was to make it and freeze it in an ice tray, and use the cubes when making soup, etc.

(Of course, I don't have a pressure canner. Canning may be a project this year.)

We do that all the time! Just reduce your stock down until it is super concentrated, freeze into cubes and store in the freezer in an airtight container. Throw a cube or two into whatever you thing will benefit from it

zdyb23456

sgt1372 wrote: »

Just remembered the one thing that make that I have not bought in years and probably will never buy again:

Pasta sauce -- tomato based (red) or cream (white).

Bottled pasta sauces are way too expensive for what you get ($3-4 or more per jar). For red sauce, all it takes is a large can of whole tomatoes (that I can buy for just $1), crush them by hand, smash, slice or mince some garlic, throw the garlic in a heated saute pan for a few secs, add the tomatoes, season as you prefer w/basil, oregano, "Italian seasoning" or whatever and cook it til the tomatoes are tender. Then add the pasta and you're done.

For white sauce, all you need is butter, cream and parmesan cheese (garlic and other seasonings optional) which tastes much better than anything in a jar. Just Google "alfredo" for a recipe.

Takes only a few mins to make either one.

The only pasta "sauce" I'd still buy (rather than make) is pesto sauce because the basil often is not available and the cost of making it can be a "push" (given the cost of basil, olive oil, pine nuts and pecorino or parmesean cheese) but making it always tastes better than pre-made.

Buying enough fresh basil for pesto is so expensive! We grow a "field" of it in the summer just for pesto. Just before it starts to flower we cut it down leaving the lowest level of leaves so it can grow back. We purée the basil with olive oil and freeze. We get at least 2-3 harvests of basil. Now my husband makes pesto all year, where it used to be a treat a few times a year.

We also sub walnuts for the pine nuts easier to find and cheaper. We buy Parmesan and Romano in bulk at Sams club.