Still Standing on the Soapbox: Concerning Convenience Foods

May I present...canned entire cheeseburger.

Can I haz cheeseburger for the win?

any convenience food that has ingredients that are unpronounceable ingredients should be avoided at all costs!

i have been known to use two table knives to cut butter into flour for pie crust...and it works quite well.....actually better than the cuisinart my husband gave me for xmas and there is much less to clean up later. i don't understand anyone who thinks spam is a bad processed food. it is 100% pork shoulder without the bones and yes, it is a convenient item and comes in handy when there is an emergency like hurricanes or tornadoes, or floods.

I make my pie crust right in the pie pan, no rolling necessary!

Of course, you can't have a lattice top or anything with that.

They even use frozen pie crust on the Food Network.

you don't need a food processor to make pie dough. i used to use a pastry cutter until i discovered you can do almost everything in a stand mixer with the wire wisk beaters, which do the same thing as a pastry cutter, except better. i make a lot of pies throughout the year, so anything that cuts down on the time involved, without sacrificing taste, is a huge plus for me.

i throw the dry ingredients + fat of your choice (butter, lard, shortening) in the mixer, and start mixing on low. if all the fat chunks up around the beaters, i stop the mixer and distribute the fat more evenly. i might have to do that a few times until everything really gets going. then i speed things up until the flour+fat gets mixed up really good. then i add the wet ingredients and mix with a wooden spoon or spatula. easy peasy.

i know a lot of people are afraid of pie dough, but it's really not that hard. plus you can make a bunch up at one time and freeze it, just like your store-bough pie crust, but good (sorry, i'm a pie snob).

i'll even share my recipe if you like. :)

Hey, look at that. There I am.

I don't even bother with cake mixes. I will usually buy the damn cake. I made cupcakes from scratch for the last kid birthday party, but part of the party involved them icing and decorating the cupcakes themselves.

I have a safety stash that also includes spaghetti sauce, some canned soup, and frozen cheese tortellini.

I really don't think of peanut butter as a convenience food, per se. Really, is that opposed to grinding your own peanuts as needed? Same goes for bread. I did bake my own bread, briefly, when I was underemployed. But, I consider store baked bread to be a staple, not a crutch, for most people.

worst convenience food: canned mac'n'cheese, mushy peas, and flaked dehydrated minted lamb and veggies (a baby food concoction i found in england one year) --- euwwwww

Ooops - third comment! Sorry!

The convenience food I think is the worst is Kraft Mac and Cheese, because it isn't any more convenient than making stovetop mac from scratch but is full of chemicals. If I can have something healthier for the same amount of time and effort, why buy the blue box? You get NOTHIN' out of Kraft!

I'm working on a 30 day food stash and a 2 week water stash. The 30 day food stash is more of a hedge against inflation.

Last year, my sister and her family stayed with us for 3 weeks after Ike - and food was hard to get for a week or so (rationing at the grocery store!) I was very glad that I bought extra food - more than 3 days for just my family!

When planning a survival stash, keep water use in mind! Salty foods will make you drink more, and pasta takes more water to prepare than rice, for example.

Where are you on Twitter?

I'm Milehimama

Hey I like Hot Pockets, well Lean Pockets anyway. They are my go-to lunch on weekends becasue i don't have to think, and i can eat them while doing other things.

Your 'emergency' stash got me thinking. Maybe you guys have done this before but with hurricane season less than two weeks away, it would be great to do a 'hurricane survival food kit'. I mean everyone hears about batteries, water, flashlights, etc., but all i ever hear is food for 3-5 days. What food? Crackers? Peanut butter? Tuna fish? During Ike last year I was powerless for 16 days, but fortunately stayed at a friends house whose power came on after 2 1/2, just about the time everything in the fridge went bad. So we ate pretty well all things considering, and I never got desperate enough to dip into the Hormel chili, or canned fruit/veggies that I had bought.

Those frozen pre-cooked hamburgers are the worst. They look disgusting on the box. I am guilty of buying the HEB brand of frozen potstickers, though.

I'm rather thankful that I'm so intolerant to food ingredients, when it comes to over-processed "crap."

I've never heard of the rolled peanut butter. Eww.

I'm off to the grocery store, where I can avoid several aisles and hopefully still come home with something to eat, after reading all those labels.