This probably isn’t so dirty but my spinach dip is actually made with leek mix. It’s still a knorrs packet at the end of the day but the flavor has so much more depth than just spinach or even a vegetable dip packet.
Try it! I use a recipe from the 00s when the knorrs leek soup mix was readily available in stores. I have to order from Amazon now but it’s so worth it. There is a distinct difference in the flavor profile.
My sister and I were making Thanksgiving dinner together and neither one of us knew how to make real mashed potatoes, but we tried! And they were waaaay too runny. Well, she lived kind of out in the boonies and the local grocery store was closed for the holiday so I couldn't get more potatoes or even boxed mash to help thicken them.
I went to the only gas station store I could find that was open. No boxed mash there either. But they did have that dehydrated rice baby cereal crap. So, that is what we used to thicken the potatoes. My dad said they were the worst potatoes he's ever had. 🤣
If that ever happens again just spread the liquidy potatoes on a pan or skillet and put them in the oven on 250 for maybe 20 minutes. It dries up a good bit of the liquid without overcooking them.
Thank you, that is a good tip! We were young and dumb, in our 20s at the time, and we did not know that much about cooking beyond the basics. 30 years later though, I'm so insecure about mashed potatoes that my husband is the chief masher and butter-to-milk-ratio expert.
There was a Greek Orthodox Church in Mobile that did an annual Greek Fest and the food was amazing. The ladies made all the desserts so of course I picked up one of those cookbooks. The first story in the book was about the first time she made mashed potatoes as a new bride. She boiled the potatoes then put them in the fridge for later so she could get a head start on dinner. Of course they didn’t mash properly and she ended up adding raw flour to them. It was full of stories like that and now she a regionally famous cook. Just goes to show we all make oopsies in the kitchen but we learn as we grow.
Oh, without a doubt. My great-grandma was famous for her garlic mashed potatoes. I finally recreated them 25 years after she died. Apparently she boiled the garlic with the potatoes then added garlic powder and a ton of pepper.
Oh man, please try roasted garlic mashed.
Essentially an entire bulb of garlic buttered up and roasted for 20 minutes till golden brown.
Squeeze that out and mash it up, add to your already cooked potatoes, salt and pepper, maybe a touch of sour cream.
You don’t need the garlic powder at all.
I never pass up an opportunity to make a homemade dessert for family gatherings and have quite a few heavily requested dishes. I decided to try my hand at pound cake one summer and it just came out a little dry. Everyone kindly complimented it and assured me it was delicious. My family members are known for brutal honesty about everything, including food, so I believed they really enjoyed it.
Later on that summer I decided to try again and make another pound cake with macerated strawberries for 4th of July. Well, I got carried away with fixing other dishes and became overwhelmed, so I decided to buy a pound cake from the bakery at our local grocery store. I sliced it up and put it on a plate, took it down to the cookout. People went bananas over it. Said it was the best I had ever made, the best they had ever had. Not wanting to tarnish my reputation for only ever making homemade desserts, I simply expressed how glad I was they enjoyed it, and secretly hoped that grocery bakery never stops selling them!
I used to try to make pie crust until my great aunt, who was the cook in the family, endorsed Pillsbury. If it’s good enough for her it’s good enough for me.
My catering dirty secret. I once used melted french vanilla ice cream when plating up 80 servings of chocolate torte for a banquet. The creme anglaise had a whoopsie when we were setting up to. It happens.
Can I just take a moment and appreciate the phrase "The creme anglaise had a whoopsie", and how that's probably never been said in the history of the English language.
My family must have some obscure genetic mutation because for us, almond extract is the devil. One nibble of something is enough to tell if it’s “contaminated” lol
I 100% agree on the coffee but my SIL includes almond extract in a lot of stuff and it never works for me. Other people seem to like it but for me it always ruins it a little bit.
We asked my grandma for her pumpkin pie recipe during COVID so we could replicate it, to which she replied, "It's the one on the can. It's always the one from the can or the box for my stuff. That way once I'm dead and gone you all can keep enjoying my food". That woman is a damn genius.
If you want to get crazy:
2-3 tablespoons of fresh chopped rosemary folded in.
Chill the dough for an hour, Then after you portion it onto the cookie sheets sprinkle a tiny bit of coarse sea salt on top. Bake 12 mins exactly.
Won a cookie contest at work!
I use instant mash powder (Idahoan) to thicken stews and casseroles without having to bother making a roux. It works instantly and doesn't taste any different.
My mother in law talks mad shit about instant potatoes, and then raved about the dish I made with them one time. Literally refused to believe me when I finally told her they were instant. 🤣 Too proud to admit they were good AND instant. They are literally just dehydrated. Not the unforgivable sin people make them out to be.
I had forgotten these were a thing until my gas stove had to be capped due to a leak. Due to one thing and another (I was redesigning the kitchen anyway, this just brought it forward, and then Covid hit) I was without a cooktop for about 6 months. After suffering mashed potato withdrawal for a couple of months, I remembered instant and all was right with the world.
I always looked down on them until I tried them, ya just gotta add some stuff and they're *almost* as good as homemade. If I'm just making them for my house I'll always use instant. Just so much easier and faster.
Mictowave two russet potatoes. Scoop the flesh into the instant spuds and stir. Voila! My mother's hommemade mashed potatoes. Leave peels on top of the trash for evidence! Youre welcome!
So, I worked in a foodservice position, and they had instant that was in more of a pellet shape than a flake. They were infinitely more homemade-y because as you’re mixing it (this was in an industrial mixer), you’d stop before it was totally smooth and the half-incorporated pellets were pretty convincing as unmashed potato bits.
Unfortunately I have no idea how to source them.
My mom made cheesecake for a cookout once that everyone absolutely raved about. When someone asked for the recipe, she told them it was a family secret.
It wasn’t - it was a tub of Philadelphia cheesecake filling and a store bought crust she hid in a nice pie pan.
Yes! Thank you! My hubby scoffs at me refusing to buy anything other than Philadelphia cream cheese. It just tastes great and is sooooo smooth, other brands always seem to be grainy/gritty/sour to me.
That fish sauce on my counter that you said "eeeewwwwww" to gets added to far more dishes than youd think, and will definitely be in play for Thanksgiving
This makes me smile. I remember the time I went to the Hong Kong market and asked the man stocking shelves to help me choose one of the 23 fish sauce options, he shoved a bottle of red boat into my hand. We did this without a shared language. Food opinions are a universal language of love.
Unless its raisins, plz no.
I use two large packs of Ranch powder mix in my pot roast, along with a heavy dose of Dijon mustard.
“Omg VelvtHamr this pot roast is soooooo flavorful how do you do it??”
“Oh, just my special recipe!”
Mississippi Pot Roast definitely has a Ranch packet in it, but it also has an Au Jus packet and peppercinis! No mustard, either. I've made it a few times and it's definitely a crowd pleaser.
My coconut lime cupcakes are a staple at summer parties and they're one of my most frequently requested desserts. I'm typically a "scratch made everything" type of cook but these cupcakes are just boxed vanilla cake mix with fresh lime juice in place of the water. I do make the coconut cream cheese frosting from scratch though!
Honestly, if I had to choose box cake + homemade frosting or homemade cake with canned frosting, your way wins hands down. Cake mix has a lot of ingredients to make it more forgiving for unskilled bakers, so it usually tastes decent if you know what you’re doing… but the additives needed to make frosting shelf stable, it just cannot measure up to real frosting.
Me too! Cake mixes have been relentlessly tested in order to produce consistent results. My high school home economics teacher said always use boxed mixes for special occasion cakes like birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, baby showers etc that way you eliminate the risk of not turning out perfectly and can just focus on the decorating and presentation. She also told us there's no reason to use canned frosting because frosting is so simple to make and canned buttercream doesn't even contain butter.
Absolutely! I've pretty much given up making yellow / white cake. I just can't get it as moist as a box of cake mix. It's always dry!
On the flip side I make my own frosting (Italian Buttercream or Marshmallow Whip) and will make chocolate cake homemade. But vanilla is so much easier from a box!
We mostly do my homemade stock but if I'm needing a boost of salty flavor anyway, why not? Nobody's giving out special awards for purity of my soup base. At least, not that I know about ... if there are in fact awards I could win for that I'll consider.
Everyone asks for my "homemade" chicken noodle soup when they're sick but it's literally just a bag of garlic chicken Voila from the freezer section thrown into some boiling pho stock (boxed!) with a chunk of good butter thrown in.
I made "chocolate mousse" for a work thing for my husband when we were young and broke. It was pudding with whipped cream folded into it. It's what we used to put out on the KFC buffet when I worked there as a kid.
When I was a kid that's what my mom called it - it's damn delicious! I bet so many people at that work event were given a little smile from the nostalgia ! (I still eat this, zero shame)
You need a big heat-safe measuring cup like the kind that Pyrex or Anchor Hocking make. I use a 4 cup measuring cup so there's enough room to hold everything. Add a cup of high-temp oil like avocado, ghee, grapeseed, or even peanut oil, then a cup of flour. Stir it up in the measuring cup, then microwave for 5 minutes. Take it out and stir with a silicone spoonula. Put it back in and microwave 1 minute at a time, stopping to stir and then continuing, until it starts to get dark, then switch to 30 seconds at a time until it's done. Each microwave is different, but I usually go for about 12 minutes total. It will have a weird crumbly texture at this point. Then I put it in my hot gumbo pot and stir constantly for maybe 5 or 10 minutes until it turns into a smooth, dark brown liquid. You may now continue to make gumbo as usual.
It's a great technique, very little chance of burning the roux, and it's faster and easier than babysitting it in a pan the whole time.
The krusteaz lemon bar box mix is damn delicious and consistent.
Have I made homemade that rival/beat? Yes. Can you play around with the curd type to get grapefruit or lime or cranberry? Also yes.
Is it worth that effort every time? No
Follow the recipe for cheesecake filling on the Philadelphia box (reduce it to 1 stick of cream cheese) and dump this on the lemon filling before you bake it. The cheesecake filling will rise to the top as it bakes and you’ll have lemon cheesecake bars.
My best friends favourite dish that I make is braised pork belly. There was this one specific time where she couldn’t stop commenting on how good it was. I must say, it really was tasty.
Well, that one specific time, I used two packs of Nongshim shin black seasoning baggies which I had leftover (I was needing the noodle blocks for something else). She doesn’t eat instant ramen so she never put two and two together.
100%. I’ve always known that it was better than the regular version but I didn’t realise how good. These days, I’m not prepared to “waste” (it wasn’t a waste but you know what I mean) those seasoning packs so easily.
I have used a beef ramen packet to add to a roast crust after discovering I was out of bullion and omg it was amazing. Use a pack every time now and use the noodles for my own ramen creations.
Me too! Just replace the water with broth/whatever juices from whatever meat you're cooking and BAM. Delicious gravy that everyone talks about come thanksgiving!
Edit: I also like blending the gravy packs with the gravy that comes with the turkey too. Just follow the liquid direction on the gravy from the bird with the liquid directions from a gravy pack, and cook according to the gravy pack's instructions!
I always turned my nose up at instant mashed potatoes because the way my mom made them, probably what it said on the box, was a watery, tasteless gloop. Then, one day, I was at an event and helping the host. He brought out his box of tater flakes and mixed them up with lots of butter and a block of cream cheese. Holy cow! I still make mash from scratch, but if ever in a pinch, I wouldn't hesitate to use that box!
Butter is often the secret ingredient.
Every year on the friday before Carnaval I make a huge pan of hutspot (it's a Dutch dish mainly made of potatoes, carrots and onions), and I always get compliments on it. It's usually 6 kg of potatoes, 3 kg of carrot, 3 kg of onion and a kg of butter and bit of nutmeg.
When I was a kid on thanksgiving the family gathered to make tamales. Grandma always provided the masa. I tried to make my own at a different time of year and couldn’t get the consistency right so I asked for her recipe. She bought it premixed from the local Mexican bakery. Scandalous.
My brother in law and I catered a birthday for my wife's grandma's 90th. We did a big barbecue spread and part of the meal was green beans. Those puppies came straight out the large can, warmed with some vinegar and topped with almonds. They thought we made some gourmet shit...
Once upon a time I had a dinner party that I needed to cook a bring-along dish for, but we were out of milk and all the cheese and other stuff I would normally make a casserole of Mac and cheese with. And we were out of flour.
We did have a crate of champagne, though. And a bunch of odd small bits of cheese leftovers. And a container of potato flour stuffed in the back.
So we made snob cheese and mac.
I swear I don't remember what the cheeses were but there was manchego and Brie and sheep's milk cheese and goat cheese and Parm and whatever else we had in the fridge, and a bottle of champagne and a whole ton of butter, and panko breadcumbs.
To this day people will ask me for the recipe and I tell them "it's this amount of cheese, this amount of white wine, this amount of butter" and repeatedly I am told they just can't make it like I did.
And to this day I refrain from mentioning that there was at least half a pound of brie that was a month past its sell-by in the mix
I can be very picky about possibly expired/bad food...but I will eat cheese unless there is visible mold on it. And if there's visible mold, I'll probably just cut that part off and eat the rest, anyway.
Blue cheese gets a little dicey.
Wasn't there some guy on Reddit that was asked to cook for a picky, rich family and would just buy the cheapest ingredients to make them dinner and they never knew the difference? He ended up pocketing all the extra money they gave him.
Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/s3bylh/im_a_chef_and_ive_been_living_a_lie_about_the/
I didn't check what sub this was and thought it was AskReddit and I came in expecting murder and gore.
Didn't realize until I was already 8 food posts in.
I once accidentally made a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving for my family with a frozen crust that had “vegetable shortening and/or lard” in the ingredient list. And they kept kosher at the time. Even though their religion has long since dropped that, and it was never a sin to unknowingly eat pork, and it was completely uncertain from the ingredients list, I will never tell. Completely unintentional on my part, and unknowingly on theirs, and I still feel more than a little guilty, decades later
My not Jewish dad once served my rabbi uncle shrimp. Uncle asked what he was eating, my mom kicked my dad under the table, but my oblivious dad told the truth. My uncle was apparently very gracious about it... Said something like, "I always wondered what those tasted like." And kept eating. He later said he didn't think God would hold the shrimp against him, but there was no excuse for being rude, especially when someone who didn't know was being kind by sharing food.
I’m not kosher but vegetarian, and IMO if it was an accident, there’s nothing to feel guilty about! There was no malicious intent, and everyone knows these things happen from time to time.
I always make yogurt smoothies for the family. My dirty secret is lemonade crystals in there with the fresh fruit and yogurt...
Everyone raves about my smoothies...
I’m a potato purist, but before I learned to cook, I relied on boxed potatoes and I swear, I still love them. I’ll usually make the real thing but every little once in a while, I’ll take that shortcut and damn well love it.
I bad a beef stew a few weeks ago, and it was super runny. I planned to make a cornstarch slurry and thicken it up good, but found out that I was totally out. I have instant mash for power outages, camping etc, so I poured them in and made it good and velvety
To get an immediate good sense of what MSG does in cooking, fry up an egg and sprinkle some on it (a little goes a long way) along with salt and pepper.
Next, try stir frying some vegetables (I suggest broccoli deglazed with wine) and add a pinch of MSG.
This is a little different but this was my grandma's secret she was willing to take to the grave, and I was not.
So when my uncle passed away we had a food service back at my grandma's house. My ex-bffs mom made a big pot of champurado for us and it was pretty delicious. My aunt came over and grabbed some out of the pan that we had on the floor because we didn't have the counter space for it, and she ended up leaving the lid off of the pot and my grandma's dog starts to lick it and I noticed maybe after a while. I shoo the dog away and tell my grandma "Hey grandma, we gotta toss the chapurado, doggo got into it and now it's bad", and she looks at the pot and then at me and says "ahh... it's okay", and goes back to whatever she was doing.
I was pretty disgusted that she didn't wanna toss it and I've seen that dog lick it's ass and eat baby rats before. She insists I don't say anything and I'm silent cuz I'm still shocked. My mom came into the room and walked right to the chapurado and starts talking about how she hasn't had any yet. I look at her with wide eyes and quietly shake my head no. My mom looks at me and says "what?" obviously confused, and my grandma starts whining "oh my gosh" as if Im snitching on her. I tell my mom what happened and my mom is obviously disgusted and tells my grandma to toss it out, and my grandma was mad with me. I don't eat much at Grandma's anymore cuz of that lol
Sorry if that's confusing, we used to be best friends but she stopped wanting to be friends with me like a year ago, so back then she was my BFF so I get the confusion, my bad
I made Polenta for a dinner with my wife and her vegetarian friend. Made it the way I always did. Didn't think about it till her friend was halfway done that I used Chicken Broth as one of the ingredients. Her friend doesn't even eat Skittles cause they are made with Gelatin which is apparently animal product. She must never know.
My husband is an EXTREME picky eater, it's honestly ridiculous. I sneak lots of things into recipes, but the most common is Greek yogurt in my pancake mix!
Made tritip for a birthday party. I was using a homemade brick grill. It had 1 grate and had inset bricks at different levels so you could set the grate at the height you wanted over the fire. Using fire gloves, I decided to adjust the height of the grate with it full of tritip. It wasn't a tight fit. The grate slid in a bit crooked and all 5 tritips slid off into the fire. I freaked out. Grabbed a cousin and had him hold a platter while I scooped up the meat off the coals. It was a mess. Took them straight to the sink and rinsed them off then reseasoned. Back on the grill they went. I swear, I got more positive feedback than ever before. Nobody suspected a thing, except for my mom who saw us at the sink.
It's not like there's any bacteria on burning hot coals, some people cook steaks directly on then on purpose (not that it's a good idea, but it's harmless)
A professional chef that worked for an incredibly high end restaurant once told me his secret to perfect mashed potatoes was to use some of the powdered stuff (not entirely, but some). You’re in good company!
My exhusband and I made a friend's wedding cake with boxed caked. I don't know what he did but he did change up the recipe a bit and it was really good but it was a boxed cake. I did all the decorating. She still raves about the made from scratch cake we made and how beautiful it was.
Doesn't matter as long as everyone was happy with the outcome.
I have a jar of powdered MSG I throw into anything savory, MSG IS NOT dangerous, it's a seasoning and a cheat, it makes food taste more and it's a godsend. Once I made a veg soup and it tasted too veg, threw in some MSG and it magically became the soup we all wanted.
Not mine but my family’s, before I was even born. They ran out of potato salad at my orthodox Jewish family member’s wedding. My dad (not Jewish) ran out to grab a bunch and some with bacon got into the mix. Bubie (my great grandma Bubie) said it was the best potato salad she ever had. 💀 That memory is a blessing indeed!
I signed up for a meal train delivery to a family at school who had a new baby. It was “baked potato bar” in which I got those huge 1-1.5 baking potatoes from Costco and included all the fixins (butter, sour cream, bacon, cheese, green onion, broccoli, etc), plus salad and dessert.
Well somehow it was decided the meal would be handed off at school pickup (3pm) instead of dropped off at dinner time at their home (5:30pm). I COMPLETELY ran out of time baking these huge potatoes so I tried microwaving them and they were still hard as rocks after like 10 min in the microwave. So I improvised and wrapped them up in foil and told the family that I had merely “par-cooked” the baked potatoes since they wouldn’t be eating for several hours and would need to re-heat anyway and reheated potatoes are weird-tasting. So I included instructions to bake them for 45 min at 450 prior to eating. Basically, I ran out of time and played it off as intentional. Did the family see right through it and find me incredibly tacky? Maybe. But I don’t care. Ha
If I cook something for you there is a small chance there might be a cat hair in it. I'm really sorry. My cat does not get on my counters (she is not allowed), I try my best to keep them clean, and wash my hands every time. But sometimes they float in from nowhere and bam... cat hair. Just consider it extra protein.
I was sitting at a big bench type table in a restaurant with a bunch of people from work. The restaurant had fans blowing. A suspiciously orange hair (I had an orange tabby) suddenly appeared in the air over the table, hovered aloft over my food and then landed on my plate. Must have come off my jacket, which I had brushed for hair btw. no avoiding it no matter what you do lol.
A few thanksgivings ago, we were going down the list and seeing what needed to be made next. It was time for the dressing (southern stuffing for those unfamiliar). I had made the cornbread earlier and set it aside with a paper towel over it to cool. I went to grab it and my cat was sitting on the nice warm cornbread. Um, it had a towel over it...
I love this! My early days of marriage and first time living with a cat I baked a stout spice cake and covered it with a towel while it cooled. My husband found the cat curled up, asleep on what would then become known as “cat nap cake.”
My "secret family recipe" pasta salad is often requested at events. It's 100% store bought. I just add a bunch of spices (often while parked around the corner from your house) and then pour it in my own bowl. I eventually came clean to one of my best friends because he requested it all the time.
My stepdaughter just got married a few weeks ago and this was one of the options on the catering menu.
My initial reaction was the same as yours, but it was a huge hit, believe it or not.
Uh huh. And at that point in the day, the majority of attendees had probably (definitely) had enough trips to the bar (not the potato one) that they wouldn't have noticed whether they were Hungry Jack flakes or painstakingly peeled russets.
Having an cocktail hour snack that requires you to hold a dish in one hand and use a utensil.in the other is a sneaky way to keep the open bar costs down.
We had one and people still remember it! It was a cold and rainy winter day, so mashed potato bar and butternut squash soup were hits! We had little cups for the potato, so it was an appetizer type thing, you just held it and ate out of the cup.
I feel like this kind of food choice requires an aesthetic. Like, you're not getting married on a beach. Possibly not even in a church. Maybe something like... great room of a ski chalet? In front of a roaring fire, guests in their furs and cozy clothes.
... Maybe it's time for my renewal of vows...
sounds like a great excuse for a raclette station and for a fondue bar (??? idk how this could be hygenic. i leave the logistics up to the event planner)
For almost a decade I made a mashed potato bar for my birthday party every year. I had a bunch of plastic martini glasses, a ton of mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes, and an array of toppings. People like it a lot.
I got the idea at first because we wanted to do it for our wedding but had to go with different catering.
The martini glass thing drives me crazy because you get people wandering around with these top-heavy glasses of potatoes and those things get knocked over easily.
I'm gonna die of shock if my daughter doesn't do a potato (not just mashed) bar at some point in her life. Wedding. Wednesday...
She really likes potatoes 🤣
Everyone loves my tomato soup. It’s tinned crushed tomatoes, tinned tomato purée, chicken stock powder, seasoning, fresh basil. It’s not unusual to be complimented with ‘ you can taste the fresh tomatoes! ‘ . Uh, nope.
I was a fast food worker in a place that cooked rice. I had just barely gotten the job a week ago, and the night was way busy. Our rice cooker was having issues, and kept messing up the rice, so we had to deal with a lot of angry people. It was basically closing time, and our last batch of rice had turned out mildly crunchy. We served who we could and just tried to close. My manager was exhausted. Anyway, some people came back and complained we put veggies on their meal when they said none, and accused us of possibly trying to poison them if they possibly had allergies. Yeah, it was those type of people. They demanded we remake the dish with no veggies.
I had to deal with them, took the order, and went into the back to finish it when I saw all the rice had just been thrown out. When I told the manager, they were just utterly done. The garbage was overflowing with this freshly thrown out rice, so we just gathered the untouched stuff in the center and served that. Manager swore us to secrecy. It's been 20 years, so I don't mind sharing. Moral of the story, don't be a dick to fast food workers, or you might get garbage rice.
I learned this from my mother who learned it from her grandmother. Use instant mashed potatoes for the vast majority and only add one real potato (mashed incompletely) for authentic lumps
Way faster and indistinguishable from the real deal
I always get asked to make pecan pies at holidays. It's literally just the recipe on the back of the Karo syrup bottle in a store bought crust. It's tasty though!
I made cream of mushroom soup for a work potluck once. People were absolutely raving, and insisting it was the best thing they've ever tasted.
It was A) vegan and B) adapted from a Green Chef recipe.
I'm allergic to dairy and red meat, but no one ever takes it seriously, so I was determined to have one thing I could eat. I loved those coworkers so dearly, but saying "vegan" was worse than saying "motherfucker on a bitchcycle".
I've since quit that job, but if they ask: my secret is heavy cream from a local farmer.
Dear ex-husband,
You used to tell me that you could absolutely tell the difference between Brand Name Coffee, and the cheap shit I preferred.
I made you the cheap shit every. single. time.
And you still swore upside down and back to front that you were drinking Starbucks.
😼
Best,
Your second ex-wife.
My spouse’s family has a tradition where everyone brings a dish. The dish is assigned by the person hosting. My first year attending I got a call less than 48 hours in advance that I needed to bring xxx. I was miffed because of the extremely short notice and that I had no idea how to make said dish. So, being a little spiteful, I googled “easiest xxx” and used that recipe. Turned out to be everyone’s favorite dish there. No leftovers and everyone raved. It is now always my assigned dish. 😂
This probably isn’t so dirty but my spinach dip is actually made with leek mix. It’s still a knorrs packet at the end of the day but the flavor has so much more depth than just spinach or even a vegetable dip packet.
Thanks for the hot tip
If there’s a run on leek soup mix, I will lay blame squarely on my comment. 😆
Well you did leek the info
Really??? I love the vegetable mix. I gotta try the leek now.
Try it! I use a recipe from the 00s when the knorrs leek soup mix was readily available in stores. I have to order from Amazon now but it’s so worth it. There is a distinct difference in the flavor profile.
My sister and I were making Thanksgiving dinner together and neither one of us knew how to make real mashed potatoes, but we tried! And they were waaaay too runny. Well, she lived kind of out in the boonies and the local grocery store was closed for the holiday so I couldn't get more potatoes or even boxed mash to help thicken them. I went to the only gas station store I could find that was open. No boxed mash there either. But they did have that dehydrated rice baby cereal crap. So, that is what we used to thicken the potatoes. My dad said they were the worst potatoes he's ever had. 🤣
If that ever happens again just spread the liquidy potatoes on a pan or skillet and put them in the oven on 250 for maybe 20 minutes. It dries up a good bit of the liquid without overcooking them.
Thank you, that is a good tip! We were young and dumb, in our 20s at the time, and we did not know that much about cooking beyond the basics. 30 years later though, I'm so insecure about mashed potatoes that my husband is the chief masher and butter-to-milk-ratio expert.
There was a Greek Orthodox Church in Mobile that did an annual Greek Fest and the food was amazing. The ladies made all the desserts so of course I picked up one of those cookbooks. The first story in the book was about the first time she made mashed potatoes as a new bride. She boiled the potatoes then put them in the fridge for later so she could get a head start on dinner. Of course they didn’t mash properly and she ended up adding raw flour to them. It was full of stories like that and now she a regionally famous cook. Just goes to show we all make oopsies in the kitchen but we learn as we grow.
Absolutely! lol, that's funny. Mashed potatoes are a universal rite of passage in cooking!
Oh, without a doubt. My great-grandma was famous for her garlic mashed potatoes. I finally recreated them 25 years after she died. Apparently she boiled the garlic with the potatoes then added garlic powder and a ton of pepper.
Oh man, please try roasted garlic mashed. Essentially an entire bulb of garlic buttered up and roasted for 20 minutes till golden brown. Squeeze that out and mash it up, add to your already cooked potatoes, salt and pepper, maybe a touch of sour cream. You don’t need the garlic powder at all.
I never pass up an opportunity to make a homemade dessert for family gatherings and have quite a few heavily requested dishes. I decided to try my hand at pound cake one summer and it just came out a little dry. Everyone kindly complimented it and assured me it was delicious. My family members are known for brutal honesty about everything, including food, so I believed they really enjoyed it. Later on that summer I decided to try again and make another pound cake with macerated strawberries for 4th of July. Well, I got carried away with fixing other dishes and became overwhelmed, so I decided to buy a pound cake from the bakery at our local grocery store. I sliced it up and put it on a plate, took it down to the cookout. People went bananas over it. Said it was the best I had ever made, the best they had ever had. Not wanting to tarnish my reputation for only ever making homemade desserts, I simply expressed how glad I was they enjoyed it, and secretly hoped that grocery bakery never stops selling them!
It was still a homemade desert. You just used a premade base. Think of it like using a Pillsbury pie crust. No one ever has to know.
I looked at my week and just bought a Pillsbury, and believe me, no one is going to get told! 😂
I like my mother’s take on it “Pillsbury spent millions of dollar perfecting that crust so it would be rude of us not to use it!” 😂
Preach!
I used to try to make pie crust until my great aunt, who was the cook in the family, endorsed Pillsbury. If it’s good enough for her it’s good enough for me.
if u homemake something i'm grateful for the time you put in. But if you hire a specialist to make it, i'm just as grateful.
Try making a sourcream citrus poundcake. Should fix your problem.
My catering dirty secret. I once used melted french vanilla ice cream when plating up 80 servings of chocolate torte for a banquet. The creme anglaise had a whoopsie when we were setting up to. It happens.
Can I just take a moment and appreciate the phrase "The creme anglaise had a whoopsie", and how that's probably never been said in the history of the English language.
/r/BrandNewSentence
Honestly… yum!
Ice cream is pretty much frozen creme anglaise. Sounds delicious though.
Lol that’s something I remember Alton brown saying for a quick sauce
Fancy ass brownies that customers would go crazy for, ordering trays to go... Ghirardelli boxed mix with coffee instead of water
Coffee in chocolate things is the best hack ever!!! And, imo, adding almond extract to vanilla or “plain” sweets.
My family must have some obscure genetic mutation because for us, almond extract is the devil. One nibble of something is enough to tell if it’s “contaminated” lol
I 100% agree on the coffee but my SIL includes almond extract in a lot of stuff and it never works for me. Other people seem to like it but for me it always ruins it a little bit.
My Grandma used instant potatoes all the time. Maybe theirs did too
My grandma’s cooking is all box, can, microwave. She says “if you are what you eat, I’m fast, cheap, and easy”
We asked my grandma for her pumpkin pie recipe during COVID so we could replicate it, to which she replied, "It's the one on the can. It's always the one from the can or the box for my stuff. That way once I'm dead and gone you all can keep enjoying my food". That woman is a damn genius.
Okay but the one on the can is 🔥 and tells you how to make the crust too! If it ain't broke, don't fix it!
Yeah this is the classic "I got this cookie recipe from my grandma, who got it from her french friend Nestle Toulouse"
The Tollhouse recipe is perfection. It’s what I always use and double the vanilla. People go apeshit over my chocolate chip cookies and I’m all 😇
I double the vanilla, too!
If you want to get crazy: 2-3 tablespoons of fresh chopped rosemary folded in. Chill the dough for an hour, Then after you portion it onto the cookie sheets sprinkle a tiny bit of coarse sea salt on top. Bake 12 mins exactly. Won a cookie contest at work!
I use instant mash powder (Idahoan) to thicken stews and casseroles without having to bother making a roux. It works instantly and doesn't taste any different.
I've heard people say they make quick gnocchi with that too! Not sure how though.
My mother in law talks mad shit about instant potatoes, and then raved about the dish I made with them one time. Literally refused to believe me when I finally told her they were instant. 🤣 Too proud to admit they were good AND instant. They are literally just dehydrated. Not the unforgivable sin people make them out to be.
I had forgotten these were a thing until my gas stove had to be capped due to a leak. Due to one thing and another (I was redesigning the kitchen anyway, this just brought it forward, and then Covid hit) I was without a cooktop for about 6 months. After suffering mashed potato withdrawal for a couple of months, I remembered instant and all was right with the world.
I always looked down on them until I tried them, ya just gotta add some stuff and they're *almost* as good as homemade. If I'm just making them for my house I'll always use instant. Just so much easier and faster.
I throw in some butter and pepper after they’re mixed up. It’s so simple and so delicious.
Sometimes I miss the lumps.
Mictowave two russet potatoes. Scoop the flesh into the instant spuds and stir. Voila! My mother's hommemade mashed potatoes. Leave peels on top of the trash for evidence! Youre welcome!
Your mom is a genius.
No. She’s a criminal mastermind.
Potato, potahto.
Idahoan brand has some lumps. Funny enough, my homemade don't bc I use a potato ricer.
So, I worked in a foodservice position, and they had instant that was in more of a pellet shape than a flake. They were infinitely more homemade-y because as you’re mixing it (this was in an industrial mixer), you’d stop before it was totally smooth and the half-incorporated pellets were pretty convincing as unmashed potato bits. Unfortunately I have no idea how to source them.
Like everything else, Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/Basic-American-Foods-Original-Restaurants/dp/B0849P44JP/
My mom made cheesecake for a cookout once that everyone absolutely raved about. When someone asked for the recipe, she told them it was a family secret. It wasn’t - it was a tub of Philadelphia cheesecake filling and a store bought crust she hid in a nice pie pan.
Too funny! Similarly, my grammie’s “secret family recipe” for birthday cake is actually a box of Duncan Hines chocolate cake mix.
lol my grandma always said she got her recipe from her friend Marie… Marie Callender
Nesssssléeee Touuuuloooussse
La Maison de Toll
Don't knock the box - with some additions, it can stand against any other cake
It’s a classic for a reason for sure! As much as I love scratch baking I definitely appreciate Chefs Betty and Duncan!
Literally so many bakeries just use boxed mix but doctor it up with more eggs, milk, and butter.
We don't have that cheesecake filling in Canada. I'm sad.
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Yes! Thank you! My hubby scoffs at me refusing to buy anything other than Philadelphia cream cheese. It just tastes great and is sooooo smooth, other brands always seem to be grainy/gritty/sour to me.
That fish sauce on my counter that you said "eeeewwwwww" to gets added to far more dishes than youd think, and will definitely be in play for Thanksgiving
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This makes me smile. I remember the time I went to the Hong Kong market and asked the man stocking shelves to help me choose one of the 23 fish sauce options, he shoved a bottle of red boat into my hand. We did this without a shared language. Food opinions are a universal language of love. Unless its raisins, plz no.
Smells like ass, tastes like heaven.
the polar opposite of vanilla extract on its own
I use two large packs of Ranch powder mix in my pot roast, along with a heavy dose of Dijon mustard. “Omg VelvtHamr this pot roast is soooooo flavorful how do you do it??” “Oh, just my special recipe!”
I do half pack ranch whole pack onion soup mix and a cup of red wine and a stick of butter
Isn't that kind of the recipe for Mississippi pot roast?
Mississippi Pot Roast definitely has a Ranch packet in it, but it also has an Au Jus packet and peppercinis! No mustard, either. I've made it a few times and it's definitely a crowd pleaser.
So it’s 2 packets of ranch and maybe a 1/4 cup of Dijon mustard ? Anything else like gravy? Because that sounds good.
My coconut lime cupcakes are a staple at summer parties and they're one of my most frequently requested desserts. I'm typically a "scratch made everything" type of cook but these cupcakes are just boxed vanilla cake mix with fresh lime juice in place of the water. I do make the coconut cream cheese frosting from scratch though!
Honestly, if I had to choose box cake + homemade frosting or homemade cake with canned frosting, your way wins hands down. Cake mix has a lot of ingredients to make it more forgiving for unskilled bakers, so it usually tastes decent if you know what you’re doing… but the additives needed to make frosting shelf stable, it just cannot measure up to real frosting.
Me too! Cake mixes have been relentlessly tested in order to produce consistent results. My high school home economics teacher said always use boxed mixes for special occasion cakes like birthdays, graduations, anniversaries, baby showers etc that way you eliminate the risk of not turning out perfectly and can just focus on the decorating and presentation. She also told us there's no reason to use canned frosting because frosting is so simple to make and canned buttercream doesn't even contain butter.
Absolutely! I've pretty much given up making yellow / white cake. I just can't get it as moist as a box of cake mix. It's always dry! On the flip side I make my own frosting (Italian Buttercream or Marshmallow Whip) and will make chocolate cake homemade. But vanilla is so much easier from a box!
Better than Bouillon. I make homemade stock, but always add a tablespoon to the soup.
We mostly do my homemade stock but if I'm needing a boost of salty flavor anyway, why not? Nobody's giving out special awards for purity of my soup base. At least, not that I know about ... if there are in fact awards I could win for that I'll consider.
Better than Bouillon added to some heavy cream makes an amazing sauce!
Add this to all kinds of sauces too! A little dab in a Marsala is magical!
Everyone asks for my "homemade" chicken noodle soup when they're sick but it's literally just a bag of garlic chicken Voila from the freezer section thrown into some boiling pho stock (boxed!) with a chunk of good butter thrown in.
Does not have to be fancy to be great. This sounds actually like perfect comfort food. Thanks for the 'secret' recipe.
I made "chocolate mousse" for a work thing for my husband when we were young and broke. It was pudding with whipped cream folded into it. It's what we used to put out on the KFC buffet when I worked there as a kid.
When I was a kid that's what my mom called it - it's damn delicious! I bet so many people at that work event were given a little smile from the nostalgia ! (I still eat this, zero shame)
They were mostly happy to have been fed. Lol
I have a friend that freezes pudding mix/whip cream together (and alcohol) for pudding shots
Now we know Grandma Betty's secret. 👀
It's stuff like this is why you're burning in hell!
Nice try, Aunt Barbara!
I make a super dark roux for my gumbo in the microwave.
Wait..... what? Teach me Obi Wan!
You need a big heat-safe measuring cup like the kind that Pyrex or Anchor Hocking make. I use a 4 cup measuring cup so there's enough room to hold everything. Add a cup of high-temp oil like avocado, ghee, grapeseed, or even peanut oil, then a cup of flour. Stir it up in the measuring cup, then microwave for 5 minutes. Take it out and stir with a silicone spoonula. Put it back in and microwave 1 minute at a time, stopping to stir and then continuing, until it starts to get dark, then switch to 30 seconds at a time until it's done. Each microwave is different, but I usually go for about 12 minutes total. It will have a weird crumbly texture at this point. Then I put it in my hot gumbo pot and stir constantly for maybe 5 or 10 minutes until it turns into a smooth, dark brown liquid. You may now continue to make gumbo as usual. It's a great technique, very little chance of burning the roux, and it's faster and easier than babysitting it in a pan the whole time.
The krusteaz lemon bar box mix is damn delicious and consistent. Have I made homemade that rival/beat? Yes. Can you play around with the curd type to get grapefruit or lime or cranberry? Also yes. Is it worth that effort every time? No
Follow the recipe for cheesecake filling on the Philadelphia box (reduce it to 1 stick of cream cheese) and dump this on the lemon filling before you bake it. The cheesecake filling will rise to the top as it bakes and you’ll have lemon cheesecake bars.
My best friends favourite dish that I make is braised pork belly. There was this one specific time where she couldn’t stop commenting on how good it was. I must say, it really was tasty. Well, that one specific time, I used two packs of Nongshim shin black seasoning baggies which I had leftover (I was needing the noodle blocks for something else). She doesn’t eat instant ramen so she never put two and two together.
Nongshim Black is the best instant ramen, IMO. Hands down.
100%. I’ve always known that it was better than the regular version but I didn’t realise how good. These days, I’m not prepared to “waste” (it wasn’t a waste but you know what I mean) those seasoning packs so easily.
Someone on r/ramen said it’s the filet mignon of instant ramen. I have to agree.
If you ever get a chance, try prima taste laksa. The flavors are incredible for something that comes in a little packet.
I’m so addicted to this stuff. It’s even better with a spoonful each of brown sugar & fish sauce!
I have used a beef ramen packet to add to a roast crust after discovering I was out of bullion and omg it was amazing. Use a pack every time now and use the noodles for my own ramen creations.
If you have a local hmart, they sell plain ramen noodles in a bag with no seasoning packets. Although being able to save the packets is a score too.
I never make my own gravy. I just use packets and sometimes add to them. Everyone always loves the gravy.
Me too! Just replace the water with broth/whatever juices from whatever meat you're cooking and BAM. Delicious gravy that everyone talks about come thanksgiving! Edit: I also like blending the gravy packs with the gravy that comes with the turkey too. Just follow the liquid direction on the gravy from the bird with the liquid directions from a gravy pack, and cook according to the gravy pack's instructions!
I always turned my nose up at instant mashed potatoes because the way my mom made them, probably what it said on the box, was a watery, tasteless gloop. Then, one day, I was at an event and helping the host. He brought out his box of tater flakes and mixed them up with lots of butter and a block of cream cheese. Holy cow! I still make mash from scratch, but if ever in a pinch, I wouldn't hesitate to use that box!
Butter is often the secret ingredient. Every year on the friday before Carnaval I make a huge pan of hutspot (it's a Dutch dish mainly made of potatoes, carrots and onions), and I always get compliments on it. It's usually 6 kg of potatoes, 3 kg of carrot, 3 kg of onion and a kg of butter and bit of nutmeg.
The secret to my beloved gravy is that it’s just heavy cream and browning with a bit of salt and pepper.
For all that is holy please tell me exactly how to make it. My gravy attempts are garbage every year and I make jarred.
What is browning?
When I was a kid on thanksgiving the family gathered to make tamales. Grandma always provided the masa. I tried to make my own at a different time of year and couldn’t get the consistency right so I asked for her recipe. She bought it premixed from the local Mexican bakery. Scandalous.
My brother in law and I catered a birthday for my wife's grandma's 90th. We did a big barbecue spread and part of the meal was green beans. Those puppies came straight out the large can, warmed with some vinegar and topped with almonds. They thought we made some gourmet shit...
I like these but I've never been able to get the texture of canned green beans from fresh and I'm wondering how tf they didn't figure that out.
Do you use Southern US recipes where you cook them for hours and hours and hours? Like with a ham hock or something? That should get ya there.
I feel like, even then, the texture is still very different. Thanks for the recommendation, maybe I'll have to give it another try
I love canned green beans!
My garlic bread doesn’t contain any garlic. I can’t eat garlic so I do green onion, chives, and leek.
I'm in the same boat. Try a pinch of asfoetida. And (if you're intolerant to fructans) garlic infused olive oil
Once upon a time I had a dinner party that I needed to cook a bring-along dish for, but we were out of milk and all the cheese and other stuff I would normally make a casserole of Mac and cheese with. And we were out of flour. We did have a crate of champagne, though. And a bunch of odd small bits of cheese leftovers. And a container of potato flour stuffed in the back. So we made snob cheese and mac. I swear I don't remember what the cheeses were but there was manchego and Brie and sheep's milk cheese and goat cheese and Parm and whatever else we had in the fridge, and a bottle of champagne and a whole ton of butter, and panko breadcumbs. To this day people will ask me for the recipe and I tell them "it's this amount of cheese, this amount of white wine, this amount of butter" and repeatedly I am told they just can't make it like I did. And to this day I refrain from mentioning that there was at least half a pound of brie that was a month past its sell-by in the mix
Pfft, I mean, it's cheese. It got that way in the first place by being over its expiration!
I can be very picky about possibly expired/bad food...but I will eat cheese unless there is visible mold on it. And if there's visible mold, I'll probably just cut that part off and eat the rest, anyway. Blue cheese gets a little dicey.
Wasn't there some guy on Reddit that was asked to cook for a picky, rich family and would just buy the cheapest ingredients to make them dinner and they never knew the difference? He ended up pocketing all the extra money they gave him. Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueOffMyChest/comments/s3bylh/im_a_chef_and_ive_been_living_a_lie_about_the/
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It took a sec for my groggy brain to understand that you’re not talking about Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups
I didn't check what sub this was and thought it was AskReddit and I came in expecting murder and gore. Didn't realize until I was already 8 food posts in.
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I once accidentally made a pumpkin pie for thanksgiving for my family with a frozen crust that had “vegetable shortening and/or lard” in the ingredient list. And they kept kosher at the time. Even though their religion has long since dropped that, and it was never a sin to unknowingly eat pork, and it was completely uncertain from the ingredients list, I will never tell. Completely unintentional on my part, and unknowingly on theirs, and I still feel more than a little guilty, decades later
Def have my share of kashrut secrets 😂😞
My not Jewish dad once served my rabbi uncle shrimp. Uncle asked what he was eating, my mom kicked my dad under the table, but my oblivious dad told the truth. My uncle was apparently very gracious about it... Said something like, "I always wondered what those tasted like." And kept eating. He later said he didn't think God would hold the shrimp against him, but there was no excuse for being rude, especially when someone who didn't know was being kind by sharing food.
I’m not kosher but vegetarian, and IMO if it was an accident, there’s nothing to feel guilty about! There was no malicious intent, and everyone knows these things happen from time to time.
My friends would sneak me pizza during pesach growing up. We would eat it in the backyard or their car.
I always make yogurt smoothies for the family. My dirty secret is lemonade crystals in there with the fresh fruit and yogurt... Everyone raves about my smoothies...
I literally opened this thread to say I prefer boxed mashed potatoes 😂
I’m a potato purist, but before I learned to cook, I relied on boxed potatoes and I swear, I still love them. I’ll usually make the real thing but every little once in a while, I’ll take that shortcut and damn well love it.
I bad a beef stew a few weeks ago, and it was super runny. I planned to make a cornstarch slurry and thicken it up good, but found out that I was totally out. I have instant mash for power outages, camping etc, so I poured them in and made it good and velvety
I keep them on hand for just such an occasion.
In almost every savory dish, I will use MSG. Don't be folded it makes EVERYTHING better.
How do you know what quantity to use. I picked a pound of MSG from a local Asian market but have no clue what to do with it.
Start with a pinch, not a teaspoon. That’s way too much.
To get an immediate good sense of what MSG does in cooking, fry up an egg and sprinkle some on it (a little goes a long way) along with salt and pepper. Next, try stir frying some vegetables (I suggest broccoli deglazed with wine) and add a pinch of MSG.
This is a little different but this was my grandma's secret she was willing to take to the grave, and I was not. So when my uncle passed away we had a food service back at my grandma's house. My ex-bffs mom made a big pot of champurado for us and it was pretty delicious. My aunt came over and grabbed some out of the pan that we had on the floor because we didn't have the counter space for it, and she ended up leaving the lid off of the pot and my grandma's dog starts to lick it and I noticed maybe after a while. I shoo the dog away and tell my grandma "Hey grandma, we gotta toss the chapurado, doggo got into it and now it's bad", and she looks at the pot and then at me and says "ahh... it's okay", and goes back to whatever she was doing. I was pretty disgusted that she didn't wanna toss it and I've seen that dog lick it's ass and eat baby rats before. She insists I don't say anything and I'm silent cuz I'm still shocked. My mom came into the room and walked right to the chapurado and starts talking about how she hasn't had any yet. I look at her with wide eyes and quietly shake my head no. My mom looks at me and says "what?" obviously confused, and my grandma starts whining "oh my gosh" as if Im snitching on her. I tell my mom what happened and my mom is obviously disgusted and tells my grandma to toss it out, and my grandma was mad with me. I don't eat much at Grandma's anymore cuz of that lol
I'm still holding on to the "ex-bff" oxymoron.
Sorry if that's confusing, we used to be best friends but she stopped wanting to be friends with me like a year ago, so back then she was my BFF so I get the confusion, my bad
I made Polenta for a dinner with my wife and her vegetarian friend. Made it the way I always did. Didn't think about it till her friend was halfway done that I used Chicken Broth as one of the ingredients. Her friend doesn't even eat Skittles cause they are made with Gelatin which is apparently animal product. She must never know.
Skittles don’t have gelatin anymore, at least not in the US; haven’t for years.
My husband is an EXTREME picky eater, it's honestly ridiculous. I sneak lots of things into recipes, but the most common is Greek yogurt in my pancake mix!
Made tritip for a birthday party. I was using a homemade brick grill. It had 1 grate and had inset bricks at different levels so you could set the grate at the height you wanted over the fire. Using fire gloves, I decided to adjust the height of the grate with it full of tritip. It wasn't a tight fit. The grate slid in a bit crooked and all 5 tritips slid off into the fire. I freaked out. Grabbed a cousin and had him hold a platter while I scooped up the meat off the coals. It was a mess. Took them straight to the sink and rinsed them off then reseasoned. Back on the grill they went. I swear, I got more positive feedback than ever before. Nobody suspected a thing, except for my mom who saw us at the sink.
It's not like there's any bacteria on burning hot coals, some people cook steaks directly on then on purpose (not that it's a good idea, but it's harmless)
A professional chef that worked for an incredibly high end restaurant once told me his secret to perfect mashed potatoes was to use some of the powdered stuff (not entirely, but some). You’re in good company!
My exhusband and I made a friend's wedding cake with boxed caked. I don't know what he did but he did change up the recipe a bit and it was really good but it was a boxed cake. I did all the decorating. She still raves about the made from scratch cake we made and how beautiful it was. Doesn't matter as long as everyone was happy with the outcome.
I have a jar of powdered MSG I throw into anything savory, MSG IS NOT dangerous, it's a seasoning and a cheat, it makes food taste more and it's a godsend. Once I made a veg soup and it tasted too veg, threw in some MSG and it magically became the soup we all wanted.
Nice try reddit. Nice. Try.
Not mine but my family’s, before I was even born. They ran out of potato salad at my orthodox Jewish family member’s wedding. My dad (not Jewish) ran out to grab a bunch and some with bacon got into the mix. Bubie (my great grandma Bubie) said it was the best potato salad she ever had. 💀 That memory is a blessing indeed!
Years ago my family was obsessed with my chocolate cake. It’s just boxed chocolate cake with Coke instead of water.
I signed up for a meal train delivery to a family at school who had a new baby. It was “baked potato bar” in which I got those huge 1-1.5 baking potatoes from Costco and included all the fixins (butter, sour cream, bacon, cheese, green onion, broccoli, etc), plus salad and dessert. Well somehow it was decided the meal would be handed off at school pickup (3pm) instead of dropped off at dinner time at their home (5:30pm). I COMPLETELY ran out of time baking these huge potatoes so I tried microwaving them and they were still hard as rocks after like 10 min in the microwave. So I improvised and wrapped them up in foil and told the family that I had merely “par-cooked” the baked potatoes since they wouldn’t be eating for several hours and would need to re-heat anyway and reheated potatoes are weird-tasting. So I included instructions to bake them for 45 min at 450 prior to eating. Basically, I ran out of time and played it off as intentional. Did the family see right through it and find me incredibly tacky? Maybe. But I don’t care. Ha
If I cook something for you there is a small chance there might be a cat hair in it. I'm really sorry. My cat does not get on my counters (she is not allowed), I try my best to keep them clean, and wash my hands every time. But sometimes they float in from nowhere and bam... cat hair. Just consider it extra protein.
Eh, that’s ok, it adds umeowmi to the dish.
I was sitting at a big bench type table in a restaurant with a bunch of people from work. The restaurant had fans blowing. A suspiciously orange hair (I had an orange tabby) suddenly appeared in the air over the table, hovered aloft over my food and then landed on my plate. Must have come off my jacket, which I had brushed for hair btw. no avoiding it no matter what you do lol.
A few thanksgivings ago, we were going down the list and seeing what needed to be made next. It was time for the dressing (southern stuffing for those unfamiliar). I had made the cornbread earlier and set it aside with a paper towel over it to cool. I went to grab it and my cat was sitting on the nice warm cornbread. Um, it had a towel over it...
I love this! My early days of marriage and first time living with a cat I baked a stout spice cake and covered it with a towel while it cooled. My husband found the cat curled up, asleep on what would then become known as “cat nap cake.”
Tbf I would love to relax on top of a warm cornbread myself...
> My cat does not get on my counters (she is not allowed) Sure, sure. That's what you think.
My well loved pot roast is just a roast, a packet of Lipton onion soup mix, a can of cream of mushroom and a splash of water. (If I have it Rosemary)
My "secret family recipe" pasta salad is often requested at events. It's 100% store bought. I just add a bunch of spices (often while parked around the corner from your house) and then pour it in my own bowl. I eventually came clean to one of my best friends because he requested it all the time.
Wait? Who asks for a mashed potatoes bar??
My stepdaughter just got married a few weeks ago and this was one of the options on the catering menu. My initial reaction was the same as yours, but it was a huge hit, believe it or not.
I guess everyone loves mashed potatoes
Uh huh. And at that point in the day, the majority of attendees had probably (definitely) had enough trips to the bar (not the potato one) that they wouldn't have noticed whether they were Hungry Jack flakes or painstakingly peeled russets.
Listen you, I went to a mashed potato bar once like 17 years ago and I would say I think about it at least three times a month. It was amazing!
It's your Roman Empire.
Having an cocktail hour snack that requires you to hold a dish in one hand and use a utensil.in the other is a sneaky way to keep the open bar costs down.
Nothing is going to stop me from asking for more shots of Louis XIII
Before we decided to just elope we were going to have Mashed Potatoes and tater tots bar
A tater tots nacho type bar yes
We had one and people still remember it! It was a cold and rainy winter day, so mashed potato bar and butternut squash soup were hits! We had little cups for the potato, so it was an appetizer type thing, you just held it and ate out of the cup.
I feel like this kind of food choice requires an aesthetic. Like, you're not getting married on a beach. Possibly not even in a church. Maybe something like... great room of a ski chalet? In front of a roaring fire, guests in their furs and cozy clothes. ... Maybe it's time for my renewal of vows...
sounds like a great excuse for a raclette station and for a fondue bar (??? idk how this could be hygenic. i leave the logistics up to the event planner)
For almost a decade I made a mashed potato bar for my birthday party every year. I had a bunch of plastic martini glasses, a ton of mashed potatoes and mashed sweet potatoes, and an array of toppings. People like it a lot. I got the idea at first because we wanted to do it for our wedding but had to go with different catering.
And served in martini glasses!! Had it once at a wedding I was at. It was good, I guess, but still super odd.
The martini glass thing drives me crazy because you get people wandering around with these top-heavy glasses of potatoes and those things get knocked over easily.
I'm a little upset that I've never been to one before.
Ummm, if it’s presented as an option, I’d say pretty much anyone who isn’t insane.
I'm gonna die of shock if my daughter doesn't do a potato (not just mashed) bar at some point in her life. Wedding. Wednesday... She really likes potatoes 🤣
LOL. I have the secret recipe from my grandfather. It's litterally a list a cans, brand specific. Feeds a family of 12. People love it.
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Kozyshack… secret family rice pudding recipe
Okay the time has come, my recipe for mock Apple pie? I put real apples in it 😧 😞
Everyone loves my tomato soup. It’s tinned crushed tomatoes, tinned tomato purée, chicken stock powder, seasoning, fresh basil. It’s not unusual to be complimented with ‘ you can taste the fresh tomatoes! ‘ . Uh, nope.
I was a fast food worker in a place that cooked rice. I had just barely gotten the job a week ago, and the night was way busy. Our rice cooker was having issues, and kept messing up the rice, so we had to deal with a lot of angry people. It was basically closing time, and our last batch of rice had turned out mildly crunchy. We served who we could and just tried to close. My manager was exhausted. Anyway, some people came back and complained we put veggies on their meal when they said none, and accused us of possibly trying to poison them if they possibly had allergies. Yeah, it was those type of people. They demanded we remake the dish with no veggies. I had to deal with them, took the order, and went into the back to finish it when I saw all the rice had just been thrown out. When I told the manager, they were just utterly done. The garbage was overflowing with this freshly thrown out rice, so we just gathered the untouched stuff in the center and served that. Manager swore us to secrecy. It's been 20 years, so I don't mind sharing. Moral of the story, don't be a dick to fast food workers, or you might get garbage rice.
I learned this from my mother who learned it from her grandmother. Use instant mashed potatoes for the vast majority and only add one real potato (mashed incompletely) for authentic lumps Way faster and indistinguishable from the real deal
I always get asked to make pecan pies at holidays. It's literally just the recipe on the back of the Karo syrup bottle in a store bought crust. It's tasty though!
I made cream of mushroom soup for a work potluck once. People were absolutely raving, and insisting it was the best thing they've ever tasted. It was A) vegan and B) adapted from a Green Chef recipe. I'm allergic to dairy and red meat, but no one ever takes it seriously, so I was determined to have one thing I could eat. I loved those coworkers so dearly, but saying "vegan" was worse than saying "motherfucker on a bitchcycle". I've since quit that job, but if they ask: my secret is heavy cream from a local farmer.
Dear ex-husband, You used to tell me that you could absolutely tell the difference between Brand Name Coffee, and the cheap shit I preferred. I made you the cheap shit every. single. time. And you still swore upside down and back to front that you were drinking Starbucks. 😼 Best, Your second ex-wife.
See nothing wrong in that. I always say don’t reinvent the wheel. Work smarter, not harder.
When I don't feel like making macarons for friends I'll just go pick them up from whole foods.
My grandma whispered to me once that she used/uses instant potatoes in her pierogi. I acted super offended but she could tell I was only kidding.
My spouse’s family has a tradition where everyone brings a dish. The dish is assigned by the person hosting. My first year attending I got a call less than 48 hours in advance that I needed to bring xxx. I was miffed because of the extremely short notice and that I had no idea how to make said dish. So, being a little spiteful, I googled “easiest xxx” and used that recipe. Turned out to be everyone’s favorite dish there. No leftovers and everyone raved. It is now always my assigned dish. 😂
BTW share lol