Do you really want to eat this s**t instead of real cooking?

I’m afraid I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks – sadly there have been not one but two deaths in my real man’s family and we have been both very busy and very sad, also away from home.

As I haven’t cooked much this seems a good opportunity to have a bit of a rant about something that has been irritating me for about 20 years, especially as I am already in a really bad mood – why don’t people do real cooking?

British cooks seem to have a bad rap in the States which I feel to be ironic to say the least and just one of several reasons this is ironic is the prevalence of “recipes” like these in books, magazines and on the web rather than real cooking.

Creamy Pineapple Dessert kind of Thing!

1 large can crushed or chunk pineapple with juice
1 large box sugar free, fat free vanilla pudding mix 
8 oz cool whip

~   Mix together and chill.

Vanilla pudding mix contains …

modified food starch, less than 2% of natural and artificial
flavour, salt, disodium phosphate and tetrasodiam pyrophosphate,
mono and diglyceries, yellow 5, yellow 6, articificial colour, BHA

Cool Whip contains… 

hydrogenated vegetable oil, high fructose corn syrup,
corn syrup, skimmed milk, light cream, and less than
2% sodium caseinate, natural and artificial flavour, xanthan
and guar gums, polysorbate 60, sorbitan monostearate,
and beta carotene

Why not just do this?  

~   Drain the pineapple well.
~   Whisk some double or heavy cream together with a few drops of vanilla extract or rum plus sugar to taste. Icing (confectioners) sugar will make for a smooth finish but soft brown sugar will add more flavour.
~   Fold in the pineapple and chill till needed.

Even better make this Caramelised Pineapple Rum Sauce and fold into whipped cream (home whipped, not the spray stuff!).

Incredible (no kidding!) Melted Ice-Cream Cake

Here is the list of ingredients which is all I need to make my point – you can find the recipe here, on the highly esteemed American Epicurious site.

vegetable oil spray for misting the pan
flour for dusting the pan
1 package (18.25 ounces) plain white cake mix
2 cups melted ice cream, your choice of flavor
3 large eggs
Chocolate Marshmallow Frosting

I’m not sure about the above recipe but I have made cake from melted ice cream and all I did was mix about 165g self-raising flour into 225g of ice cream (melted). Sometimes I have added something else as appropriate – chocolate chips, fruit, nuts etc.  Bake for about 40-45 minutes at 180ºC/350°F/160ºC fan/gas 4.

Speaking of plain white cake mix (they have yellow cake mix too) how about this little beauty?

Why not just make a cake?  There’s loads of quick and easy recipes about, like this simple sponge cake from the Beeb.

A “recipe” for Strawberry Fudge 

This was said to contain just two “ ingredients ” …

Candy Melts contain …

sugar, partially hydrogenated palm kernel oil, whole milk solids,
non-fat dry milk solids, emulsifier (E122), salt, artificial vanilla flavour 

Having read a bit about Candy Melts  it seems that some good white chocolate makes a far superior alternative.

The frosting contains …

sugar, partially hydrogenated vegetable oil, corn syrup, corn starch,
color added Including red 40, salt, mono- and diglycerides,
modified corn starch, artificial flavor, polysorbate 60,
potassium sorbate, soy lecithin, citric acid, sodium citrate

I don’t have an alternative recipe immediately to hand but think I might prefer no fudge to all that stuff! 

Beef “Casserole”

So far all my examples have been for sweet things but savoury dishes suffer from the same perviness.

Many American recipes call for a can of chicken (or sometimes mushroom) soup as the liquid  and I can see that this could work depending on what is in the soup, of course – so perhaps not in this case; beef “casserole” with chicken soup in it!!!

Incidentally “ casserole ” means something different in the US to the UK, generally speaking here we mean a stew and there they mean a baked dish often with a cripsy topping.  See here for how to make a real stew, braise or casserole. 

1½ lbs ground beef
8 oz sour cream
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese
2 cans cream of chicken soup
½ an onion
2 canned corn
1 pkg Crispy Crowns (frozen)

Crispy Crowns contain …

potatoes, vegetable oil, salt, corn flour, dextrose, disodium dihydrogen pyrophosphate, onions, natural flavoring, corn maltodextrin and autolysed yeast

This sort of thing is, of course, no way restricted to th USA. Have a look here for the incredible number of ingredients in a simple bag of croutons in a spermarket in England plus how to make much better an healthier croutons for a fraction of the price.

Anyhoo – that’s enough of that and you get the gist.  I started looking up some of the longer words and read of cancer and liver enlargement, autism and so on – scary.

Why, oh why, would anyone make “food” from so many chemicals when real cooking is not that difficult, probably cheaper and you know what’s gone into it? I did see one recipe that boasted …

“no flour or fancy measuring required, because we’re using cake mix”

So maybe that’s the problem; fear of measuring – cowards!  

Eating pure real food is just one of 7 Excellent Reasons to Learn to Cook – have a look here.

In Other News …

Still lovely weather down here in Cornwall – our primroses are still in flower and this is Charlestown this afternoon.

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