A few times in class I have mentioned food from the box and typical of a culinary school you receive a few stares. Not interest, but disbelief. The students may have only just entered the industry now or have worked in a kitchen since their teens, but they have already decided that box or frozen is bad food.
I’d like to say that I agree yet I really don’t. If I worked in a restaurant or had my own I would definitely want fresh food. Sauce I’ve jarred myself, steak I’ve cut myself, and even cake I’ve bought fresh from my bakery supplier. At home is a different story.
Sometimes you just don’t have the time or the money for everything to be whipped up from a recipe book. You’d like to peel, boil and mash those potatoes yourself but that night you don’t have the time and boiling a pot of milk and water and mixing in dehydrated potato flakes is just a little easier. Or even buying the bag of carrots is cheaper than the canned but you’re not sure if you’re going to use them all that week and they’re just going to go bad before you can, which in the end makes the canned cheaper.
Hamburger Helper may not be from scratch, but it doesn’t seem to be injected with strange chemicals and if it tastes good it makes it good food. So why not enjoy the food you can with the money and time you’re given?
For me I don’t have a whole lot of money or time, so once or twice a week I try to make food from scratch. Whether it’s a simple side dish like risotto or a whole meal like Salisbury steak, I like to make it to improve my skills and it tastes good. When time is short I don’t mind cooking a frozen lasagna or following the instructions on a taco kit as long as I make a goal to try something new each week.
Perhaps for others in my position you can do the same. Make a goal to every week or every other week make something fresh. Plan it out so you have all the tools, ingredients and time you need to slowly follow the instructions and not make a mistake. And for those who can’t, don’t feel bad about frozen food, if you can afford something tasty that fills your families stomachs than you can feel quite fortunate since there are many who can’t.
Well that’s my spiel on frozen food. This Friday I will once again be discussing what I did in class this week. Cooking won’t be all we’re doing since during lab we will be taking apart a whole lamb and half a pig, so I shall leave that discussion to the end of the post in hopes to relieve weak stomach from the pictures I shall show.
Attempting To Master The Knife 