I've only relatively recently moved away from the Near East stuff, etc.- mostly because I can make a HUGE pot of, say Mexican rice for ony a bit more than the prefab mixes cost, assuming I buy everything on sale. Plus- the mixes have gotten way too salty for us anymore; I don't tend to use much salt when cooking (J has recently been told he may have a blood pressure issue, but I've known for ages that his mom does), so prefab and restaurant stuff tends to be too fatty and too salty for anything but a special one-off for us. Even though I do sometimes salt my food before eating. :P
Also- the more from-scratch I cook, the more chemical the prefab stuff tastes.
Now: I still do like it sometimes. Sometimes what I WANT is a frozen pizza, or buffalo wings, etc... but any more they're not as good as they ought to be, so I'm looking for homemade versions. I'm still on the fence with the pizza: the prefab isn't as good as I want, by my own stuff doesn't hit the right buttons, for some reason. Dumb! I do like frozen hot wings upon occasion, though... and these are not, on sale, really more pricey than buying the damn overpriced raw wings myself, which is stupid. But that's another issue.
In general- the more I cook, the better I like my own cooking and the less enticing other cooking is.
If you're looking for a good set of tasty and non-pre-fab recipes, I like Cook's Country magazine- they have mostly easy stuff, NO cream of whatever soup, and pretty fast, easy and REALLY good. I do tend to cut the fat appreciably, by the way. And the salt.
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Also- the more from-scratch I cook, the more chemical the prefab stuff tastes.
Now: I still do like it sometimes. Sometimes what I WANT is a frozen pizza, or buffalo wings, etc... but any more they're not as good as they ought to be, so I'm looking for homemade versions. I'm still on the fence with the pizza: the prefab isn't as good as I want, by my own stuff doesn't hit the right buttons, for some reason. Dumb! I do like frozen hot wings upon occasion, though... and these are not, on sale, really more pricey than buying the damn overpriced raw wings myself, which is stupid. But that's another issue.
In general- the more I cook, the better I like my own cooking and the less enticing other cooking is.
If you're looking for a good set of tasty and non-pre-fab recipes, I like Cook's Country magazine- they have mostly easy stuff, NO cream of whatever soup, and pretty fast, easy and REALLY good. I do tend to cut the fat appreciably, by the way. And the salt.