Actually, this is 'real life' cooking

Does you mom tart up these thrown-together meals with a new "tablescape" from the craft store every night? And give you drinks that are 80% alcohol to wash it down? And say that a sauce based on Campbell's soup is just as good as one made with fresh ingredients?

Really, it's not that the food is so bad, it's that Lee presents it so ludicrously - as if she's going to serve it at an Society dinner party.

Maybe she does. I'm sure her guests have no sense of taste after drinking those wierd cocktails!

wow Giada's recipes actually are neither that difficult nor that expensive.
I'm glad you like-that's what is important, right?
I have never been fond of Ms. Lee's cooking to be frank. I've posted it before and I'm just not a fan of using a lot of prepackaged convenience foods. The recipes are filled with unhealthy ingredients. She seems beholden to too many ingredients that are high in fat and sodium, as well as chemicals, additives, artificial flavors, colors and preservatives and also cost a lot more then scratch foods. This woman adds fat, additives, and preservatives when there is not need at all. For example, she adds mayonnaise to store bought salad dressing, basically for no reason. But most of all, she is advocating that packaged foods are the way to go. That is simply not good. I'm not accustomed to drowning my chicken in cream-of-whatever soup. I'm the type who will make her own pasta if she has time and likes using fresh ingredients. She is a queen of Velveeta processed, hydrogenated mediocrity. There's no ingenuity, no creativity in her ideas. It's as if she, a food writer, cares so little about food that she puts convenience and conventionality above flavor. Why on Earth would "nothing is made from scratch" be a selling point for a cookbook?
I liked most things fresh and from scratch. It was how my mom cooked and my grandmother and how I do. I suppose we like the food we grew up with. I for one sing the praises of scratch cooking. Food cooked using real ingredients is more digestible than prepackaged meals. Food cooked from scratch contains fewer of the chemicals foreign to our bodies. Scratch cooking lowers grocery bills. Lastly, and most importantly, food prepared from scratch just plain tastes better than those plastic- encapsulated, reconstituted, freezer-to-microwave meals. At least it tastes better in my house. I think people are just intimidated by the idea of cooking from scratch and they shouldn't be. It really is cheaper, tastes better and is better for you.
I sincerely hope that she is not the icon for how the average household cooks.


To A.N.-I really, truly, madly, deeply, passionately, remarkably, deliciously love you.

I agree. It's easier to save substantially on their grocery bills if they will switch from boxed – or prepared foods – to cooking from scratch. With food prices rising, I have found that my budget is barely effected because I have always cooked fresh. My husband and I haven't gained weight in years because of a balanced diet, and we are in great health. Most people don't like to cook after work because of the time factor, but most simple dishes take less than an hour, and most of what I make takes less than 1/2 hour. Leave the complicated recipes for weekends and the crock pot! Also, with farmer's markets throughout the county, it is easy to find a variety of vegetables and spices to please even the most die-hard veggie-hater!

Scratch-cooked food tastes fuller, fresher and more satisfying. I’m not talking about showy, chi-chi recipes. I mean simple meals made with seasonal ingredients put together by someone who cares. (A thoughtless, ill-prepared meal is almost worse than none at all.) Once you take time to learn and practice cooking basics, you’ll find your pestos, pastas and puddings hold up to—or beat—any pre-made convenience food and most restaurant repasts.

Home-cooked food is healthier than convenience meals. You control what goes into your body. You select the fresh, organic, seasonal, grassfed or other preferred ingredients. You measure the oil, salt, sugar and cream in each recipe. And scratch-cooked meals don’t—by definition—include commercially processed items. So you’re assured the fat molecules in your olive oil haven’t been re-arranged in a lab, heated to Inferno-esque temperatures and injected with dubiously stable hydrogen. Your sauces, pastas, condiments and desserts aren’t loaded with high fructose corn syrup. And the flavor of your dishes comes from real food, not test tube-created texturizers, enhancers, emulsifiers and preservatives. When you select and cook food with your own hands, you eliminate a load of known—and unknown–food dangers.

You’ll spend far less buying and preparing your own food than eating take-out and convenience dishes. And that holds true even if you eat high-end organic, imported or specialty foods—the restaurant or take-out equivalent will always cost more. A lot more.

Food preparation is a process. It takes time. It requires participation. There are no instantaneous results. You have to plan meals, shop, tote groceries, unpack items, set aside half an hour to cook. You engage with the food you eat. I don’t think it’s going too far to say, you develop a relationship with food. You start to understand its textures, tastes and idiosyncracies. You may find yourself wondering about your foods’ origins—it’s plant and animal sources—and your relationship with them. By handling food every day, you’re given the opportunity to be mindful. You open a daily window that allows you to consider your interconnectedness with something greater than yourself. You don’t get that kind of take-away from a frozen burrito.

I remember feeling shocked a few years back when I realized how few friends and neighbors cooked dinner. Ever. In my affluent suburb cooking had become optional. Some parents saw food preparation as an onerous chore. Others caved to kids’ pizza and fried-food cravings. And some parents simply didn’t know how to cook. You know how you feel disturbed when you hear about a species going extinct? I felt the same kind of quiet panic over lost cooking skills. My vague anxiety over home-cooking’s demise was scary. I want busy people like you and me to make time for body-and-soul nourishing meals made by our own hands.

Sandra Lee is peddling lies under the disguise of 'convenience'. And I agree that I would never entertain with her recipes. I would sooner just have McDonalds cater.

Filthy victorians, they made me what I'm made of

I don't have a problem with taking shortcuts, necessarily. For some things, it makes sense. I use cake mixes and ready-made pie shells (esp the graham-cracker types), for example. I do that because it saves me time and I know that I'm not a good enough baker to produce a significantly better product from scratch. And most of us have had those days when we reached for the Potato Buds or a Bob Evans pre-cooked side dish because we just didn't have the time or the energy to do it ourselves.

My issue with Sandra Lee is that in trying to be the culinary equivalent of "Hints from Heloise", she takes the concept much too far and (IMHO) ends up with finished dishes that: A) are likely to take as long and cost just as much (if not more) than doing it from scratch; and B) Not very appetizing.


Each to their own, though.

I can assure you that my mom entertained a lot too and as a RN she didn't have a lot of time to cook things from scratch either. BUT she never gutted an apple pie and a cheesecake and then poured them into mini angel food cake shells using a plastic sandwich bag and mixed in Cool Whip.

That is not semi-homemade!