45 Food Essentials You Can Make Yourself (But Never Thought You Could)

planetgreen.discovery.com:

There are many food items that people regularly buy that they could make at home; healthier, cheaper, and tastier. In days past people did not run to the store every time they needed ketchup or baking powder, they made what they needed themselves from basic materials. You can do the same. How many of the following items have you made from scratch?

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Comments

[RadCenter]

12:49 PM on 10/19/2009

I once told my teenage niece that I was making my own mayonnaise, and she acted as if I had said I was building my own internal combustion engine. It's really not that hard, I explained, plus I know what ingredients have gone into it, and I can make only the amount I need instead of having to buy a big jar that may spoil by the time I use it all. Some of the items on this list I can see myself making; others, not so much. But isn't it nice to know you could if you wanted to?

[truthartbeauty]

08:12 AM on 10/18/2009

No one needs to eat meat. It is a depraved and unneccessary cruel act by weak men.

[Sing Out and Slap Iron]

01:02 PM on 10/18/2009

Beings, that is!

[Mogamboguru]

01:58 PM on 10/18/2009

Not true. Eating meat changed apes into humans.

Without eating meat, we wouldn't be, who we are.

[NoSillyName]

03:30 PM on 10/18/2009

There is that theory, but gee, aren't we special? Not many other creatures foul their own nest.

[NilesCrane]

06:35 AM on 10/18/2009

8 simple steps to make candy corn? really? like seriously? Im going to make candy corn?...or I can go to the store and buy them for half of what I would spend on ingredients, and save myself an hour or more of likely heartbreak and failure.

and 11 easy steps to make nutella, not counting the difficulty of finding whole hazelnuts (which I recently tried to do while making a martha stewart 30 crepe hazelnut cake) with the skin, and the fact that its very expensive. I could go buy the 4 dollar jar in less than half the time it takes to preheat my oven to 400 degrees...

and dont even bother looking up how you make mustard...the amount of crap you need to make it will not only quadruple the cost of a bottle of mustard, but you might as well read war and peace instead because it will be much shorter than the recipe....

But I did find a couple of fun ones, like corn flakes, so easy but very unappetizing, and mascarpone cheese was simple, but again who eats it?

[kareemachan]

02:14 PM on 10/18/2009

Go to a Costco (or whatever) and buy 3 lbs of hazelnuts for around $8. They freeze nicely. As for the rest of your comments, some of us like to know what's in our food - and be able to pronounce it - and know it's healthy for us. I personally find much joy in cooking, and believe me, I've never heard my family complain about it!

[Cybrie]

12:09 AM on 01/30/2010

Everyone knows that homemade stuff tastes better than store bought 99% percent of the time. Plus if you want to safe yourself from ingesting a dozen chemical preservatives, leavening agents, thickening agents etc. that you can't pronounce, why not?

[naschkatze]

11:18 PM on 10/17/2009

Really? Except for the animal killing ones, I've made quite a few of these things, and very easy it is.

[wietog]

04:35 PM on 10/17/2009

These are called RECIPES. They are all around us. It's no mystery.

And frankly, of COURSE we could make these.

We simply do not have the time.

Plus, purchasing all the ingredients and equipment necessary hike up the price. If we only need a little bit at a time, why go to all this trouble?

Really now.

These can be fun projects, but only a way of life for the Amish who don't have to fight their cell phone bills or get their oil changed.

[kareemachan]

02:23 PM on 10/18/2009

Here's one way to have time: get off the computer and put your time to better use! (And here I am, on the computer....but I also make many of these things.) I haven't bought bread for years, nor preserves and pickles, mustards, etc. And if you get your ingredients in bulk or at a store where you can bag your own (spices are MUCH cheaper this way), the price is either comparable or less. But I love to cook, so that does make me a tad prejudiced about it.

[sabelmouse]

11:44 AM on 10/17/2009

i knew how to make quite a few of these things. but then, i am old.

[KIVPossum]

04:21 AM on 10/19/2009

heheh, my thought exactly.