Remember when dumping a can of tomatoes and a bag of lentils made dinner for 3 days?

I keep seeing people buy pre-seasoned rice packets and $7 jars of sauce when a $1 bag of lentils and a $0.79 can of crushed tomatoes can stretch into 4 meals with just some salt and garlic powder, has anybody else noticed how many folks forgot the basics in the last couple years?

3 comments

3 Comments

reed.skyler1mo ago

and honestly the real issue is that people don't know how to stock a basic pantry anymore because cooking content online makes everything look like a 15 minute tiktok recipe with 12 ingredients. a bag of lentils and canned tomatoes feels "boring" when every influencer is pushing gochujang paste and truffle oil. the basics still work, they just don't get the views.

marywilson1mo ago

Ain't that the truth though?

sage3081mo ago

marywilson you're so right. i actually read something the other day about how the average home cook only rotates like 10-12 recipes at most, but social media makes it feel like you're failing if you're not making galbi or something fancy every night. that article said most people grew up eating stuff like spaghetti with jar sauce, chili from a packet, or a rotisserie chicken mashed up with whatever canned veg was on sale. those meals are fine and they work and they're what got us through the week. now its like you need a pantry that costs $200 to restock just to make one soup recipe from a food blogger. the basics do still work, they just got drowned out by all the noise. i'm still cooking with canned tomatoes and bulk lentils and i'm not sorry about it.