Homemade or Made at Home?

I think there is a big difference between making something in your home and “homemade”. Judging from some of the “recipes” out there, clearly, a lot of people do not agree with me. Yes, that’s right, I’m going to rant…

Have you ever seen the commercial where the woman uses readymade pie dough, puts a can of pie filling in it and then tells her family it’s homemade? At the point where you haven’t actually made any part of the food it stops being homemade and you are probably better off just buying a frozen pie and heating it up. I mean why go through the motions to end up with something that tastes like a frozen ready to bake pie? That commercial makes me feel a ridiculous irrational rage. I hate it that her family is so deprived of real food that they can no longer tell the difference between homemade and from a can and that she thinks she is making “homemade” pie. I know you are thinking that I’m being silly, that it is a commercial and that family is only actors and that real people are not that stupid. I wish I could agree with that, I really do.

I know some people would argue that “homemade” is anything you make at home. Others might say that the phrase “homemade” is anything you make at home like a cake made from a box with a can of frosting. I mean you did make, it wasn’t bought ready to eat. Some people think adding “from scratch” as in the phrase “homemade from scratch” is the definer. But by that same line of reasoning, cookie dough you buy premade and spoon out and bake is homemade and so is canned soup. I mean you can make a sandwich out of storebought bread and precooked & sliced meat but you don’t go around saying “I made you a homemade sandwich”. Do you? No, you say “I made you a sandwich”. Maybe it is just my opinion that you should be able to say “I made this” and be telling the truth as long as you don’t say it is homemade because to me “homemade” implies that it is from scratch.

I get so tired of going to a recipe site to find a recipe for something only to see that the first ingredient is “a box of cake mix”. I am shocked that anyone considers anything that includes a box of cake mix a recipe, but I’m even more shocked that hundreds of people that leave comments like “this is the best cake I’ve ever had” or “this is my Grandmother’s Secret Recipe”. OMG? Your secret family recipe is a box of cake mix? That’s just sad, in fact, it’s incredibly sad and have you ever thought about a career in TV commercials?

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against boxed cake mixes. They taste nice, they are cheap and I do use them. I also use ready made dough and I eat canned soup but I don’t claim them to be homemade. I know I can make fully homemade things that will probably taste better but if I’m cooking a large meal or just have a whim craving then I appreciate them for what they are, time savers and shortcuts.  I just don’t need a “recipe” to tell me to put canned pie filling and defrosted non-dairy whip topping on a follow the directions on a box of cake mix “recipe”. To me, that is not a recipe it is a serving suggestion and should be labeled as such.

I like it that my 5-year-old Granddaughter is excited about “making dinner” by rolling hot dogs in premade refrigerator crescent rolls. I like it that a can of tomato soup and a grill-cheese sandwich is comfort food I can make in less than 10 minutes. I also like it that if I tried to pass off a pie made with ready-made pie dough and canned pie filling, my whole family would know the difference.

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