What an utter crock. It's called planning ahead. I make a huge sauce on the weekends, and freeze it so we could have pasta during the week. I've been a working mom for almost 20 years and have never used a jar of sauce. If you like it, that's fine. But don't use lack of time as an excuse.

Lilo, I love homemade macaroni and cheese and stuffing. However, I really like Kraft mac and cheese and Stove Top, too. That orange paste is hard to resist, man.

When I don't do it from scratch, my "planning ahead" is buying a couple quarts of fresh sauce at the Italian deli down the street before they close at 6PM.

(Here I thought I was gonna get railed for eating ravioli out of a can )

Geoffy, no one is saying you have to make a big pot of gravy with all the meats and everything. But you can make a marinara sauce in almost as little time as it takes to boil the water for your pasta. Fry a little garlic in some olive oil, when it's getting nice and light brown add a can or two of good crushed tomatoes, season it with a little salt, pepper and oregano, and throw in some fresh basil if you can get your hands on it. It's done in half an hour. By the time the water comes to a boil, your sauce is done. And it beats the HELL out of anything you'll get out of a jar .

You use CANNED tomatoes??!!! J/K

I know, but I prefer a meat sauce (which, of course, in a pinch I could just add ground meat to it and be done with it) but for $7-8/qt it's just easier to pick it up from the deli (and cheaper then some of the "top" jarred sauces ) ... (unless, of course, I plan to spend the day making Bolognese, which is outstanding )

Hey, everyone has their guilty pleasures. Mine is Kraft Mac N Cheese. But NEVER jarred sauce.

As for PB's recipe above, be careful not to burn your garlic because it will get bitter. And add some onion to it, too. It's really delicious.

Kraft Mac N Cheese isn't bad, unlike the store/generic brands.

Since college I've been making Tuna Mac from a recipe I saw on the box years ago. It's pretty good, and slightly modified by myself:

To prepared Mac N Cheese, add (while simmering on low):
1 can condensed Campbells Cream of Mushroom (only thing Campbells is good for)
1 can or pouch of tuna (with its water; oil is gross!)
1/2-1 cup frozen peas (small can if you must); I boil the peas w/ the macaroni
Sometimes I'll add a sliced-into but whole clove of garlic into the boiling water, then crush it into the dish when mixing it together
Some additional milk to proper consistency (about 1/4 cup)
Sometimes I'll melt a slice or two of American cheese in there to make it cheesier

Season to taste
Heat and Eat!

I tried it with a can of salmon once, and it was interesting. A bit too much, though.

Funny that you mention frozen peas. Peas are the only canned vegetable I will eat. The frozen ones seem like BBs to me, no matter how long I cook them.

But unlike canned peas, frozen peas actually taste like PEAS

Speaking of Mac & Cheese, tuna and peas...that is one of my favorite concoctions. Make a box of mac & cheese, drain a can of Albacore tuna and drain a can of peas and mix all together. It may not sound too good but it is very yummy!

I agree. Frozen peas are much more flavorful than canned. They are a bit crunchy, though.

Andrew Cuomo and Sandra Lee.
NYT Article

Ms. Lee has her detractors. Her suggestion that homemade food is an overrated luxury, to be circumvented with can-openers and boxes of Duncan Hines, has predictably appalled some purists. In one episode of her show, she complained about having to chop mushrooms herself because the grocery store did not have them presliced.

“The woman makes Rachael Ray look artisanal,” one blogger quipped.

I know that she's received her fair amount of criticism, but the truth is, many families in the US have two working parents. That doesn't leave too much time for home-ccoked meals, and many people will end up at the drive-through window or having Domino's deliver. At least she offers some sort of solution to fat-, sodium- and calorie-laden fast food.

I've only caught her show a few times SB but it seems like she sure does like the cocktails.

It was like every commercial break the camera would come back and find her with some sort of alcoholic beverage..

Are you too young to remember Graham Kerr and his show "The Galloping Gourmet"?? Even as a kid, I loved to watch it because he would inevitably go through a significant amount of wine on each show and end up fairly well soused at times! I'm pretty sure that measuring that wine consumption was why many people tuned in!

How can she call homemade food a luxury, then complain when the store is out of pre-sliced mushrooms, when pre-sliced mushrooms cost almost twice what whole mushrooms cost?

Must be nice being a millionaire who's dating a millionaire, right?

And FYI: It takes me less than one minute to slice a basket of white mushrooms. If it takes her more than two, she's a friggin palsy.

Yup that was a bit before my time..

The 70s, Lilo?

Aah, you were too busy watching "Gilligan's Island" reruns .

In the early seventies it would have been Electric Company reruns..

How about ZOOM?

Z-double O-M
Boston Mass 0-2-1-3-4

"Send it to Zoom!"

OMG!!! I just seen this. Are you sure you want people to know this? Remember I got made fun of for eating Spaghettio's. LOL

Chef Boyardee is a chef, he knows what he's doing!

When I was in college and worked at a outdoor sporting goods store - everyday on my lunch break I would buy a can of mini-ravioi. I would open it up with my handy-dandy swiss army knife and eat it while sitting underneath a train trestle watching the trains go by.

Did somebody mention "Spaghetti-o's" AND "Chef Boyardee" in the same post?!?!
Where the heck is Don Cardi when we need him most?!? He would know how to handle this!

From NYDailynews

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has promised to take on the special interests if elected governor, but there's one fight he won't get involved with: The food fight between his mom and girlfriend over the best way to make lasagna.

"On this issue I'm going to be very, very careful," Cuomo told Albany's Talk 1300-AM Wednesday morning. "Since the campaign started for me...this is the toughest issue I've had to deal with."

Cuomo's mother, the state's former First Lady Matilda Cuomo, made headlines when she dismissed the lasagna recipe of her son's girlfriend, TV chef Sandra Lee. She uses cottage cheese and tomato soup.

Mama Cuomo insists lasagna must have fresh ricotta cheese and red sauce.
The AG refused take a side in the food fight.
"Lasagna is like politics, everybody gets an opinion," he said. "Everybody's right, nobody's wrong."

Still, he defended his sweetie's use of tomato soup, which he likened to "tomato sauce, but in a different form."

Using the soup, he added, has fewer calories.
"Sandy's cooking is very good cooking," he said. "My mother's cooking is very good cooking. As an independent Democrat, I eat everybody's lasagna. I eat conservative's lasagna, I eat liberal lasagna."

He wouldn't say directly if he actually eats his girlfriend's lasagna.

"Sandra makes a beautiful lasagna. My mother makes a beautiful lasagna."

Cuomo joked that Lee's upbringing in the Midwest may have made it hard to get her hands on good ricotta cheese.
"I thought she was very industrious, Sandy, coming with cottage cheese when she couldn't come up with ricotta cheese."
Asked whether he will serve his mom's recipe or his girlfriend's at his campaign fund-raisers, Cuomo played it right down the line, saying he'll serve both.

"50-50, right down the middle of the plate," Cuomo said.

Lasagne made with cottage cheese and tomato soup? There are parts of Italy where you would be flogged for such a suggestion. Still.

I'm actually offended as an Italian American, Lilo . But it's not my problem; I don't have to eat it .

After seeing the picture of that fat woman and reading about the tomato soup, I think that I threw up in my mouth a little.

Babe, I bet it taste better than that cottage cheese/tomato soup lasagna, eh?