Just Heat 'n' Serve!
Obviously, I have nothing against freshly prepard food, made from scratch with quality ingredients. More accurately, it's pretty much an obsession. I also like fine dining and am an appalling snob for chi-chi gastronomic indulgences like truffles, sashimi, soft rind cheeses from France, and oysters. I'm not telling you anything you don't already know.
But really, sometimes nothing will quite do like some kind of mass produced "food" straight out of the box or can. I would like to know what crappola you like to eat, the only qualification being that you should be able to stand by the idea that making the dish/item fresh would just be a disappointing shame.
Here's my list:
* Canned tomato soup - I make it with half a can of milk, and half water, and I could in all seriousness eat it three nights a week in the winter. I don't, because it's just drinkable ketchup, but I could.
* Supermarket tubs of pasta salad - my pasta salad is never that good, mainly because it's usually way too posh, has too many real, healthy vegies in it, and lacks that creamy/sweet thing that the pre-bought stuff has going on.
* KFC Coleslaw - I'm just starting to gross you out now, aren't I?
* Canned Baked Beans - I made my own last year in my crock pot with molasses, a smoked bacon bone and all sorts of other delicious things. I ate them for a few days, then couldn't cope with the flavour overload anymore. I think there's nothing quite like a dinner of canned baked beans, and hot, buttered toast on a rainy night.
* Canned Braised Steak and Onions - I'll admit this is the worst of them all. No one on earth likes this product except me. It's all due to good-will BS&O fostered with me on many Army Cadet and Wilderness camping trips when I was growing up. I had the huge fortune in those days to have a sort of jaffle iron (grilled sandwich iron) which you could stick into a camp fire to make toasted sandwiches which were really more like little pies in that the grilling process clamped the whole thing shut. Everyone wanted to be my friend because of that thing - while everyone else was trying to heat can of beans in pathetic, passive-aggressive little embers, I was making delicious pie thingies with my jaffle iron. BS&O was standard Australian Army Cadet issue food - looks like dog food, homogenous, and just plain strange in concept. But can I tell you - in those jaffles things, it was the king. I still buy BS&O every now and make jaffles to recapture the whole experience.
* Curry Rice-a-Riso - So yummy. The best thing if you don't feel like doing much more than mixing a packet with water and heating it up. I think they call this Rice-a-Roni in America. I know you'll think "Hey, why not just mix orzo and rice and cook it up with your own flavourings - can it really be that hard?" Well no - but for some reason, the seasoning in this particular product is yummy. It's perfect for eating while on a coach watching some awful shite made-for-TV movie with a name like "Who Will Bring Baby Home?" (these movies usually star the Rise-a-Riso of actresses, Valerie Bertinelli or Judith Light)
I'm sure I can think of more...
Now you.