3 ms·

Well yeah, that's why you don't buy pre-made stuff. It makes me feel like some sort of weird Zen-master to say this, but you don't need that. It's super overki

Well yeah, that's why you don't buy pre-made stuff. It makes me feel like some sort of weird Zen-master to say this, but you don't need that. It's super overkill, not every meal has to be this thing with 500 ingredients like a budget version of what a high end restaurant might serve. "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar.

dragonwriter 7y ago
> "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. If you have decent prep skills, you can prep the ingredients for a basic sauce of the type in question fairly quickly, but it still needs to be cooked, which is more involved than bringing a canned sauce up to serving temp. It's a lot more work than emptying a jar, when you consider prep, cooking, and added cleanup.
- esotericn 7y ago
  In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. I dunno, I don't subscribe to this 'hyper-optimize all the things' mindset, you're already in the kitchen anyway, it's a normal thing for humans to do.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. Yeah, and it would be wrong to suggest the opposite, just as it was when you did it for homemade sauce.
    - esotericn 7y ago
      My specific quote: > It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. Because it doesn't. Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. You know just as well as I do that this is silly, we both exist in the real world and know how long things take, and you know the point I'm trying to make. Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. Making the complete dish does not take the same amount of time either way, even ignoring added cleanup; the prep+cooking time of a from-scratch sauce is greater than the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta (while bringing premade sauce to temperature does not), so even though it can be parallelized (which may be problematic if you are already multitasking, e.g., supervising children while making dinner, as a prepping and cooking a from-scratch sauce also takes more attention than reheating premade), it definitely adds before-serving time. It also adds cleanup time. I’ve got two young kids, and cook pasta with premade sauces (often, sauce I previously made from scratch, but sometimes store bought) and with scratch-made-at-the-same-time sauces each fairly regularly. > Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever. I did nothing but scratch-made sauces, mostly in parallel with cooking the pasta, for several years before having kids; I now use store bought between a third and half the time. It's absolutely because of the delta in work involved, which is not mere seconds.

dragonwriter 7y ago

> "Sauce" (saying that word without a qualifier makes me kind of shudder) is a tin of chopped tomatoes, an onion, and maybe some spices. Done. It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. If you have decent prep skills, you can prep the ingredients for a basic sauce of the type in question fairly quickly, but it still needs to be cooked, which is more involved than bringing a canned sauce up to serving temp. It's a lot more work than emptying a jar, when you consider prep, cooking, and added cleanup.

esotericn 7y ago
In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. I dunno, I don't subscribe to this 'hyper-optimize all the things' mindset, you're already in the kitchen anyway, it's a normal thing for humans to do.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > In the same vein, brushing your teeth is more work than not, cleaning the table is more work than leaving it, etc. Yeah, and it would be wrong to suggest the opposite, just as it was when you did it for homemade sauce.
  - esotericn 7y ago
    My specific quote: > It barely takes longer than emptying a jar. Because it doesn't. Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. You know just as well as I do that this is silly, we both exist in the real world and know how long things take, and you know the point I'm trying to make. Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > Making pasta takes the same amount of time either way. Making the complete dish does not take the same amount of time either way, even ignoring added cleanup; the prep+cooking time of a from-scratch sauce is greater than the time it takes to boil water and cook the pasta (while bringing premade sauce to temperature does not), so even though it can be parallelized (which may be problematic if you are already multitasking, e.g., supervising children while making dinner, as a prepping and cooking a from-scratch sauce also takes more attention than reheating premade), it definitely adds before-serving time. It also adds cleanup time. I’ve got two young kids, and cook pasta with premade sauces (often, sauce I previously made from scratch, but sometimes store bought) and with scratch-made-at-the-same-time sauces each fairly regularly. > Realistically people don't do these things because it's not habit, or because their workplace has no cooking facilites, not because of some epsilon seconds longer on meal prep or whatever. I did nothing but scratch-made sauces, mostly in parallel with cooking the pasta, for several years before having kids; I now use store bought between a third and half the time. It's absolutely because of the delta in work involved, which is not mere seconds.