Hehe. In the zombie apocalypse, I should be armed with a bat or a machete. ;-)
We don’t really have that sort of display over here, at least not in the major supermarkets in cities*. All the suggested recipe stuff is on the websites (and as a result usually pushes the own-brand products). Actual in-store space is just used to display more goods.
- It’s possible some out of town supermarkets have them, but on the rare occasions I’ve been in them recently I don’t recall seeing any.
Well, there’s a maximum air ratio of 50% in ice cream anyway. With the exception of premium ice creams like Haagen Daaz, ben + jerry’s, they are pretty much all gonna be 50% air.
I did the math to compare price and ice cream ratios ignoring the air, and found dense haagen daaz sold at the same price as the cheap ice creams.
And that’s probably before you look at lite ice-creams, the ones that you can feel weigh nothing and in addition add fake sugars. I am not even sure why they add the fake stuff… it’s half the product anyway so sure, less calories. Don’t let the hype fool anyone… it’s diet ice-cream.
If you want hard ice cream then you should get some of those high protein/low fat ice creams like Halo Top - a whole pint of some flavors is like 280 calories, so they’re sort of designed with people gorging themselves in mind.
And they’re plenty hard - if you take it out of the freezer and try to dig into it, you’ll likely bust a spoon. You need to let it sit out for like 10 minutes or microwave it for 20 seconds before trying to scoop it out.
However, I find most of the Halo Top flavors I’ve sampled pretty unappetizing. My wife likes them though.
I’ve been on a keto diet and have tried a couple of flavors from Rebel Creamery. The vanilla is ok and the mint chip is pretty good (though the chips are pretty obvious some sort of carob and not really chocolate - no loss as far as I’m concerned though). These taste (to me) more like “real” ice cream than Halo Top/Enlightened.
I don’t eat much tomato soup, but making soup from canned tomatoes is only like, a couple ingredienta and 10 minutes more work than heating up soup. Not everybody has those minutes, but it’s such a better experience.
The only thing I do with Campbells is the occasional tuna casserole, which is more nostalgia food than anything i’d admit to eating.
From the post-war period, Campbells famously wouldn’t even sell a condensed soup until they had like, 5+ recipes listed that used it as an ingredient.
I really like Campbell’s vegetable soup. I haven’t eaten it in ages but I think it is tasty. Egg yolk dissolving in it is delicious.
Huh, I never knew that. Interesting.
There’s a strange tension in the “convenience food prep” trend in the '50s and '60s. Women were still being told they were supposed to make all the food, but also that they were spending too much time on it. It’s like cooking was being reinforced and undermined at the same time.
One nice thing about being out here? Tillamook ice cream is the real deal. Much heavier by weight than comparable containers.
Don’t always get it, but it definitely has that creamier texture.
And their mountain huckleberry flavor is quite tasty! Its becoming a thing for days we head out to the coast, that we stop by the actual Tilamook creamery and get ice cream.
We make a homemade chicken noodle/ rice (depends on the mood) soup with homemade stock from boiling the bones of those whole roast chickens. Those $5-6 chickens are a fantastic deal for us. Usually two meals for our family just the chicken, then we make soup.
Anyhow once we finish making the broth, cook the veggies, and clean the carcass the final step is add a can of condensed soup. Thickens the soup up and adds the desired color and texture. About the only thing we use it for.
I like to use potato starch for thickening. I even sometimes use powdered mashed potatoes.
Tillamook and Umpqua are my two favorite outside those really specialty ones like B&J. I am probably indifferent between those two local ones.
I am down on Umpaqua because, when they did their Ducks vs Beavers flavors, they made them the same flavor.
When a local shop in Chicago made Cubs Sox rival flavors, they made them different, damn it!
Haha. That’s pretty funny. I didn’t even realize the did Civil War flavors, so that tells you how aware I was that they were the same.
It would be nice if Tillamook and Umpqua experimented just a tad with their flavors. I know they have some seasonal ones but every once in awhile the tiny pint guys get my money because I want something more complex.
If you extract enough collagen from the bones, you will not need the condensed soup. If you need MOAR, chicken feet will do it every time. My broth sets like jello in the fridge.
Edit: I love ice cream from local producers (and frozen custard too!). I only eat ice cream once in a great while, but I’m lucky to live near a bunch of great ice cream shops. If I lived on the west coast I’d love to visit Tillamook, that looks great.
Homemade chicken soup is great, but for us it’s usually an all day endeavor: boil the carcass, strain the gunk, extract and cool the cardass, peel off the meat, and re-soupify. Not really a substitute for canned at that point.
I don’t really have a problem with thickening, but I do use better-than-boullion for kicking up the flavor.