• Aneb@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    This is my easy hamburger helper recipe in case people want real food. I skip the box and throw paprika and onion and garlic powders on my ground beef, brown it. Add ziti noodles, or anything I have, add beef stock and water. Let the pasta become tender, abt 7-8 mins. And throw in a huge glob a sour cream and mix it in. Salt as needed, skip the sodium spike

  • Qkall@lemmy.ml
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    5 days ago

    …y’all didn’t grow up eating kraft mac n hot dogs cut up in it?

    o.o

  • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
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    4 days ago

    The comments are teaching me I grew up poor and still eat poor.

    I mean I knew the second part. But those damn canned mixed veggies were disgusting.

      • exasperation@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        3 days ago

        Canned green beans are great. I don’t care how many fancy meals I eat, there’s always gonna be a place for that nostalgic flavor.

        And canned corn is basically my preferred method of adding corn to soups.

      • Makeshift@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        Creamed corn and green beans are amazing agreed.I also picked up a love of canned sweet peas.

        Some things can way better than others.

    • daannii@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      I ate a lot of hamber helper growing up. Often with weird meat we would get from food pantries. Like bison. Emu. And my dad would hunt deer some times or a relative would so we would eat it with ground venison. Which apparently is considered gourmet meat but I really do not like it. It always tastes like blood to me.

      Anyway, when I was lucky enough to get it with ground beef, I recall actually loving it.

      As an adult I haven’t really eaten it so I went and bought a box a while back.

      I think the cheeseburger kind.

      Jesus. It’s so gross and bland. Like salted cardboard. It also only had like 3/4 of a cup of dried noodles in it.

      I remember a box of it feeding all 3 of us kids easily. With leftovers. There is very little yield after it cooks now. Shrink-flation.

      Now I will say the box casseroles that Aldi sells are decent.

      I like the orzo cheese broccoli one and the hamber one , which I cook with peppers. It has a strong cilantro flavor.

      But the Hamber Helper brand ones are just so gross. I don’t know if the flavor has changed or maybe they were always that bad.

      I swear so much food I thought was good as a kid literally just tastes like salted cardboard. Tostitos “pizzas”. Pizza rolls, McDonald’s food.

      I’m pretty sure they have stopped putting seasoning on a lot of food to cut costs.

  • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Protip: Hamburger Helper has always been the most expensive way to do this. Buy raw macaroni and one of those seasoning spice packs (e.g. taco mix) if you’re not good with measuring seasoning or have none at home. Take a photo of the Hamburger Helper directions (on the box) with your phone if you need something to go by.

    There are probably tons of such recipes online too.

  • python@lemmy.world
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    4 days ago

    Sorry, I’m European, could someone explain what Hamburger Helper actually is?? I’ve heard the brand name before and assumed it was just some kind of seasoning powder for making hamburgers, but this image looks more like it’s more like powdered sauce base for a whole range of random meals?

        • 🇰 🔵 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@lemmy.world
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          4 days ago

          Yeah; you don’t put a hamburger into it, just ground beef (or chicken, or tuna, or whatever other meat you’d like, really). lol

          If you had money for a hamburger, you probably wouldn’t be eating Hamburger Helper.

          • marcos@lemmy.world
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            4 days ago

            Yeah, that makes sense. I can even imagine how it tastes now.

            Around here, people use spaghetti (and probably an egg to make it larger), what is probably not too different.

            • LifeInMultipleChoice@lemmy.world
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              4 days ago

              Adding eggs to random shit really does help it feel more filling. Like if I eat a packet a ramen I would never feel full, throw in a couple eggs and it’s fine. And I can’t afford to go to the doctor so it’s not like they can tell me my shit diet is killing me. I didn’t know what a frittata actually was until recently. We have chickens and I was trying to get rid of some eggs and my fiance found a frittata recipe online. It’s basically, whatever you’ve got throw in a vessel with eggs and bake it. Cut up peppers, onions, can of green beans, or corn, maybe some sausage or whatever you had left, add that other can you had sitting in the cupboard throw it in the oven and go sit down. It may not be considered a frittata at that point. What spices were added. Whatever the fuck sounded good at that moment. Probably some Tajin, why not.

              Why am I still typing, I don’t even know what I was talking about… Maybe I’m hungry

                • Aneb@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  I skip the box and throw paprika and onion and garlic powders on my ground beef, brown it. Add ziti noodles, or anything I have, add beef stock and water. Let the pasta become tender, abt 7-8 mins. And throw in a huge glob a sour cream and mix it in. Salt as needed, skip the sodium spike

    • WraithGear@lemmy.world
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      4 days ago

      it’s the kit to make the meal in the front, just need to add the hamburger… or hot dogs…

      but yea it has the seasonings, maybe emulsifiers, the macaroni, and instructions, and that’s it

      • python@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        ooh, hamburger as in, ground meat? For me a hamburger is always the round puck of meat between buns, makes more sense if it’s just the generic name for the meat itself!

      • ✺roguetrick✺@lemmy.world
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        4 days ago

        Thickeners too. Modified corn starch. Less objectional ingredient really since starch as a sauce thickener instead of reduction is pre industrial and modified starch is frankly a good innovation. I don’t want to sit there and stir. People who make pudding from scratch with regular corn starch are insane.

    • daannii@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      A box meal. Like a cake mix. It comes with parts of the meal, the pasta and the sauce, and you add the meat and milk, water, butter. Whatever else it calls for. These are cheap. And don’t take very long to make.

      They are mostly eaten by poor people and kids. They have very little nutritional value and are high in carbs, sugar, and salt.

      The high carbs and protein (if you are rich enough to add meat) make the food very filling though. Some people call this type of food “comfort food”. It definitely will make your stomach feel full and content.

      But it’s not good food for you.

      • daannii@lemmy.world
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        3 days ago

        Pretty sure fake cheese is made with vegetable oil, no?

        Also the other day I bought a small block of kraft brand Colby cheese. A little treat for myself.

        I always buy whichever brand is on sale. I’m not a cheese snob or anything.

        Anywho. I got it out to eat it.

        It’s super soft. Like. … well like fake cheese. Just like their kraft singles.

        Floppy oily yellow cheese.

        I got swindled. It says it’s Colby. But it’s not ! It’s the fake cheese !

        Not happy. Won’t ever buy it ever again.

        They just started doing this. It was real cheese not that long ago. I suspect it’s been “cut,” with fake cheese.

        Like it’s not 100% fake cheese. But like 60% fake cheese.

        I checked packaging to make sure I just didn’t buy the wrong stuff. Nope. It definitely says Colby cheese.

      • lolola@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        4 days ago

        “Minimum viable product” describes a lot of the items that end up in my grocery cart these days – produce especially.

  • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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    3 days ago

    Isn’t ultra processed crap like that normally pretty expensive though? I find its always cheaper to make a cheese sauce and some pasta myself and doesn’t require ultra processed ingredients.

    • Cosmonauticus@lemmy.world
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      3 days ago

      You’re forgetting time. Cooking from scratch takes time that many ppl can’t afford. I think we forget how closely linked freetime and wealth are

      • Korhaka@sopuli.xyz
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        2 days ago

        Never really been convinced by this. Even when I was on apprenticeship wages (way below regular UK minimum wage) along with also having assignments to complete, I still had enough time to cook food every day.

        I certainly wasn’t wealthy but if you are poorer than I was you would be working so few hours that you have loads of free time. UK specific of course but I hear the same argument here all the time.

        I can see how having only part time/zero hour contracts sucks financially, but that is because you have too little income from not being able to work enough. At least you do have a lot of free time in this situation though, so you have the time for cooking.

    • JoeBigelow@lemmy.ca
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      4 days ago

      Poached venison.

      Don’t need a tag if you’re not going to a game station, just gotta get a little bloody.