General Talk - So Called 'Recipes'

Hello all you wonderful food bloggers (and readers!) out there. I'm in the process of working a post about one of the wonderful soups I made toward the end of last year but in the mean time I have been wasting a bit of time (like I know we *all* do) by browsing through recipes on the net.

This is what brought up my post today, especially seeing as that this is a cooking gluten free blog where every thing comes down to cooking as good as you can with things naturally provided for you that are gluten free. At least that is what I strive for even if it's not always 100% unprocessed.

So tell me... have you ever gone on a recipe hunt for say a stew or a soup only to find so called 'recipe' after recipe that call for canned this, mix of that or a box of that?? I mean WTH?? If I wanted to throw something together that was completely and utterly pre-made, why would I waste my money on canned/boxed items that are being 'tossed together' when I can buy something much better already pre-made and cooked for me?!

I'm so tired of finding recipes that look soooo wonderful due to presentation on some blogs and get sickened by the actual ingredients that it's just not funny. For instance, the most recent one was a recipe for tator-tot casserole but instead of starting with fresh made potatoes, you can go buy a box of frozen rosti style potatoes. Then it calls for a can of cream soup, a package of dry soup, some dry herbs, pre-shredded cheese, canned corn/veggies and the only real 'cooking' to be seen or done is frying some ground meat and putting it all together in the oven for 30mins.

OMG?! It's sacrilege to cooking! Ok if you REALLY don't have a single cooking bone in your body, perhaps this is the only way you can get a decent meal into your system that isn't bought outside your home but come on people... think a bit. How much salt, preserves, empty calories, fat and so much more useless items are in these so called 'recipes'. Sure it takes longer, sure it takes more time to prepare other then frying some meat but if you think of all the health benefits to making it all from scratch vs these store bought preserve filled salt laden items, wouldn't it be more worth it to your health to do so?

I am now on a drive to produce a 100% from scratch version of tator tot casserole just to show how easy it can be to make it *without* all these pre-made/bought store items. It will only include real fresh potatoes, fresh or perhaps frozen corn (it's the season for ears of corn after all!), home-made cream soup and FRESH herbs! Ok I admit, dry herbs aren't bad but why in the middle of spring/summer especially would one want to use dry when the fresh grow and thrive so wonderfully? Only premade items I intent to use is some sour cream and a block of old fashioned mature cheddar cheese that I'll shred myself. Stay tuned for something perhaps not quite as simple but at least a LOT healthier for you!