I decided to make a boxed cake last week mid-afternoon. I’m no gourmet cook, but I can follow directions when pressed. But then I realized that a plain cake just isn’t that good, so I meandered to the basement and grabbed a vanilla frosting, one of the store-bought kind that comes in little round jars.
I greedily slabbed it on the cake and dove in. But something wasn’t quite right. It just didn’t taste very good. I looked at the expiration date, which was sometime in 2026, so it wasn’t expired. Still, something wasn’t quite right. As it turns out, the problem was my taste buds.
For some reason, I could acutely taste the numerous, barely pronounceable chemicals they add, and I didn’t like it. Eventually, I tossed most of the cake. A few days later, I tried again. I make the exact same yellow cake but instead of grabbing a store-bought frosting, I made my own.
Although I will make some foods myself, like yogurt, sauerkraut, and bread when I’m in the mood (and have hours to kill), I rarely venture outside of my comfort zone. But my wife said it was easy to do, so I found a simple recipe and, to my surprise, made my very first cream cheese vanilla frosting at the age of nearly 50, lol. And it tasted good!
I was hooked.
Then I began to wonder why I didn’t make more of my own foodstuffs? Sure, it’s work, but it can’t be that much work, can it?
So, I started perusing the internet for easy homemade recipes for things like ketchup and other condiments. Some foods looked rather easy to make; others not so much.
As I tend to do, I spent hours compiling lists of my own, asking my AI overlords for suggestions, and ultimately ending up with a list of more than 50 recipes that, I hope, will prove useful in the near future.
But rather than keeping it all to myself, I’m sharing it with you (PDF File). You’ll find recipes for:
- Condiments and cooking sauces (e.g., ketchup, mustard, mayo, Alfredo sauce, Pesto)
- Dressings, dips, and spreads (e.g., guacamole, hummus, tartar sauce)
- Sweet toppings and syrups (e.g., frostings, pancake syrup)
- Breads and baked goods (e.g., crackers, bread, pasta)
- Dairy products (e.g., butter, ice cream, yogurt)
- Snacks and preserves (e.g., applesauce, granola, jam, sauerkraut, tortilla chips)
…and more.
I did my best to condense it all into as small of a list as possible, complete with ingredients and basic directions.
That said, I can’t guarantee how good the list is. Although I did spot check recipes I knew well, like yogurt and sauerkraut, like I said above, I’m no gourmet cook, so I can’t vouch for the correctness of these recipes. Consume at your own risk!
Regardless, most of the recipes are fairly straightforward and rarely use special equipment or ingredients, but some do. For instance, it’s hard to make some pastas without a pasta machine. And making Mozzarella requires a rennet tablet, something I’ve never heard of but is apparently crucial for making cheese.
I can’t say I’ll make use of all the recipes and I’m sure I missed some good ones, but I did print them out, added the list to our recipes binder, and hope to give some of these recipes a shot in the near future.
Last, if you find a recipe that should be added, just let me know; I may revise the list as I go on. And if you notice something horribly wrong with a recipe, definitely tell me!
Here’s the list of recipes (PDF File) if you’d like your own copy.
Enjoy.
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