Emphasis on extra block since the recipe probably already called for 1 or more to begin with.
I remember back when I was a kid, a friend in my group always made the BEST mac n cheese (the kraft boxed stuff). Nobody else’s could compare. Someone finally asked him what his secret was, and it turns out he was simply adding an entire stick of butter instead of what the box called for
A shitton of butter is pretty much every restaurant’s trick as well…actually I think the real trick is not mentioning just how much butter you added.
Yup. And boil the pasta in salt water. Boxed mac CAN taste delicious!
Who doesn’t boil pasta in salt water?
I grew up in the midwest and moved to west coast. I realized that I needed to learn to expand my taste in a variety of foods when a group of us wanted to get food after work and suggestions were getting shot down by other people because “some_guy won’t eat that.” It was eye-opening.
I eat all kinds of things now that I wouldn’t have when I was younger. But I remember the first time I ate at a vegan restaurant I felt like I’d been served a plate of sticks and leaves. Great place that I now enjoy years since.
Flip side for me: I’m from Michigan, not the Detroit area but a mid size city (Lansing) and we have a huge variety of food, albeit not a lot of choice inside some of those varieties.
I had the profoundly weird experience when visiting San Francisco of being with some people who were excited to try the new food they had never heard of called “pierogi” that a place had opened up to sell nearby.
It was perfectly good and I was delighted to be able to tell them that they in fact did want onions in their food, but it was real weird watching them get excited to try what I consider grandparent food. (It’s a food your grandparents give you, or you make a bunch of and freeze)I think there’s a thing where certain ethnic groups “big migration wave” came too early for them to reach big populations super far west.
Good for you for being open minded to new experience. That’s what I’ve never understood about picky eaters. You will eat food your entire life. It is one of the main things you will continue to do for your entire existence. Confining yourself through your adulthood to bland or junk food purely because that was what you grew up with seems like such a waste.
*Insert caveats about privilege/access/ignorance/income (I’m speaking from the perspective of people who have the option but refuse it; those are the people I know, but it’s not a universal experience)
As a former picky eater, part of it in my case was certainly that my rural family did not know how to make vegetables. They would be boiled with some salt or sugar, no exceptions. So I thought meat good, veggies bad.
Then I dated a vegetarian and learned not only about the different ways things can be prepared (roasted, steamed, fried, baked, grilled, etc) but also other veggies like asparagus, bean sprouts, bamboo, different types of mushrooms (I know they’re fungus, but just play along with me), mock meats, straight up different types of food like Thai and Indian, and it was such an awakening. I do think picky eating is learned somewhat.
What do you mean you don’t want mini-marshmallows in your salad? What’s wrong with you?
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The Midwest ascribes to the definition of “salad” that’s more heavy on the “mixed ingredients and cold” sense than the “leafy greens” sense.
Everyone quietly accepts potato salad, chicken salad, and fruit salad, but the Midwest dives into various dessert salads that involve jello, marshmallows, whipped cream, fruit and a lot of other options.They’re invariably chosen for potlucks or gatherings where everyone brings a dish, since they’re a dessert where it’s easy to prepare a stupendous quantity quickly, and it keeps at room temperature with good quality for quite a while.
