Ah, a home cooked meal

Once in a while the subject of cooking comes up and when it does I try to change the subject. I so totally do NOT get the popularity of all those bazillion cooking shows and contests. So mind numbing I would rather watch a diaper crust over than watch some ninny get a tv show to ...s.t.i.r ...a.n.d ....h.e.a.t ...wah wah wah I fell asleep already!

I don't really care about cooking. IMO, if it makes those nice people at Wendy's so happy to make me a salad or some chicken things, well then who am I to pass on by, denying them of their bliss.

So here is what I don't get. What really makes a meal a 'home cooked meal'? Because I can open a can and a box and turn the dial on my oven and have some kind of chicken entree ala pasta cheese-o but I do not consider that a home cooked meal. I think that is more like a home- opened meal. And this is what I tell people who oddly think it is their business to ask me if I cook or not (and why people obsess about that I don't know but I think they think they will get a great story out of my answer to tell their friends and be properly horrified). Sure, I open dinner. Or, drive thru and acquire dinner. But did I slay those baked beans out of my garden and do whatever makes them so tasty? Uh, no. And by the way, does anyone know what baked beans actually are and what makes them so tasty?

Recently we were all at a relatives home and this relative made a big deal about making us a home made dinner. She was gonna COOK us dinner people, leaving little wisps of insinuation that the mom in this family is too royal of a selfish beast to do the cooking as she (I?) should. There were baked beans that she cooked, by opening the can and putting them in the oven. There were hot dogs that she cooked by heating them in a pan and putting them in buns from the bakery section of the grocery store. Needless to say, no tomato's were assaulted into ketchup, that was already in a bottle. Rolls from the Pillsbury can, also cooked in the oven. This all took about a half hour to "cook". Oh yeah, and desert was a cake ala Betty.

What I want to know is, how is this so superior? Cuz all I see here is a lot of opening food already cooked. Is the difference in the heating? I put my baked beans in the microwave, hot dogs and buns too and it is all ready in about 5 minutes.

If I make chicken noodle soup by adding the flavor package to the ramen noodles to a pot on the stove, has it lost value? Am I to believe that my chicken noodle soup is inferior? Ok, I will grant that ramen noodles are actually inferior. But that leads to my last point which is, that in my house, living with my people, it does not matter if I spend the day cooking dinner or if I warm up dinner in the microwave because unless it has a clown next to it or a dancing rat, the kids are not going to want to try it anyway. The Husband does not so much eat, he more snorts sharply and then the food on his plate has vanished and I would bet a box of little debbies that he never tasted it at all.