Well, Ann T's tuna casserole was decadent. My kids never had tuna casserole before and they were a little weird about the breadcrumbs on top. When we were kids growing up in my house, we fought for the toasted buttery crumbs! However, I think our casserole was made with a creamy soup from a can and often had crumbled potato chips on top. The chicken pot pie was pretty good, too. It was from a magazine and was supposed to be a light version of pot pie. I'm not sure how light it was but it was made with a white sauce and lots of veggies and shredded chicken. The kids and DH were fighting over the leftovers. lpink -- I recently mashed some leftover butternut squash and added it to some homemade tomato soup (made with canned whole tomatoes and pureed). It added a different dimension. The puree reminded me of Jerry Seinfeld's wife's cookbook for families where she makes lots of purees one day a week and adds them to various meals to up the nutritional value. I don't want to hide veggies from my kids but I wouldn't mind getting more into them when they don't even know they are there. Split peas continues to be a big favorite - but I don't think of baked beans at this time of year. So many comfort foods, so little time. Tonight, I made a horrible meal! It was supposed to be shrimp with feta over pasta. We forgot to buy shrimp. I substituted turkey bacon. I like turkey bacon by itself but it didn't taste very good as the base of a pasta dish. Then I added misc. veggies from the fridge - zucchini, grape tomatoes halved, lima beans, red peppers. Don't try it. It was not a pleasant combination! It wasn't like a soup that is very forgiving. Comfort food is Tried & True. The experimental was just too weird this time around. Kari

Great to hear from you Daisy! I'm sure it's not easy for them to make meals that please everyone. Kinda like me trying to come up with food my meat and potatoes dad will eat when he visits. I have a recipe for Cherry Cranberry cobbler that is dead easy to make with frozen fruits, I will post later if that would work. Don't know if you can get frozen cranberries down under! Another option is sweet potatoes. I've had a gratin, salad and shephard's pie made with them, all fresh takes on the old standbys. I love sweet potatoes! Do you get them there? We can get them year round, and sometimes yams. Do you ever get quiche or stratas? That's a way to jazz things up a bit, using different types of cheeses. Maybe the heart disease set doesn't go in for that though! Fritatta would be a less saturated fat option--and it has potatoes! :) Can you get some fun frozen stuff at the local grocery? We have every imaginable gourmet item available either fresh or frozen. Might be worth it to get someone to make a run to the store for you. Sure wish I wasn't thousands of miles away, I'd do it in a heartbeat!

Beachlily, you're right. This is a digression and not about cooking at all really. I find nomenclature interesting, as well as the hair splitting, and I find that it helps to order my mind, which, in the end, also helps my cooking. Rusty, opinion respectfully understood and appreciated. It is nitpicking, and not of interest to many people, I'm sure. I have certain language bugaboos with cooking. I'm entirely aware that they're my issues, and not something that I expect others to cleave to or participate in. It doesn't bother me if people call purchased prepared food that they've doctored "homemade". To me, that just means they have a different definition of homemade. So be it. I do, however, have an issue with opened a bunch of cans and dumped them in a dish being called "from scratch". Again, I realize that my having an issue with what people want to say about their food is entirely my own problem, not theirs. In the USA, at least, there's a tradition of food snobbery in which "from scratch" demands a level of respect. I don't say "from scratch" about my cooking or baking, even when it is. If someone asks, I'll say I made the crust, or whatever, and might even use "it's from scratch" if asked about the process, but it's not a way I identify myself or my work. It goes with the kind of snobbery that insists that something hand sewn is superior to something machine sewn (not counting computer programed sewing machine work, which is its own category). Good results are good results, no matter which tools you use to achieve them. The grated cheese issue is a bagatelle: it's really all the same whether you pare it, grate it by hand, grate it in an FP, or buy it grated. The main reason for doing it oneself is that one often buys tastier cheeses than they put up pre-grated, and it keeps better as a block. Since we have that culture of admiration for the scratch cook, I think the person claiming the honors ought to be honest about it. I wouldn't think ill of anyone who doesn't put the line exactly where I do. That's why I started this thread--to learn where others put the line. But if you tell me that you made a frozen green beans, condensed mushroom soup and French's canned fried onions casserole from scratch, I'm going to think you're awfully naïve... My other bugaboo is people who don't know what the words mean extending them to mean other things. Again, totally my own issue and the world marches the way it does without regard for it. But hummus means "chickpea" not paté or puree, many hummus dishes use whole, not mashed, chickpeas, and you can't make chickpeas out of black beans. Aioli means "garlic oil", not flavored mayonnaise, and can be made without egg yolk (i.e., not like mayonnaise), but not without garlic. Some aiolis aren't sauces at all, but more like a paste or relish, but all have garlic and oil. So, I've learned a lot about how far the words "scratch" and "homemade" can extend without breaking and some points over my own lines that cooking people allow. I hope more people will contribute their ideas. And for those who just don't care, thanks for letting us know that too...

I don't like pumpkin either, I always sub some other type of squash when I make the dish. It has no discernable coconut flavor, but you could easily sub heavy cream. Also could make "Italian" version using tomato sauce instead of coconut milk, and italian seasonings. Italians often sub squash in for some type of pasta or meat. Which BTW reminds me of another favorite food of mine--hubbard squash. If you can find one that isn't huge, you might like to make some dishes with that. If I can ever find a football sized one, I do stuffed squash with it. You can make all kinds of things with bean flours, but I don't know how much of that you can eat.