AIBU and very stupid to say this isn't junk /convenience food?

[dottytablecloth]

Right am really exposing myself for a potential flaming here but anyway...

Am making a sausage casserole today with the following ingredients:

Butcher sausages
2 peppers
Tomatoes
Mushrooms
Onions
Tin chopped tomatoes
Fusilli pasta

And now for the bit a JAR of Lloyd Grossman tomato sauce

It's a made up recipe a la dotty so please forgive me if that's not what a sausage casserole is supposed to be like!

Anyway SIL was her earlier and says she wouldn't feed that to her 3 year old as it's junk food.

I'm mortified

I thought it was quite nutritious.

I've a very fussy 20 month old who loves sausages.

AIBU and deluded to serve this up and think it's not junk food?

This thread amuses. Tell you sil to go stuff herself up a pepper.

Looks and sounds delicious!
no, it isn't junk food. It's a homecooked meal and perfect for an autumn day.

Your sil is being totally unreasonable. As said previously though you don't need a jar, just chuck in a tin of tomatoes and some stock, garlic and herbs and simmer it down.

Is your sil always this annoying?

Decent sausages with plenty of veggies and pasta and DS loves it. You are a super star and please can I come for tea? You could leave the LLoyd Grosman sauce out and replace with a squirt of tomato puree and or some herbs if the sugar/salt is an issue but seriously I wouldn't worry. Certainly not junk food.

I'm making this for tea on Monday.

When do I put the purée, stock and herbs in?

Erm not junk food exactly but I wouldn't use a jar. Sorry.

People in here have also claimed that fish fingers are junk food, but when faced with a list of ingredients have been unable to actually point out the problem with them.

I think some people are just a bit snobby about food.

Sorry but all jarred sauces DO taste vile.

As I though added sugar and salt. Ok no preservative so it isn't the worst of the worst.

I wouldn't feed my children (or myself) it. But it's not what I would class as junk food - however a jarred sauce is most definitely a convenience food and not a home cooked meal.

That doesn't make it evil as an occasional use though. But you cannot deny a pre made jarred sauce is a convenience food!

Fish fingers are quite good (as long as you don't deep fry them). They are however also a convenience food. I'm quite happy to serve them up occasionally. Convenience and junk foods are not necessarily the same however something that needs salt and sugar added to make it taste ok probably starts to veer towards the junk side.

Your SIL is a food snob.

I wouldn't use the jar of sauce, I don't like them, but apart from that your meal is basically good ingredients. And although you can describe the jar as convenience food, I certainly wouldn't call it junk food!

But do try to do without it if you can :)

We are having Chinese takeaway tonight. My four year old is going to eat it with us. I reckon this could be a worse crime than a jar of sauce, OP

I am a big foodie and cook from scratch every day, but some days only a takeaway will do!

Oh and what chipping DIDNT tell you from the website

100g contains 4.8g sugar . It's not ridiculously high and probably less than most jarred tomato sauces but that's still six big teaspoons of sugar in an average jar.

YANBU but that's not a casserole. It's sausage pasta. Or fusilli alla salsiccia if you're talking to your SIL

RJ I disagree with you about sugar and salt. Obviously, large quantities of either aren't great, but a convenience food containing either salt or sugar is not inherently a Bad Thing. Many proper recipes for cooking something decent from scratch list salt as an ingredient, and some also list sugar. Off the top of my head, I'm thinking of a gorgeous Thai red curry recipe (Madhur Jaffrey, I think) which contains sugar.

Not exactly junk food, - some veg , but I don'e eat sausages and all jarred sauces are rank.

Your recipe ( despite my sausage dislike) sounds one step away from being good. Why spoil it with a jar of sauce?
It's not difficult to make your own tomato sauce- and you are halfway there already.

Your recipe sounds a little bit random.

For all the "just put some herbs and tomato purée in with the tinned toms" brigade - that's absolutely fine if you've got time to cook it long and slow but if you're in a hurry, quickly warmed through tinned/puréed tomatoes taste rank. Loyd G (or Dolmio or whatever) sauces have been cooked for a long time in a pressure cooker which makes all the difference to the taste and probably improves the nutritional value of the tomatoes as well because it makes the lycopene more accessible (not the case for most foods, just tomatoes).

The 4.8g per 100g quoted earlier wasn't "sugar" btw, it was "sugars". If you cooked a tomato sauce from your own homegrown produce it would have a fair quantity of sugars in it - although the commercial ones do have a small amount of actual sugar added on top, which I grant you we'd be better off without.

Top tips for the OP to make her own tomato sauce taste better
A) cook for much longer - if that's not feasible due to time constraints then consider batch cooking and freezing portions
B) add Lea & Perrins - if anyone says that it doesn't count as home cooked from scratch because you've put a splash of Worcester Sauce in it then you can save time by never listening to them ever again
C) add a teaspoon of Dijon mustard (see point B, also never tell anyone that I told you this, because this is my ex-housemate's Special Secret Sausage Casserole Ingredient and he swore me to secrecy).

That's not sausage casserole though, it has pasta in it. Casserole has lots of sauce and we have it with a ton of mash, mmm.

Worcester sauce is great, I put some in cottage pie the other day.

I use loads of Worcestershire sauce. I also add sugar to my home made sauces

I never add sugar, does it being out the tomato flavour?

Bring, even.

I use cheap tinned tomatoes so it offsets the bitterness you sometimes get with that.

Wading the difference though is that you control how much of either you add and I no longer add salt to anything when I cook even if the recipe says to do so. I do agree they aren't inherently bad though. The problem is not thinking that they may be added - oh it's a tomato sauce tomatoes are good for you - and not realising what else might be in it

No food is "bad" of its own. But if you do think prepacked and ready made isthe same as home made, it can be a bit of a slippery slope. Likewise thinking tinned tomatoes taste bad unless cooked for hours. It's only because your palates are conditioned to a sweeter taste.

There is absolutely no nutritional difference between @sugar" and "sugars" btw. Exact same thing. And of course some foods cousin them naturally. But jarred sauces have added (unnecessary) sugar(s) which are not of dietary benefit. That's when it starts veering on being junk. You can deny it if you want, and it doesn't mean you must never eat it, but it's true, and it's not home made.

Sorry op this is a bit off track - your actual recipe is not too bad, it could be improved a bit with little effort but it's far from awful.