re: Cuisines/Meals that are not economically justifiable to cook yourself

I think the paste I use contains some tamarind. Can't say for sure.

i make ramen at home (shoyu and tonkontsu) and it takes all of 8 hours and a lot of cash.

also, live crabs have gotten ridiculously expensive the last few years. used to buy crabs $35/bushel all day long only 3-4 years ago. luck to pay $75 now.

Here's a tip for homemade pizza makers. Go to the salad bar / hot bar at Whole Foods and get a "salad" made up of the pizza toppings you want, and then get a ball of dough for $1.

Lasagna can be super expensive.

The dough is $3.00 but it is a good dough and on my green egg pizza stone I can make 2 pizzas out of 1 dough.

I make pho from time to time and as said it is time consuming to make the stock but I make a couple gallons at a time and it freezes well. The Hong Kong grocery on Sherwood has Pho stock base which can really cut the time down.

But I'm an enthusiast so nothing really is out of the ordinary to cook from time to time.

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Besides, unless you're actually using a low-dome, wood-fired pizza oven and cooking the pie in 90 secs, the AP is a better choice for a crust in a home oven (at least for my 2-3 minute pies on a baking steel under the gas broiler).

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I will cook on the egg with a pizza stone on top and bottom (need to replace with baking steels, but I don't do it enough). Try to get it to 900, but can get tricky. I use bufallo mozarella when I have fresh tomatoes on hand instead of sauce.

If I coud eat pizza enough to get really good at doing it, then I would use lesser ingredients and it would be cost effective (time & money) to do it at home. But I would be 30 lbs heavier by the time I could put out a pie as good as certain restaurants and it's not like they charge $30/pie.

2nd Sushi

Lots of ingredients and unless you plan on making 100 rolls, you will likely have plenty of wasted stuff.

Like my pizza answer, most of the items in the thread are ok after a certain quantity


If I want pizza, I want a lot of stuff on it and if I'm making 1 or 2 pizzas, I end up with a lot of leftover stuff which may or may not be used before expiration



My other entry for the thread will be boiled crawfish

Again, if you're doing a few sacks, it's cost effective but if you want 20 lbs of crawfish, the markets usually charge $1 more for boiled, so you'd have to get all of your seasonings and what not for $20. Of course it can be done, but you aren't saving much at all by boiling your own crawfish...but that's not why most people do it anyway.

Edit. I misread your post.

You basically agreed with what I posted and I missed that . Unless you are into basic cooked meat and veggies, it will inevitably be expensive when you are first starting off regular cooking simply because you'll need the staples that you probably aren't already keeping on hand. When I first started cooking at home, I had to go buy things like oil, butter, flour, eggs, capers, horseradish, wine, etc. every time I cooked. Like you said, over time you build up a stock in the weirder things like specific spices, but it definitely requires money in the beginning. (For example, if all you have is Tony's, salt, and pepper.. you are going to either have some boring food or you're going to have to buy parsley, basil, garlic powder, etc. at some point).

Jones explained it way better than me on the next page.