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I have never made any secret of the fact that cooking from scratch is preferable to buying prepared foods. It was good enough for my father, one of the world’s best cooks, and I had to learn the same way when I married.

However, even in my kitchen, there are exceptions. I usually keep pizza on hand in the freezer for unexpected company (adding several items before I bake it) and I keep frozen pie crusts for the same reason. These things were never available when I was gainfully employed, so I had to learn how to proceed on my own. Life is easier now for working homemakers, but don’t let it overwhelm you.

I was recently treated to a lecture on packaged mashed potatoes. I don’t mean instant flakes in a box which are handy for thickening soups and chowders. These mashed ones now come in plastic bags and are popped into the microwave to fix them. Honestly!

How hard is it to make real ones? How hard is it to make sweet potatoes from scratch? What are these people thinking about when they buy precooked, pre-seasoned, premashed products like this?

Well, I’ve sounded off, and now I should mention food in tubes. Since the early 1950’s, European markets have sold condiments like mustard, mayonnaise and catsup in tubes, and visitors from there found it strange that we didn’t use them. I started buying tomato paste this way years ago for those recipes which call for one tablespoon or so — who wants to open a six-ounce can for that? It keeps extremely well in the refrigerator.

Lately, many more tube foods have appears on market shelves. Somebody gave me basil like this, and I found it flavorful in certain applications, but it’s more fun to grow your own and the texture is quite different. You cannot make a good pesto with food from a tube — don’t try.

A tube seems to be the only way you can purchase Wasabi in most stores, and it works pretty well and has good keeping qualities. There may be other items in this category that you’ve discovered and liked. I am trying to keep an open mind about all of them, but when I can find the original thing, I still prefer it. What’s wrong with real onions and garlic?

People complain that they hate to purchase shallots because recipes call for so little of them and they won’t keep. The solution to this is simple: peel them and whirl them in a small processor, then store then tightly covered in the freezer. You can do this with so many food items that you will never again run off to the market to buy something made in a factory. Did you ever stop to think that you pay so much more for processed foods that it really runs up the grocery bill?

You never know where you might find inspiration. I recently rode a bus into Naples and met the driver, Gustavo Carranza from Guatemala by way of New Jersey. Before coming here, he was a hotel cook, and gave me recipes as fast as I could write them down. No amounts are furnished here, but you won’t really need them. The ingredients and methods are the only things which differ from the way most of us do these foods already.

• Pancakes: Gus uses flour, eggs, cream, apple juice, brown sugar and a dash of salt. He fries his pancakes in butter and makes a sauce with peeled and diced apples fried in butter with brown sugar.

“Everyone loved these,” he assured me, waving his arm around. “You can add things to the sauce — lemon juice, cinnamon, raisins — but they’re not needed.”

• Mashed potatoes: Peel and cut up potatoes, boil them in salted water, dry them out some in the oven. Add heavy cream, egg yolk, minced parsley, chopped garlic, salt and pepper. Nothing in a pouch ever tasted as good as this sounds.

• Fried potatoes: Slice potatoes and onions very thin, mince some garlic, and fry all three in bacon fat, adding salt and pepper. Turn often until done, then dust with paprika.

• Soup: In a pinch one night at the hotel, Gus combined heavy cream, chicken stock, V8, basil, salt and pepper. Taste as you go. It made a big hit with the customers.

• Green beans: Remove tips and tops from beans, blanch them in boiling salted water, then plunge into ice water. Cook with julienne carrots. Drain and dress with good olive oil and cracked fresh pepper.

“In Guatemala, we have many, many vegetables that are not here,” he informed me. “We love them, along with chicken and fish and other things.” His enthusiasm was catching.

Salad: Gus makes this with shredded white cabbage dressed with good olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. “My kids are crazy about this,” he said. “What could be easier? Buena!”

He said that his country has many annual celebrations: Christmas, Easter, a kite festival, a folk festival in summer. “You must go,” he told me. “And you will never want to come home!”

Friends from the east coast visited recently and made these dishes while here. They were so good that I asked her to write down the recipes. The salad goes well with many dinners.

Broccoli Salad

1 package fresh broccoli, stemmed and chopped

½ cup chopped red onion

½ cup craisins

½ cup pine nuts

½ cup chopped red pepper

6 slices crisp-fried bacon, crumbled

Combine all ingredients and pour over them the following dressing. Serve very cold.

Dressing

¼ cup olive oil

3 Tablespoons sugar

3 Tablespoons vinegar

Gingered Broccoli

1 package broccoli florets

2 Tablespoons soy sauce

2 Tablespoons ginger paste

1 Tablespoon minced garlic

½ cup sliced onion

½ cup sliced water chestnuts

Microwave broccoli on high for three minutes. Add remaining ingredients and microwave on high for two or three more minutes. Serve warm or at room temperature.