Dillards 74: The Dill in the Pickle

[SassyPants]

She’s just a crappy cook. The end.

[AussieKrissy]

40 minutes ago, acheronbeach said:

LOL look at the picture of Jill that comes up when you Google Jinger Vuolo:

 

and the toss pot looking pic of Jeremy just sums him up also...

[Snarkasarus Rex]

No Jeremy, that’s not how you do the smolder...

 

[Granwych]

1 hour ago, SassyPants said:

She’s just a crappy cook. The end.

Indeed.  And there is no reason ever why the world needs to know that.

[DarkAnts]

I don’t think the kids at the main house eat this nasty shit anymore. The other married women in the family are making healthier meals. Plus, they get lots of vegetables from Jana’s garden. 

 

[Dandruff]

5 hours ago, pippi said:

*Chicken on the Fritz

Chicken on the Blitz

Maybe Jill's recipes have something to do with OfJill's puking problem?

[JesSky03]

?I totally made a similar recipe early on in our marriage. I was 20 and learning how to meal plan and cook on my own and my husband grew up frequently eating "hot dish" type meals so that's where I started. The one I made if I remember correctly, had 1 can of cream of mushroom, 1 can of cream of chicken, 1 cup of sour cream, poached chicken, egg noodles, and was topped with crushed Ritz drowned in butter. Its soooo bad for you but it was filling lol. Every now and then my husband brings up this dish because he wants me to make it but I refuse and pretend I can't remember the recipe haha. 

[LilMissMetaphor]

Others have mentioned modifying this crap, and honestly it's way easier, cheaper and better for you! I do it every couple of weeks.

1 can cream soup (mushroom, broccoli, bacon, whatever)

1 bag of mixed vegetables (broccoli and cauliflower)

2-4 chicken breasts

A light sprinkle of grated cheese and breadcrumbs on top.

Seriously, probably half the calories and you don't sacrifice any flavor.  One can of soup is more than enough sodium. 

[allthegoodnamesrgone]

I can't even being to tell you how excited I am!!!!  I made the Duggar  tabloids! I'm the one who started the shit storm about food insecurity, I'm kind of outing myself (if you can be bothered to find the original post). 

ETA I was too busy yesterday with work and life to respond to everyone or even go back and look at many of the comments.  My point was Jill's recipe was what families do to make a little food go a long way. I've seen variations of this meal, minus the stick of butter, made with canned/frozen and fresh veggies, but I know how she did it, those cheap processed frozen chicken breasts, generic cream of _______ and cheap frozen veg. I've made those meals, when we were flat broke,  they are not very healthy but they are cheap and filling. That is my point, I've been there, I KNOW why you were cooking that, that was my point.  

[FluffySnowball]

24 minutes ago, allthegoodnamesrgone said:

I can't even being to tell you how excited I am!!!!  I made the Duggar  tabloids! I'm the one who started the shit storm about food insecurity, I'm kind of outing myself (if you can be bothered to find the original post). 

ETA I was too busy yesterday with work and life to respond to everyone or even go back and look at many of the comments.  My point was Jill's recipe was what families do to make a little food go a long way. I've seen variations of this meal, minus the stick of butter, made with canned/frozen and fresh veggies, but I know how she did it, those cheap processed frozen chicken breasts, generic cream of _______ and cheap frozen veg. I've made those meals, when we were flat broke,  they are not very healthy but they are cheap and filling. That is my point, I've been there, I KNOW why you were cooking that, that was my point.  

I hardly ever read Jill’s Instagram comments but I did this morning and your comment stood out to me (I think I know the one that must be yours...) I found it good and liked it (outing myself here a little, too, but it got quite a few likes anyway). You made a good point and were not hateful at all but you know some DuggarHuggars jumped in with their crap ? Business as usual... 

[SassyPants]

Something else that I was thinking about, Foodies often talk about eating with their eyes, first. It is clear that when you grow up eating/cooking via the open, dump and mix method, which you almost have to when feeding an army of children, the look of food is never given a priority. Jill doesn’t seem to get that her dishes do not present as appetizing. When looking at that cracker, gloppy mess, who thinks the dish appears enticing to eat? Also, when reading the IG comments, I noticed one asked Jill why she never scales the meals down to a family size portion. Jill has not learned or adjusted to feeding a small family of 4. The kitchen is not Jill’s natural strength.

[CharlieInCharge]

It wasn’t just what they ate, it was how they ate it. Who cares about how a dish looks when presented? By the time the first ten kids pass through the lunch line it’s gonna look like a giant mess no matter what. I’m sure almost every meal Jill ever ate looked just like ones she posts. She goes with what (little) she knows ?

[Georgiana]

14 minutes ago, CharlieInCharge said:

It wasn’t just what they ate, it was how they ate it. Who cares about how a dish looks when presented? By the time the first ten kids pass through the lunch line it’s gonna look like a giant mess no matter what. I’m sure almost every meal Jill ever ate looked just like ones she posts. She goes with what (little) she knows ?

There was also no time to eat with your eyes in the Duggar household.  They've made that clear.  You had to wolf down your food as fast as possible if you wanted any chance of getting seconds or even being able to finish your entire plate.

This is the blog of a woman who locked herself in the bathroom as a child just so she could eat until she was full.  She's sharing the recipes from her childhood mainly, and again, that's the same childhood where she had to resort to drastic measures just to eat her fill.  I'm not sure Jill has ever considered really looking at these dishes.  I think that plating and the very concept of plating is so very far removed from the reality she associates with these dishes that it's never even crossed her mind.  

And to be fair, there's a very real question of "Are you really cut out to be a food blogger then?", the answer to which is probably "No".  Jill's a terrible food blogger.  This is a terrible recipe blog.  It misses the mark completely.  But one of the reasons why Jill can't food blog to save her soul is because she was raised in the wrong demographic. She doesn't have the right mindset when it comes to food, and it's because she was raised to see food as something you gulped down to fill your belly.  Not something you elevated to an art form.  Not something you photographed or even expected beauty from.  Belly filler.  

These are the recipes of the American Working Poor.  This is what they look like.  But no one, not even the people who cook them regularly, really want to eat them or look at them unless they have to.  So no, they are not great for blogs.  Jill needs a better focus.  But as someone who was offered steak for her birthday dinner but choose a casserole made from chicken breast, minute rice, frozen broccoli, cream of garbage soup, cheez whiz, AND velveeta (yes, friends, TWO fake cheese products in one dish!), I get what she thinks they are and why she thinks they're worth sharing.  A better writer/plater could pull it off.  But Jill is not that person.  

[TheOneAndOnly]

15 minutes ago, Georgiana said:

This is the blog of a woman who locked herself in the bathroom as a child just so she could eat until she was full. 

This is also the same woman who let her toddler grab banana bread off other people's plates without stopping him back when they lived in Danger America. That always bothered me, but I'm someone who doesn't like their food messed with.

[Pecansforeveryone]

Jill also strikes me as especially rigid in her thinking. While that would drive many of us nuts, I think Jill derives comfort in her thinking and by extension is truly unable to modify her recipes. I think she may use defense mechanisms to justify to herself posting scrappy recipes. Critcizing her families recipes would open her up to the painful reality that her parents exposed her to food insecurity and not only didn't nourish her and her siblings on a superior level but in fact on a very mediocre level. I don't think Jill can really face that uncomfortable reality for very long. So push it out of her mind, put on a happy face, and keep on posting for Jesus. 

[CaricatureQualities]

19 minutes ago, Pecansforeveryone said:

I think Jill derives comfort in her thinking and by extension is truly unable to modify her recipes.

This may be why she seemingly cannot make recipes to serve a few people rather than a large group like she was used to growing up. I know the Duggars always joked about the girls having to adjust to cooking for 2-4 people rather than 20 but it's like Jill took that idea and purposefully ran with it and wont let it go. It always amazes me to see the amount of stuff her recipes call for and then when compared to the same recipe from somewhere else hers is always doubled with something  extra ridiculous for no real reason. 10 chicken breast for one little casserole for presumably 2 adults and 2 kids.  Plus all the other shit when a fraction of that would make a fine casserole on a budget. Maybe if she would let herself try to make a regular sized dish it would come out looking a wee bit better presentation wise ? But for a long time her family was so special and different because of how much of everything they had to buy and make to feed everyone and I think despite the shittiness of what and how they had to eat she still derived a lot of her self identity from all the Duggery things that set them apart and made them different and special...which specifically included making huge mediocre meals to feed 2 dozen people. A lot of us are emotionally connected to food and "comfort food" can be what we had growing up even if we realize it's not the best, we're still connected to it. It's interesting to think that the size of the meal you are cooking can also be a part of it. Maybe Jill goes out of her way to make recipes larger and often crappier without really realizing it because it comforts her in some way. Why else are they so damned big every time? 

 

 

[Snarkasarus Rex]

Makes sense.  Individual thought was not encouraged, and everything in their family revolved around the collective.  They were at the height of their popularity just before the older girls began to marry, and she drew the short straw in the husband department...keeping the recipes just as the family made them years ago probably does bring her comfort.  

[CaricatureQualities]

20 hours ago, DarkAnts said:

I don’t think the kids at the main house eat this nasty shit anymore. The other married women in the family are making healthier meals. Plus, they get lots of vegetables from Jana’s garden. 

 

The other married women plus Ben. And I would even give Jeremy some credit here too (not at the tth) but he seems willing to cook and is enthusiastic about food at least. I think generally the nutrition standards have gotten higher with this generation but I could say that about a lot of people raised in the 80's and 90's compared to what their parents fed them. But yeah, some of the older Duggars plus some of  their significant others deserve some credit for trying to raise the bar higher than JB and Michelle ever realized it could go. Which is why it's so weird that Jill seems so resistant to budging from that model.

[Pecansforeveryone]

Jill in spite of how she was raised does seem to have a rather adventurous palate. She has posted about enjoying Thai food, Indian, Middle Eastern, etc. Plus she did make Derrick Nepali food. I do think the spark really has gone out of her. She may be really and truly stuck in a rut. 

[StraightOuttaArkansas]

If the amount of food gives her comfort and identity, why doesn't she just divide it into two casserole dishes and freeze one then? I mean she might do that, but then she should mention that in the recipe. Sure it is probably an extra bowl to wash, but then she has a freezer meal to fall back on when time and/or budget make you need it. Before the littlest Outta was born we were in a place financially that allowed for buying the ingredient to make a a couple of months worth of freezer meals and it turned out to be a lot cheaper than I initially thought and honestly lovely to have that extra time to spend with the baby and teen Outta. I wish I had the time now to do it again. Jill could easily take these over-sized recipes and shop them as "make one, freeze one" and find an audience, even if they are not pretty. Also a sprinkle of parsley would have helped that photo, super simple and at least looks like she is trying.

[backyard sylph]

I went from feeding eight to six to four to, well, here's something I made if you want some, and have attuned myself to living on leftovers, because cooking for just me when others do live here feels weird to do, and it does cost less serving-wise to make more of certain items.

It was hardest to go down to four because I still just made the recipe for eight when there were six. But unlike with Jill, most of what I cook couldn't just be slapped into two 9 x 13 pans. I didn't grow up eating much casserole style food except occasionally manicotti or the like, and I don't like much of it. I do like a nice bread and cheese casserole French-style, but I digress.

So for awhile we had too much left over. And now my budget is slashed to nearly nothing, but my young men all work full time so they also buy a lot of their own food. 

What I'm thinking is that it is psychological for her. She is still embracing the matriarchal sense of providing a bounty to set before a crowd. The crowd has moved on, but she's doing it anyway, and on her watch, no one needs to sneak their portion into the bathroom to finish it in peace. 

I think Jill is the most damaged of all the older crowd from growing up as they did, and it shows in odd little ways.

[SilverBeach]

On 3/18/2019 at 3:32 PM, bella8050 said:

I saw the picture on IG...I love ritz cracker "breadcrumbs"...this just looks weird. But of course it's a Duggar family favorite so it figures. 

 

 

What does Jill have against using parsley, paprika, carrot curls, or anything with color to dress up her blah food photography? No skills required.

[CharlieInCharge]

15 minutes ago, backyard sylph said:

I think Jill is the most damaged of all the older crowd from growing up as they did, and it shows in odd little ways.

I agree with this and I always find it interesting considering her ‘perfect child’ status within the family. If there is one case which exemplifies the failures of the Duggar lifestyle, it would have to be Jill’s. She was a great fit, seemed to accept and even enjoy her role and excelled as a SAHD. But real life hit her especially hard because of that and it shows the most on her. The contrast between Jill during courtship and Jill today is stark. 

[FrozenSmile]

Looks like Derick has some wisdom to pass along to everyone, especially millennials. 

https://www.dillardfamily.com/2019/03/confessions-of-a-christ-seeking-millennial/?fbclid=IwAR3QV0-j0f7s0raWgA0KlSlwq0LPfwJ4qh6wI9ge_gyCkbmT9cuw4JPHW-I

[fluffernutter]

 Ofjill states: "For example, one myth I hear going around in the Christian millennial world is this notion of “the one.”  Young singles expect to see the clouds part and hear the hallelujah chorus when they meet their soul mate, and if that hasn’t happened, then they believe that they must continue waiting for “the one.”  If you carry this thinking into married life, you may even question yourself about whether you passed up “the one” or should have waited a little longer because “the one” was just over the horizon.  If you’re married (to a Christian or not), “the one” is always going to be who you are married to.  My “one” is always Jill Michelle Dillard.  If you aren’t married, don’t wait for a perfect person because you’ll just die single." 

Damn. What a prick. Does that strike anyone else as a dig on Jill?