cooking from scratch or buying ready made?

npsmama

Being die-hard OS folk, we never ever in a million years have ready meals ... but for various reasons I gave M&S Chunky Steak (tinned) a try.

It's actually very nice! the meat wasn't at all fatty or gristly and the gravy was very tasty. :T

I checked the label and it doesn't even have loads of junk in it or huge amounts of salt.

I think it was £2.49 for a 400g tin, which seems quite good considering the price of non-gristly meat and the time beef stew takes to cook.

Are there any other ready meals that are more than meets the eye?

Pink.

Hi npsmama,

As ready meals aren't really Old Style I've added your thread to the current thread discussing ready meals versus cooking from scratch.

Pink

competitionscafe

Came across this interesting post on the Fife Diet blog:
Credit Crunch Munch: 5 top tips to help you cut your food bill
http://fifediet.wordpress.com/2008/08/06/credit-crunch-munch/

Mostly stuff already known to OS'ers but still an interesting read. Tip number one is: Ditch the ready meals.

I am still in shock at the "£190 of shopping" and "50 packets of crisps" 'normal weekly shopping' woman. :eek:

moanymoany

When I had control of the ready meals I bought for my mother and stepfather (the carers who came in had to be able to cook them in the microwave) I bought non-frozen - I hesitate to say fresh - meals that included vegetables. They did look and smell nice.

Afyer my mum went into a home my stepfather kicked up a fuss about how much I spent on his food, implying I spent his money on my own grocery bill. I didn't as I had the food delivered and he had the itemised receipts!

He insisted on buying the 5 meals for £4 rubbish. If I was there when the carers heated the meals I would have to go home and change as the stench got into my clothes.

The better quality meals were £2 - £3 each, but were nice. So 5 meals cost about £12.50 on average, but his rubbish was £4. Of course, his health suffered.

Among the expensive meals was casseroled beef with carrots and mashed potatoes. It was a decent portion, but easily made for much less. The bottom line is, if you want to feed yourself and your family on food that you have no control over, it is up to you. Myself I think that with just a little more effort you can make and freeze meals far superior and much cheaper.

If you get a good quality basic cookery book - borrowed from the library - and follow the recipes, food comes out of the other end.