OS Vegetables, whats best fresh or frozen?

valk_scot

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

:eek: I always wondered who actually bought steam bags of veg....they look lovely but last time I priced them they were hideously expensive compared to keeping a couple of bigger bags of frozen veg in the freezer and chucking a handful in a saucepan.

You can get the same sort of steaming effect in a microwavable plastic box anyway, with the lid left open a tiny bit.

butler_helen

Lol I should be fair he's working then has three days of 'fun'. I would be plotting take aways but I got a little porky over Christmas and joined slimming world. I hadn't really thought through his opinion on our new freezer goodies - I expect him to laugh and then we make some compromise (like never buying frozen chicken... The description above put me off!). But frozen other veggies and freezing our own would make sense and I wonder why we've not done it before.

As for cans, we have canned beans and sweet corn and fruit but avoid peas and potatoes etc - I will try a couple this week.

quintwins

butler_helen wrote: »

Lol I should be fair he's working then has three days of 'fun'. I would be plotting take aways but I got a little porky over Christmas and joined slimming world. I hadn't really thought through his opinion on our new freezer goodies - I expect him to laugh and then we make some compromise (like never buying frozen chicken... The description above put me off!). But frozen other veggies and freezing our own would make sense and I wonder why we've not done it before.

As for cans, we have canned beans and sweet corn and fruit but avoid peas and potatoes etc - I will try a couple this week.

the reason he's prob never did it is all thats peeling and chopping takes ages lol

i don't buy frozen chicken but if i'm in a hurry i buy bags of frozen chcicken strips in iceland and throw them in a casarole but it costs the same as when i do tights so normally i just do that

Pitlanepiglet

valk_scot wrote: »

You can get the same sort of steaming effect in a microwavable plastic box anyway, with the lid left open a tiny bit.

Yes very true.

We do use lots of frozen veg as it's easier than buying more regularly. I have always kept tins of mushrooms in the cupboard as I've struggled to keep mushrooms for long enough to be useful. However I now dehydrate mushrooms in the dehydrator and I've discovered that the farm shop veg when kept in the cool shed lasts for weeks.

A lot of our other food comes out of the freezer, but the majority of it is fresh meat and fish that we portion up and then freeze. We also freeze cooked meat so the last bit of a lump of roast meat and/or batched cooked portions (tonight was beef stew frozen a couple of weeks ago.)

Vaila

id definetly swap out of season veg for frozen, the frozen fruit selection is great too

angeltreats

I would also be making sure that if my OH got to go to Vegas for a week, I got something nice (and preferably expensive) too

One thing I always have in the freezer is frozen fish fillets. I don't live anywhere near a fishmonger and don't want to drive 6 miles to the nearest supermarket with a fish counter every time we fancy salmon for tea, so I keep bags of frozen salmon, smoked haddock, cod, prawns etc. They defrost quickly or you can easily grill them from frozen, they are pretty good quality and are much cheaper than fresh.

I do MASSIVELY prefer fresh fish though, if only we had a fishmonger in the village I'd be there a couple of times every week.

Edit to add: another thing I always keep in the freezer and that's a lot cheaper than buying fresh is bags of mixed berries. Great for throwing into muffins etc, and they don't need to be defrosted first.

exlibris

quintwins wrote: »

the reason he's prob never did it is all thats peeling and chopping takes ages lol

i don't buy frozen chicken but if i'm in a hurry i buy bags of frozen chcicken strips in iceland and throw them in a casarole but it costs the same as when i do tights so normally i just do that

Do you really cook tights? What do they taste like lol

anotheruser

I read on the BBC website a while ago about the pros and cons of frozen veg.
While I have been brought up to think fresh is better the frozen camp have come up with results which are more or less exactly the same with regard to nutritional value.

aliama

Currently, we buy mainly fresh, but I'd like to move more towards frozen, since for a lot of things (spinach for example), it works out considerably cheaper, and I do believe the nutritional content is probably the same (if not better).

So, 'mostly fresh', but I'd like to move towards equal amounts.

recovering_spendaholic

I used to always buy fresh and was a bit disparaging of frozen, but lately I have completely changed my views for some veg. The veg I now always get frozen are:
Peas
Mixed vegetables
Sweetcorn
cauliflower
brocolli
green beans (whole)
leeks
stir fry mixed veg
spinach
broad beans
Chopped celery carrot and onion from Sainsburys (when I can get it because they often don't have it in)


The ones I still buy fresh are
Potatoes (don't like oven chips!)
onions
peppers
mushrooms
butternut squash
cabbage
carrots (although I do like Aunt Bessies carrot and swede mash!)
parsnips (again I do like AB roasting parsnips!)
Courgettes
sweet potatoes (although I did buy the new frozen Tescos sweet potato chips and they were lovely)

I think that it is true that, unless you grow your own, then frozen probably have the most nutrients but I just don't like the texture of frozen cabbage or butternut squash for example.