OS Vegetables, whats best fresh or frozen?

butler_helen

ok so I've just been to Tesco and nearly had a heart attack at the price of food (I don't do cooking, buying or thus budgeting, my OH does that but he's left me for a week whilst he's off gambling in Las V).

Thus, I replaced everything on my veggie list that I could do so with frozen, this worked out much cheaper. E.g. cauliflower & brocolli, 500g fresh was £1.50ish and 907g of frozen was 97p (cheapest ones). I got sweetcorn and peas and spinach.

What else could I swap? Chicken looked cheaper but is it worth it? the onions also looked good but I wasn't too sure about how to defrost and cook with them.

Any advice? Ideally I'd like to swap everything for frozen - it will reduce waste and let us portion properly.

One more thing... where's best for frozen in bulk foods? Iceland... farmfoods... tesco... asda? any opinions?

second thing... can I use frozen in my new slow cooker?

thank you in advance everyone!

Ladyhawk

Everything!! There is absolutely nothing wrong with frozen stuff. I just cook the onions as per normal and don't bother defrosting them. There is a bit of a global shortage of onions at the moment (yes really) so prepared frozen onions will probably cheaper. There is also a problem with potatoes at the moment so you might see them also become more expensive over the next few weeks.

McKneff

Fresh food is far better for you, looks nicer and tastes nicer.

Get some 'Stay Fresh Bags' 25 for £1.

You can put any veg in these and it stays fresh for more than a week, you just take out what you want and then fold the bag over,
they are a brilliant invention.
They also sell them specially for meat and bread.

quintwins

your not suppose to use frozen in your slowcooker but i do and were all fine

for chicken i would swap breasts for fresh thights and do them in your slowcooker and the meat just falls off the bone it makes lovely casaroles

thinsg liek mince can be bought in big packets and you can freeze half (i split the big £2 pack in tesco in 3 and bulk it out with carrots and frozen peas and sweetcorn) you can also pick up reduced bread ect and put it in the freezer til you need it

Buddingblonde

Fresh fruit and veg is indeed healthier for you - however most of the fruit and veg in supermarkets are nowhere near as fresh as you think they are.
Frozen veg are often frozen the same day as picking so they retain more of their vitamins and minerals that stuff that has been sitting around for weeks in deep refrigeration in ships coming from all over the world.
Fresh fruit and veg are good if you can buy local in season but given that we now demand fruit and veg all year round the miles that our food travels is amazing. Fruit is now coming in from outside europe, as far away as South America!!!!!

So before buying fresh ask yourself how fresh is it? Just because it is ripe doesnt mean it is fresh.

butler_helen

quintwins do you mean frozen mince? £2 is awesome! Assuming they do the super low fat stuff, because I'm on SW and should really make some compromise to make sure I stick to the diet.

I shall do the breast for leg swap (can I take the skin off and it will still taste nice and drop off?

oh nooooo onion and potatoes going up? I really can't afford this eating malarky! Should be good for my diet. Even the cat had to eat the 'horrid' bits of the chicken breasts tonight, which I would normally bin (the fatty chewy bits raw).

Can you buy just normal frozen potatoes? or would it have to be a chip or a roasty? I don't like either of those...

Pitlanepiglet

I'm not convinced that fresh is best. Manky old veg that's been knocking around a supermarket supply chain for a week isn't in my view better than something that was frozen within an hour of being picked. Personally I have absolutely no issue with frozen food and it fits with my "shop monthly" concept.

Personally, I don't buy frozen onions, I buy bulk packs of onions when they are cheap and then I chop them (food processor) and freeze them.

Other than that a lot of the veg we use is frozen and it's perfectly fine, often cheaper and it avoids the waste issue.

butler_helen

Pitlanepiglet wrote: »

Personally, I don't buy frozen onions, I buy bulk packs of onions when they are cheap and then I chop them (food processor) and freeze them.

Other than that a lot of the veg we use is frozen and it's perfectly fine, often cheaper and it avoids the waste issue.

it's actually only just occured to me I could cut up my own veg when it's cheap and then freeze myself! thank you

ERICS_MUM

I heard a report on BBC Radio 5 about the shortage of onions, particularly those grown in India.

UK fresh veg is expensive at the moment due to the weather I suppose. You could wait until spring/summer and buy whatever is in season and cheap (e.g. a glut of peas, caulis etc) and freeze them yourself.

quintwins

no it's fresh mince 800g, it's value tho but i don't find it fatty i used to buy lean mince and don't really notice any difference, i once read you can bulk mince out with porridge oats (tesco value ones are acually really nice) and they absob the juices so taste the same, it did work but the texture was slightly off

yes you can take the skins off i leave mine on tho and just rip it off the bone once it's cooked