When only takeaway will do?

rygon

I personally cant stand chinese takeaways as i fined it too rich and greasy (although i had one once which was amazing).
Curries are virtually all made from a base sauce. From there you add different things to get different curries. If you look on the web you will find different ways of making these base sauces. Just big loads up one day and then split it into portions and freeze. When you want a curry most of it is made already and all you need to do is add a few things (whilst the rice is cooking)

The way i make egg fried rice is to cook the rice and add meat, onion, veg etc. refridgerate for 12hrs or so and then when ready to eat fry it for 3mins, crack an egg over it and stir rapidly and continuously. repeat until enough eggs have been used (i find 3 for 2 portions is about right).

Stir fries are another good thing to make. boil water up and shove noodles in and turn off heat. cook slices of carrot and bell pepper..add slices of beef/chicken/prawns etc (with black pepper sprinkled on beef) with garlic and ginger...add spring onions and green or red thai curry paste then add the noodles on top with soy sauce and stir for 2mins

3plus1

My favourite Chinese does yummy 'special' noodles. Any tips for getting that authentic taste, and what sort of noodles to look out for in the shops? Complete novice when it comes to Chinese food!!

slonik

My too-lazy-to-cook fallbacks are frozen pizza or posh tubs of pasta sauce and fresh pasta. Both can be bought when reduced/on offer (though not so much the pasta) and frozen so you have an emergency stock, and take almost no effort to cook. You can get decent pizzas for £1 (reduced), and they're easily enough to feed 1 hungry person in a lazy/tired mood. And IMHO, half the point of takeaways is that they are a not particularly healty special treat.

TKP_3

We have cut out nearly all takeaways - firstly becuase of the price of them now days :eek: , secondly because of the high fat content

Fridays is our steak and chips night, so on Fridays OH will buy 1 small pkt chips from the chippie (I only eat a few, as I need to keep my weight down).
We have stopped Chinese takeaways all together (SO expensive). Sadly, the nearest Chinese shop to me appears to be London :rolleyes: That's a 40 minute train ride just to get to Waterloo... I do still cook Chinese though. My grandmother was a profession Chinese cookery teacher, and I have copies of her cookbooks.

I make my own curries as every time I have had Indian food (takeaway or resturant) I have ended up ill _pale_

I will never buy takeaway pizza again (£15 for one medium and one small - when on special :eek: ) - or those revolting things from the supermarket. We make our own and it tastes so much better.

Now that I meal plan I it is much easier to cook everyday, and I plan no cooking night by having batch cooked lasagne and other meals in the freezer.

Frugal_Fox

ViksB wrote:

Thanks for all your responses.
It is heartening to know we are not alone.
For us a takeaway is what CCStar says

...Very fussy about my chowmein- the noddles that you buy in supermarkets (dried ones) just don't taste right....
Thanks everyone

Viks

I know just what you mean about the noodles!!

For what its worth - why not budget for a takeaway once a month. Plan how much you are prepared to pay for one night of 'no cook pleasure'. Then when you feel 'its' that night, you can just go ahead and treat yourselves - and really enjoy it. Not feeling guilty, knowing that you have budgeted for it. Then equally at the end of the month if you haven't used the money for a takeaway - throw that money at a bill or put it into your savings.

Okay - so I know its not encouraging you to take an 'old style' view - but it might help you to lose the guilt!

All the best

FF

PS - if you find a good chow mein recipe.... SHARE!!!! I love the Chilli Beef dish too.....

amyandoli

friday night is our 'naughty night'! we have 'junk food'! a pizza-normally a cheap base with our own toppings on, or we make a base ourselves sometimes too if hes off work. or fajitas. quorn chicken dippers and hm potato wedges with hm chunky tom sauce. hm sweet and sour. burger and hm chips... basically a meal with not many veggies. on these days i make sure we still get our 5 a day though, and that the meals are as slimming world as possible!

ViksB

We survived last weekend without a takeaway. It fact it was quite easy, just made sure we had lots of relatively easy food in. I have also bought a nacho kit from Aldi as it is supposed to be quite nice and it is now our emergency takeaway food.!!
We have also made some of Queenies curries and they really are yummy. They are in the freezer and last night made pizza with frozen pizza dough and that worked really well. Hubbie is finally comng around to HM pizza.
Thanks for everyone who posted I think the Takeways craving may have gone. (Although we are allowing ourselves 1 a month- mind you after the success so far I might cut that further)

Cheers
Viks

HariboJunkie

We have stopped buying takeaways now and get the bagged meal deals from Tesco. They are £6.99 for a meal for 2 or 2, that's a meal for 4 for £10. Much cheaper that a takeaway and I think they taste even better. Really good value too with a starter 2 meals, 3 rice and naan bread or prawn crackers. These are the only ready meals we eat but we've been impressed.

Cazzdevil

lynzpower wrote:

I do HM pizzas that are streets ahead of anything that we can get delivered here.

Same here, the dough takes 50 minutes in the breadmaker, then once you've put the topping on and cooked it it's only slightly longer than waiting for a takeaway delivery (on a busy friday/saturday night anyway). The base is FAR better than any pizza place's!

Plus I'm really lucky to live in a tiny village that has an oriental foodstore so a lot of the cheap sauces etc come from there. It's definitely worth tracking one down, their noodles are dirt cheap, and the variety of spices and weird sounding sauces you can get are incredible!

Raspberry_Swirl

ViksB wrote:

Very fussy about my chowmein- the noddles that you buy in supermarkets (dried ones) just don't taste right.

if you can get to a chinese/aisan supermarket then you'll find every type of noodle possible. in the fridge you'll find the nice fat slurpy noodles that will give you authentic chow mein.