Only 1 in 4 meals cooked from scratch....

Cat501

rinabean I agree with a lot of what you say, if people can afford ready meals all the time that's up to them, but generally I find the portions too small for me!:D As someone else said, you do tend to be hungry again an hour later....They are expensive for what you get, and though some are nice, some are a bit tasteless.

If I can make something cheaper from scratch and it's something I'll enjoy making (just casseroles and curries and stuff) I will, but I honestly feel no guilt in using frozen breaded fish or chicken sometimes, and find some people's insistence on "fresh" veg instead of frozen a bit disingenuous. If you have outside space to grow your own, that's an entirely different matter. The only veg I insist on buying fresh is carrots, and that's purely because I do notice a difference in taste, not because of any food snobbery.

PolkaDotsAndLace

An M&S ready meal is still a ready meal, just a more expensive (and usually more yummy) one!

I'm quite sad, I'm sat here costing up my cottage pie in comparison after this thread. I think it comes in at around 90p a portion with some sauce left over. It does depend what you regularly have in stock though and I think this is what bumps up the cost for many - if I had to go and buy beef stock cubes, bay leaves etc specially for it, and was unlikely to use them again, it would probably bump it up to higher than a ready meal.

I do think HM lasagne would be more expensive than a ready meal - I've never managed to do it cheaply yet, mostly because I find it a lot of bits to do and doing my own white sauce is just another faff too far. So by the time I've bought the jar it's more expensive.

I do think some on this thread are being a tad too strict with their definition of 'from scratch' - I'm unlikely to have a cow in my back garden! I'm thinking of it more as proper home cooking than from scratch.

Cat501

you mean you don't make your own stock PolkaDots?:p

Tesco value stock cubes, 10p for ten, not great but at that price who's complaining? Not me!:D

PolkaDotsAndLace

Cat501 wrote: »

you mean you don't make your own stock PolkaDots?:p

Tesco value stock cubes, 10p for ten, not great but at that price who's complaining? Not me!:D

No, I'm too lazy for it and we can never get it to taste good, we've tried using the chicken carcass before and it was rubbish!

rinabean

Ready meal portions are tiny! I think it's because they are often so salty and fatty that if they were any bigger the nutritional information would make most people not want to eat it. They always brag about how "healthy" they are - well, yeah, I wouldn't expect more than 50% of my daily sat fat in a lasagne portion the size of my finger!!

I've thought of another ready meal that's not that bad - those innocent veg pots. They're still more than making it yourself and the packaging is something I prefer to avoid, but you can't really frown on them otherwise. M&S meals tend to contain about 3 litres of cream and while it may well be British and without additives, you know, it's still 3l of cream in your dinner, ha!

Comparing the cost of HM and ready meals is tough because you're so rarely comparing like-for-like, and, well, who'd want to? The best thing about HM food is that, assuming you can cook, it's precisely how you like it. I can't fully enjoy restaurants for this reason - I'm sitting there thinking, well, this is alright, but it would be so much nicer if they'd done x and y, and how much am I paying for this?

Cat501

lol well you've beaten me, I don't do whole chickens, I'm a bit squeamish about things like that!:D Oh, and lazy too......:o

LondonDreamer

C_Mababejive wrote: »

The closest i get to a ready meal is M&S two for ten for a Saturday treat..and well..its hardly a ready meal is it?

cooking-mama wrote: »

Ah,but here lies the confusion,why is this any less of a ready meal than something from Iceland or Asda?..

Really depends what you get on the deal. I buy this whenever I need some wine for a gift, as I see it as a way of getting a £10 bottle plus some "free" food for me. I always get the fresh meat option (usually a whole chicken or a gammon joint) plus a bag of veg/potatoes so it's still very much prepared by me. If OP is buying similar items, I agree that it's not a ready meal. More a bundle deal of ingredients.

Dessert on the other hand... that's prepared, but delicious. And when they offer things like their lush cheesecake, I can't make it cheaper. :drool:

Edinburghlass_2

rinabean wrote: »

If we're using "from scratch" to mean the healthiest, freshest, least preservatives/additives food, which I think many people seem to, then tinned tomatoes and most frozen veg beat their "fresh" counterparts any day. But that doesn't mean they're not processed. Processed doesn't always mean bad (just usually...)

It is so snobbishness. Someone actually came out and said ready meals are terrible but an M&S ready meal is different and not a ready meal. Completely ridiculous. Yes, it's tastier, has better ingredients, but it's still a ready meal. I think it's amazing how much bile is being spewed on this thread. You'd think the headline was "Only 1 in 4 children not beaten nightly" or something. I know that most of us here, myself included, are not living the simple life entirely voluntarily, and a little envy for those better off is to be expected. But no-one's going to believe that you are actually content like this if you can't hide your hatred of people who can afford ready meals every night for their families.

:T

off to see if its meal 2,3 or 4 for tea tonight

Justamum

cooking-mama wrote: »

even Jamie Oliver uses pataks pastes

You can't beat Pataks curry pastes I bet you'll find most Indian takeaways use them too - I've seen the catering size ones in our local one anyway, and their curries are delish

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

I use a combination of favoured Ready Meals like Tesco's Liver Bacon and Mash to chuck with Vegetables, Mr T Fine Green Beans being a favourite and shock horror I am an avid Cook as well.
I make a special point to buy Cookbooks like Jane Grigson's English Food, books by Elizabeth David, Nigel Slater etc from which I get reliable authoritative and trustworthy recipes, a lot of which might be classified as Peasant Food. (Posh Cookery books distinguish themselves with this fine characteristic).
I also mine similar high quality recipe sites such as Good Food Magazine (watch out for the product placements), BBC Good Food, Chow and Epicurious. I also think 10l Cookbooks and David Lebowitz is good (Foodie Bloggers tend to be on the excellent side I find).
I save recipes to my Evernote Account which I have on my Iphone and Desktop. Whenever possible I try to grab recipes for free rather than have to pay for them.
Good Food Magazine has ended up formulaic, predictable, commerically driven instead of being a magazine of the people. All the same I find it invaluble to be directed to good products that i know will be tasty. This means I will enjoy my food, a key factor in my Budgetary Strategy which I realise, having read this thread, will not appear at all to be remotely anything near to Budgetary let alone MSE (whatever that is, I hope it isn't One Size Fits All!)
As over the years I have taught myself to cook who benefits from a family background of excellent cooks I take great pleasure in finding and mentally tasting recipes meaning Food goes in new directions. Homemade Wonton Wrappers are my next Project. I set myself new projects to explore new tastes, new adventures in cooking. Samosa Pastry is on the cards so at last I can make my own Samosas.
Where do I save money?
I buy Waitrose Essentials Beef Mince and make a basic English mince with thyme and rosemary paired with a kallo organic beef stock cubes.
Mince is used as a platform for anything from Chilli Con Carne to Quesadillas.
I tend to buy 2 types of meat a week say Beef Mince and Chicken. Chicken gets multiple uses and carcass gets bunged in slow cooker (OS) that because I paid a little more (shock horror gasp!!) I can put in oven, place in microwave and then in Freezer!! (This multifunctionality is worth paying for IMHO though people might disagree).
With the Meat I buy dozen free range eggs Columbian Blacktails from Waitrose for preference. Eggs are cheap, make everything from Egg Salad to Scrambled eggs etc. Last but not least I have a box of Riverford organic Vegetables. This may appear to MSE to be a total extravagannce but after years of Mr T veg rotting as soon as I got home I decided 'enough was enough'. Riverford veg last longer, less is thrown away and I enjoy the taste.
I also adore Waitrose fresh stocks (expects onslaught from MSE now hides behind Barrier) which mean I get get high quality stocks without having to buy bones etc and do it myself (OK this probably should go on New Projects List but still).
When I buy Hams I slice and freeze in my freezer, Leftover mince gets frozen into portions for future meals.
Lentils Puy and Red especially Waitrose Puy gets made into fast Egg and Lentil combis. Good for you and tasty too.
Taken all together I have all the makings of making good meals, except when I am too tired and just want to bung one of my reliable Ready made meal options in the oven or microwave.