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

natlie

I dont think its fair to judge and to imagine what circumstances this takes place - it is expensive to cook from scratch especially if you are single a lot of people dont cook and thats the fault of poor home ec. in school and the society we live in means more work - less time and people dont pass on these skills anymore. I prepare most of our meals from scratch but as I am a veggie I rely on some prepared veggie burgers etc I think its handy to have a couple of ready meals in the freezer like pizza/a lasagne for emergencies - I make the girls pizza from scratch usually. As others have said what about cereal, beans, soup etc

I also imagine this is 1 in 4 meals in the uk not 1 in 4 meals per person how many people eat lunch out during work grab a salad/sandwich/soup/baked potato this is not necessarily unhealthy just not prepared at home, then there are all the restaurant meals out and what if you go to your mums for dinner - you didn't make that from scratch either?

rachbc

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

but can you cook the same meal from scratch for that? If i do a chilli or a curry, I'm heading towards £50.. Granted there'll be enough to freeze but nowhere near the same amount as I'd get in 50 £1 ready meals.
When you cook from scratch you're more likely to use decent quality food rather than the cheap shite in the ready meals, which is why they're so cheap.

and they don't feed one at all. They're more like a starter!

£50 for a chilli - what are you making it with??

Even if that was a typo £5 is a lot - mine costs about £2 for 4 with often a portion left over

scheming_gypsy

rachbc wrote: »

£50 for a chilli - what are you making it with??

Even if that was a typo £5 is a lot - mine costs about £2 for 4 with often a portion left over

no typo! I like to cook and not just stick some mince in a pan and add a bottle of sauce. When I go shopping for a chilli it's:
A decent sized joint of beef - £8 ish. (stick it in the slow cooker with some oxo stock and red wine and leave till you can easily shred it).
Mince - about a kilo
**i should probably mention it cook it in a bit arsed pan (about 6 litres)**
about 4 bell peppers - green and red.
about 3 big onions or more small ones
chilli peppers
garlic
3 or 4 jars of Asda hot chilli sauce (as well as using herbs and spices and chilli powder etc), 99p a jar but does seem to work well compared to anything else I've tried, but I wouldn't just use it on its own.
sometimes I'll stick sweetcorn in

then there's the jalapenos, rice and refried beans; sub rolls, cheese and hotdogs to make chilli cheese dogs the next day.

Not forgetting the lager as well!

For the curry i'll use chicken breasts, lamb, prawns, mushrooms, beef, onions, peppers, chillis, garlic, ginger, 3 or 4 cartons of passata sauce etc etc.

So there you go... that's why it's about £50.

adelight

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

no typo! I like to cook and not just stick some mince in a pan and add a bottle of sauce. When I go shopping for a chilli it's:
A decent sized joint of beef - £8 ish. (stick it in the slow cooker with some oxo stock and red wine and leave till you can easily shred it).
Mince - about a kilo
**i should probably mention it cook it in a bit arsed pan (about 6 litres)**
about 4 bell peppers - green and red.
about 3 big onions or more small ones
chilli peppers
garlic
3 or 4 jars of Asda hot chilli sauce (as well as using herbs and spices and chilli powder etc), 99p a jar but does seem to work well compared to anything else I've tried, but I wouldn't just use it on its own.
sometimes I'll stick sweetcorn in

then there's the jalapenos, rice and refried beans; sub rolls, cheese and hotdogs to make chilli cheese dogs the next day.

Not forgetting the lager as well!

For the curry i'll use chicken breasts, lamb, prawns, mushrooms, beef, onions, peppers, chillis, garlic, ginger, 3 or 4 cartons of passata sauce etc etc.

So there you go... that's why it's about £50.

So £8 beef, £6 nice mince, £4 wine, £1 peppers, £1 onions, £1 chillis, 30p garlic, £4 chilli sauce, £1 nice rice, £1 to make refried beans, £1 rolls, £2 cheese, £2 hot dogs. That's a lot but still only £32.30 and enough for 20+ meals! Are you being serious that is say two family meals and a little left over or are you exaggerating or trying to wind people up? The majority of people don't make that much or use such luxurious ingredients. Most people just want a healthy well rounded meal for less than the cost of a ready meal, not to make gallons of indulgent food.

The ready meals are such cheap !!!!! for a quid that you could replicate 50 of them for a tenner. Teeny tiny piece of chicken, lots of starch and flavouring to thicken some thinned out sauce.

BohemianCoast

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

i'm not throwing anything in a slow cooker in the morning; I can barely throw myself in the shower! my alarm goes off at 5:30am and I'm not getting up at 5am just to stick something in the slow cooker to eat 14 hours later.

Except that you don't have to. If you put together the slow cook dish in the evening, you can leave the ceramic pot in the fridge overnight and then put in the slow cooker in the morning. Even I can manage 30 seconds in the morning, in exchange for walking through the door to the smell of dinner.

scheming_gypsy

adelight wrote: »

So £8 beef, £6 nice mince, £4 wine, £1 peppers, £1 onions, £1 chillis, 30p garlic, £4 chilli sauce, £1 nice rice, £1 to make refried beans, £1 rolls, £2 cheese, £2 hot dogs. That's a lot but still only £32.30 and enough for 20+ meals! Are you being serious that is say two family meals and a little left over or are you exaggerating or trying to wind people up? The majority of people don't make that much or use such luxurious ingredients. Most people just want a healthy well rounded meal for less than the cost of a ready meal, not to make gallons of indulgent food.

.

go back and read what i said.

and 20+ meals? are you sure you're not exaggerating?

becs

Jojo_the_Tightfisted wrote: »

There is NO way ON EARTH I would buy a lump of meat just for it to be destroyed at school. As it is, a lump of meat is a rare enough occasion in any meal.

Nobody asked you to. I don't see why the kids couldn't do it as part of school mealls for their own lunch. Once a week or even once a month woudn't hurt. It's about time children learnt to cook properly as many won't have parents that can teach them and it's a valuable skill.

becs

Scheming gypsy my dh makes a fantastic chilli that EVERYONE tha eats it asks for the recipe for and not a jar of sauce in sight! We use half a pack of mince, a pack of mixed peppers, a tin of chilli kidney beans, tin of chopped tomatoes, onion, garlic and a bit of smoked paprika and chilli. This serves 4 with rice for a few quid a most.

scheming_gypsy

That's great, but I'm not him... and i don't mean that in a bad way. Like I said earlier, I enjoy cooking and when I make a chilli that's how I do it which is why the cost is 'towards' £50 compared to the cost of a microwave chilli.

scheming_gypsy

BohemianCoast wrote: »

Except that you don't have to. If you put together the slow cook dish in the evening, you can leave the ceramic pot in the fridge overnight and then put in the slow cooker in the morning. Even I can manage 30 seconds in the morning, in exchange for walking through the door to the smell of dinner.

lol, trust me. If i did that I'd get home from work to a ceramic pot still in the fridge.