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

rachbc

ROFL at SG's luxury hand crafted £50 chilli being made with jars of sauce. How many does this 2kg of meat feed?

As I said myday to day chilli costs acouple of quid but I made an amazing one with 4 different types of chilli all ordered specially for way way less

bugslet

obviously this is old style so there is going to be a significant people who want to save money and cook from scratch, but not everyone does.

I hate and detest cooking with a passion, I do cook from scratch a couple of times a week, but really I do like M&S dinners and I can afford them, so the price isn't an issue for me. If i could afford a chef to do home-cooked then I'd prefer it to a ready-meal, but I can't, so to avoid the evil oven, I'm happy to ping!

PS I'm not lazy - 70 hours a week, up at 5.15, out three times during the week, so approximately half an hour to get changed, feed the mutts.

Each to their own!

PolkaDotsAndLace

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!

I think other people have commented on this - but nearly £50!? :eek:

If I'm making, say, a cottage pie, that involves A*da price mince (couple of quid), couple of carrots, onion, some pulses, tin of chopped tomatoes and potatoes (plus seasoning etc, but that's pennies) No way is it more than £4-5, and I'd get 4 good sized portions out of it at least.

I'm sure for some meals it might be more six and half a dozen in terms of cost (like curries) but homemade is nowhere near what you're claiming it to cost.

And if ready meals are more like a starter, surely you'd need to buy even more food to go alongside it, negating any supposed saving?

JulieGeorgiana

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.

Fair enough, when I worked I prep all the veg the night before. Leave all the ingredients in the fridge and then place them in the SC in the morning with boiling water then turn it on.

Once it's made it freezes well too

BohemianCoast

One thing that ready meals (and also McDonalds and so) do is pin-sharp portion control. When we cook for ourselves and 'spend more', we're normally not being so careful to limit the exact amount of the more expensive ingredients. I've been tightening up a bit on portion control in our house recently (we could all stand to lose a few pounds); much complaints but in fact nobody is hungry.

The thing I always noticed with ready meals is that you eat it all up and nothing is left over. Whereas if I buy stuff to cook then I'm bound to have enough veg leftover for soup, or bits of bacon for a pasta sauce, or dripping, or whatever. Example; this weekend I made a coq au vin. Now, Tesco and Ocado both have coq au vin, to serve 2, for about £6 (without potatoes). What did I spend? Chicken thighs £2.50, red onions 30p, mushrooms 50p, leftover ham from a ham hock £1, leftover bacon 80p, pureed veg from the ham hock soup 50p, serious splash of Spanish brandy £1, half bottle of red wine that had been sitting open in the fridge for weeks £2.50, splash of lingonberry cordial 5p, baking potatoes 80p. Everything was in the house already apart from mushrooms and potatoes, and most of it was needs-eating leftovers (in fact, the meal plan went hmm, what's good with frozen chicken, should use up that leftover ham and bacon... hmm coq au vin, I've got that open bottle of wine...). Nevertheless, at full cost this would be £10! But it fed four not two, with three portions left over and boxed up for lunches. Of course, if we'd been a bit greedier at dinner we'd have scoffed the lot.

Doom_and_Gloom

I don't see how people manage to eat so much ready made stuff to be honest. It is very expencive.

I have a butternut vegetable curry cooking in my slow cooker right now. I will go by todays prices on Mr S
Half a tin of beans - 15p
2 large onions (bought loose) - 35p
Tin of tomatoes - 38p
Tin of kidney beans - 25p
100g frozen sweetcorn - 15p
200g frozen mixed veg - 16p
Half a tub of soya yogurt - 73p
Half packet of creamed coconut (made into coconut milk) - 25p
600g butternut squash - 75p
50g lentils - 8p
Spices - 5p
Total cost - £3.30 and will make 10 portions served with wholegrain rice rice so add £1.70 for that totalling £5 so 50p a portion.

Not the cheapest of meals of mine but I bet a lot cheaper than a ready made meal! Indeed cheapest simular vegetable curry at Mr S works out at £1.19 for a tin of just curry that would serve 2 people so times that by 5 to get £5.95. Then add microwave wholegrain rice at 95p for 2 servings so again times by 5 and we get £4.75. That gives us a total of £10.70 for 10 portions or £1.07/portion for a basically the same meal :eek:.

adelight

scheming_gypsy wrote: »

go back and read what i said.

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

On the assumption that you use roughly 2kg of red meat plus trimmings that should make at least 20 healthy sized portions for the average person, and then there's chilli dogs too. Tbh out of control portion sizes are as much to blame for the obesity problem as processed junk food.

The m&s and waitrosr 2 dine for 10 meals are really nice ESP with the wine and desserts, I'd eat them every really busy day if I could afford it

rinabean

But tinned beans are ready made. Tinned tomatoes are ready made. Frozen veg is prepared. That's not "from scratch". Those are processed prepared foods. That's one of the 3 in 4 meals.

There's nothing wrong with it. There's no prize for the cheapest, most home-prepared meal, either, no matter what some on here seem to think. But it's not from scratch. Doesn't matter if it's just a little bit of the meal, because that's not how the term's defined. I think most on here think that buying tinned beans or frozen veg is a good enough way to save time, so the increased cost is okay. Why not actual ready meals? It's just snobbishness, and it looks a bit like insecurity to me, too.

JulieGeorgiana

I used to price up my meals i made using the ideas from Old Style... and 95% of our meals cost 50p a portion or less (including all the herbs, spices and 'extras') and we had well portioned meals (ie. not too large, but not skimpy like a microwave meal is) and my family are always full.

A friend of mine decided to save money by giving her family microwave meals... and they all complained they were 'hungry' after dinner and she ended up spending more because they snacked constantly.

When I worked full time i would cook from scratch at the weekends and make them last... and have a few quick meals during the week (ie. HM pizza with chips, or pancakes)!

Ps. £50 for a chilli because you like 'good' igredients... yet willing to trade down to slop from a microwave meal to save money... try cooking with cheaper ingredients and eating well for less money! never has chilli and rice cost me more then 50p a portion! Wanna pig out... eat 2 portions for £1!!

scheming_gypsy

rachbc wrote: »

ROFL at SG's luxury hand crafted £50 chilli being made with jars of sauce. How many does this 2kg of meat feed?

As i said, it's not just sauce poured over meat as I use herbs and spices etc and also use the sauce as I've found that it works.

It makes between 8 - 10 adult size meals.