really easy to cook home made ready meals

suse*

I am not sure if I am posting this in the right place but I am hoping you might be able to help me.

I have some disabilities which mean I have problems with my hands so I really struggle with things like cooking. I have never learnt to cook that well in the first place mind you, but now I need to find a better mse way if I can to reduce my food budget, as well improve the sort of food I am eating.

I currently live off a mix of ready meals, supernoodles, tinned soup and sandwiches. I also end up having take away more often than is good for me too, just as working full time still causes me to really struggle with pain / exhaustion at times.

So social services have recommend their sort of meals on wheels service and another similar private company. The way these work though is they are ready meals by another name really, but come either fresh or you buy a week or two's worth of frozen meals.

Looking at the prices though the local service is £3.95 for a meal and a pudding like sponge and custard, the private company do more offers if you buy meal deals but even then they seem to be more like £4 a meal with no "free" pudding.

Currently I try and buy ready meals on offer so 3 for £6 deals and the like, so going up to nearer £4 a meal would be quite an increase for a similar product but just with delivery included.

Living off ready meals for the next 30+ years though, be they from a supermarket or a special service, doesn't seem overly healthy really either.

So I just wondered how other people might cope in similar situations.

Do I need to just try and find the best quality ready meals for the best price eg are ones from posher supermarkets better for you or not.

Or what are the sort of recipes that need a minimal amount of cooking that I could maybe freeze myself in batches maybe. I can't do things like chop veg for example so it would need to be things where if it needs veg it is preprepared still. I can't lift saucepans or anything heavy really either.

I have a slow cooker, steamer, george forman grill thing in a cupboard which have hardly been used. As well as a microwave and electric oven with gas hob.

ellawood

I would cook chicken in a slow cooker and buy ready chopped veg either fresh or frozen you can now get ready peeled potatoes in Tesco,you could have a nice roast dinner . Then you could use the leftover chicken to make other meals for example I cook rice add chicken chunks peas sweetcorn and make a thin egg omelet which I cut up and stir though and add a little dipping sauce .

midnightraven3

well first off, we use quorn mince but these work the same with meat mince

some chopped onion (you can buy a bag of frozen chopped onion)
in a little oil (brown meat mince now if using)
2 cartons passata or 1 carton, + 1 tin chopped toms (both around 35p each)
add 1 tsp sugar (stops it being bitter)
fling in your bag of quorn
good spoon of mixed herbs (value ones do nicely) and depending on your taste, 1 -2 tsp powdered garlic
simmer for a few mins its all it needs

use half as spag bol, and the other half lasagne
i used to do lasagne sheets but now we just boil value penne pasta and mix it in (saves cutting and layers falling apart)
top with white lasagne sauce
8-10 meals done

you can half the mince an onions before putting in the toms
and make cottage pie, or chilli with the other half if thast too many tomatoey dishes

ellawood

Also you could do jacket potatoes in batches and have one heated though and do different filling like cheese,beans ,tuna add some salad

iammumtoone

I would suggest buying all vegetables frozen including potatoes, you can buy frozen roast and mash potato, if you use on line shopping you will get it delivered. You can cook the frozen veg in the microwave so no heavy saucepans needed. Roasts will need to be put in the oven if you could manage that. With frozen veg there is no preparation needed and you can take out as much as you need so not waste either.

That just leaves meat you would need to cook.

You could still supplement this with ready meals for anything more 'exotic' you fancied. Just this way you would be 'cooking' some meals at home as well.

THIRZAH

Do you have a food processor? You could chop things like onions in one-also use it for grating cheese or making pastry.

Chilli is easy-brown onion in oil, add mince and brown, then add kidney beans, tinned chopped tomatoes and chilli powder. I usually let it simmer for about 40 minutes. It freezes well.

You could buy cut up stewing steak and make casseroles in your slow cooker. My butcher sells diced chicken which is great for curries-I use Pataks Korma paste and follow the recipe on the jar!

Delia Smiths "How to Cheat at Cooking" has lots of recipes using ready prepared ingredients. There should be a copy in your local library.

sweetilemon

At the moment there is a lot of Chistmas party food out. We like to have some (eg chicken sticks and potato skins) with salad or beans, its just a case of popping in the oven and buying prepacked salad. I like the fresh stuffed mushrooms from the veg isle, you could make them a meal by serving with dauphionors prepacked and a couple of sausages. Butchers/supermarkets sometimes sell chicken kebabs (george foreman) that can be served with cous cous (just add water) and pitta bread(george foreman). Burgers and frying steak on the george foreman also, beef olives in oven. Aunt bessies mash/roast potatoes and prepack veg - you can buy ready to roast veg or microwavable tubs as well as frozen.

-taff

Food processor or ready chopped veg and meat to make stews/curries, sauage casserole, etc in the slow cooker.

Then you can ladle it out of there into containers to freeze.

My favourite pudding used ot be spgone with some sherry sprinled on it and a dollop of fresh cream on top, lovely, easy to do with a spray cream too.

Lots of puddings come ready prepared in supermarkets quite cheaply now, epsecially in the fridge section - trifles, rice pudding etc..


Steamed veg is better for you than ready meal veg for sure
YOu could do that in the steamer with a prok chop or similar in the g.foreman

Chris25

suse, have a look here on the Slow Cooker Index http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.html?p=490232&postcount=9 loads of recipes & tips on there for cooking all sorts of things

and if you have a look on her (scroll down to post 2) there's info & recipes on batch cooking http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=8736367#post8736367

One of the regular posters here makes up her meals in parts - she batch cooks mince & chicken casserole, say, then bags it into separate portions, ready to be used in different meals. She also makes things like mashed potatoes or rice & portions & bags those separately too. That way, she has whatever to hand to quickly make a meal & is able to ring the changes too. So if she fancies cottage pie, she can use a mince & a mash - if she wants chicken, she can then choose whether to have rice or potatoes with it.

Good luck - you should be able to do it but it will take a bit of organization. You could try here for inspiration for meal plans http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=346932

Lastly, a stick blender is fabulous for making soup - any veg (ready chopped frozen is fine) plus stock then blended - great to freeze too and also useful for sauces

**One thing I would say about ready-chopped fresh veg is that if you find it reduced, you really need to use it that day - especially onions. They don't last very long before they go off.**

Ladyluck1

Have you heard about 'dump meals' they are an American invention but I love them!
Basically freeze everything in a ziploc raw (sometimes cooked but it's more prep. Then on the day, thaw it out for an hour, put in the slow cooker and you've dinner at the end of the day!
I use it a lot for reduced meat, I make regularly;
Bolognese sauce
Chilli
Beef stew
Curry (I just freeze the chicken and veggies then add curry paste, chopped toms and coconut milk).
Chicken in sauce, I like to freeze in stock as then add herbs and cream cheese.
Most of these require minimal chopping r you can add frozen chopped onion/peppers etc
There's so many variations
Good luck x

iammumtoone

Ladyluck1 wrote: »

Have you heard about 'dump meals' they are an American invention but I love them!
Basically freeze everything in a ziploc raw (sometimes cooked but it's more prep. Then on the day, thaw it out for an hour, put in the slow cooker and you've dinner at the end of the day!
I use it a lot for reduced meat, I make regularly;
Bolognese sauce
Chilli
Beef stew
Curry (I just freeze the chicken and veggies then add curry paste, chopped toms and coconut milk).
Chicken in sauce, I like to freeze in stock as then add herbs and cream cheese.
Most of these require minimal chopping r you can add frozen chopped onion/peppers etc
There's so many variations
Good luck x

I like this idea, I might try it myself, can you go into a bit more detail how you do it please. For the bolognese would you just freeze raw mince, onion, herbs, carrot, peppers, mushrooms, tin tomatoes etc then just thaw and put in the slowcooker. Can you freeze raw vegetables I thought they had to be par boiled?

Thanks again I had never heard of this idea before.