Resisting takeaways

roguebrogue

Own brand pasta sauces are great for stockpiling in the cupboard for lazy days.
Asda's are about 30/40p, all you need to do is cook the pasta, microwave/heat up the sauce and bob's your uncle! 15 mins and done
If we're feeling a little less lazy we'll fry up some bacon/mushrooms to mix in with it.

Bargainloverbec

If I come home in that 'too tired/hungry' to cook mood I have a bowl of cereal first. That normally sorts out the hunger enough for me to then cook something 'proper'.

Cooking something quick like pasta is normally much quicker than a takeaway anyway by the time you've ordered and collected/delivered.

That said, just once in a while you can't beat a good takeaway curry!!

Nicki

The key is to have a range of meals in your freezer which you can cook from frozen (or reheat from frozen). If you are like me you only decide when you get home that you can't face cooking, so you won't have something handily defrosted.

Things like pizzas cook very well from frozen. Most meals which you have bulk cooked and frozen the extra of (eg spag bol, lasagne, etc) can be reheated from frozen in a microwave, or even in a conventional oven if you give it a bit longer and check it is hot all the way through.

Check out the ready meals in your supermarket to see which ones they say can be cooked direct from frozen, then make your own which are similar, and use the same timings and temperature as the ready made ones suggest.

Also try looking at some of the Once a Month cooking sites (there are loads on the net as this is a big American thing) and specifically look for the ones that can be cooked or reheated from frozen.

On the nights when a takeaway is the thing, the most I can do is switch the oven on and bung something in, so all the nice ideas about meals you can make in minutes from scratch, or appeasing my appetite with cereal first just wouldn't work for me, I'm afraid.

overlykeensaver

Hmm, what about the odd jar of pesto in the cupboard? Then all you have to do is cook pasta, then stir it in. And if you feel like chopping and cooking a couple of tomatoes or whatever else you;ve got, while the pasta is cooking, you can make it more filling.

We have a weekly menu and so a quick look the night before or in the morning means we have taken our "HM ready meal" (ie pasta sauce, curry etc) so it can defrost during the day. Then once at home, it is a matter of warming it up and cooking rice/pasta/spuds whatever.

MrsTinks

Lasagna, cottage pie, pasta bake, curry and chilli are my regular friends in the freezer. At the moment I only have a fridgefreezer (planning on changing that this weekend if I can!) so space is very limited! But these are easy to batch cook and so long as I divide up the extra straight away and place in fridge to cool off OH doesn't help himself to an extra portion "cos it's so nice" :rotfl:
When I get a bigger freezer then I will probably start on the HM quiches in the freezer and definitely HM pizza bases... THAT one with save us a lot of take aways as our one downfall is Domino's 3 minutes away who do a large pizza for £9 if you collect... mmmmmm pizza... :drool:
I love Pizza and I love HM Pizza too, just that working long hours and getting home to then start making the dough and assembling the pizza... well... it's too easy to grab something else or if we REALLY want pizza it ends up being Domino...

patchwork_cat

boo81 - you could be me talking. The thing is I have bolognaise etc. in the freezer, but I still fancy a takeaway! If you can be disciplined I make up a large batch of tomato sauce then I always have frozen mince in - or you could cook it and freeze it - then put the two together with a few relevant herbs/spices and you can have chilli or bol. It takes less time than going to the takeaway in the microwave. Also most curries work well from frozen just nuke them from frozen.

GreenNinja

Hi, reference this issue I get the same feelings sometimes, an urge for a dominos pizza!

Is it possible does anybody know to put all the stuff on the pizza then freeze it and cook from frozen? I don't have a microwave so wouldn't be able to defrost other than leaving out manually to defrost......

Nicki

GreenNinja wrote: »

Hi, reference this issue I get the same feelings sometimes, an urge for a dominos pizza!

Is it possible does anybody know to put all the stuff on the pizza then freeze it and cook from frozen? I don't have a microwave so wouldn't be able to defrost other than leaving out manually to defrost......

Yes. I've just posted this on another thread about pizzas.

Make your dough as usual, roll out and leave to prove. When it has risen a little, add sauce and toppings, sprinkle with cheese, wrap in tinfoil and freeze. When you want on, unwrap and pop into oven at GM 7 for about 15 mins depending on size of your pizza and heat of your oven.

No need to pre-bake bases or to defrost before cooking.

GreenNinja

Nicki wrote: »

Yes. I've just posted this on another thread about pizzas.

Make your dough as usual, roll out and leave to prove. When it has risen a little, add sauce and toppings, sprinkle with cheese, wrap in tinfoil and freeze. When you want on, unwrap and pop into oven at GM 7 for about 15 mins depending on size of your pizza and heat of your oven.

No need to pre-bake bases or to defrost before cooking.

Thanks, thats brilliant, very helpful

:T :T :T :T :T

sausagefans

boo81 wrote: »

How do you do this?

I meal plan but things go wrong, we stay out and get back late, we are too tired to contemplate cooking or we just dont fancy whats on the plan!

Can we freeze whole meals and cook from frozen quickly? What would you recommend?

Please help my budget and waistline are suffering!

Because of my sausages we already have a large freezer (this idea is best if you can spare the freezer space) and the thing to do, we've found, is go to supermarkets like Asda at the right time (evening, not too long before closing) and you can pick up indian / chinese meals for two for sometimes as little as £3. These include two currys, two rice, nan, veggy curry etc and can be frozen. We pick up two or three and freeze them and then cook them when we fancy a takeaway.

It's worth checking the packaging as some can be microwaved from frozen and some need to be done in the oven for about 40 minutes.

Last couple we picked up were a bit too spicy (they are advertised as spicy but we thought we could take it!), we had one of them but my five month old breast fed son felt the effects later so the other one might stay in the freezer a bit longer!

As other people have said also good to freeze leftovers or make extra. I must confess before I used to eat *all* that I'd cooked as I hate waste but now we also eat more modestly!

Hope this is of some use.

Stephen