Cooking for one

Hollyharvey

Fusspot wrote: »

Do any of you here favour frozen meals, not exactly ready meals but say Birds Eye frozen fish/chicken and then add veg? Or what about full ready meals? I know they are not supposed to be good for you but the convenience of them when you live alone is too tempting to ignore

There is nothing wrong with buying frozen chicken/fish and adding your veg. On another forum that I read a lot of people do this because they find it is cheaper. There is also nothing to stop you buying chicken or fish and freezing it in individual portions, however, I think that you can cook the chicken/fish that you buy frozen from frozen, but you would need to check the cooking instructions for each product. If you think that this will work for you, you don't have anything to lose by trying. The worst that can happen is that you are left with a couple of bags half used of chicken/fish that you will have to work out how to use up, and that is a perennial problem for those of us that are CFO


As to ready meals, again, if you think that using them is the way forward for you then you have nothing to use by giving it a go. I don't think that they are bad for you provided you balance your overall diet out. I don't know what sort of budget you have for food, but some places like M&S do some that they market as healthy options, I haven't read the labels so I don't know whether or not they are more healthy than the other ones, but you could investigate these options if you have concerns about what is in the ready meals.


I buy them now and again, not that often though. I don't mind cooking and find it easy enough to batch cook and have some 'home made' ready meals in the freezer for when I don't feel like cooking or am in a hurry.

Fusspot

PasturesNew wrote: »

I've never bought "expensive ones" - I've bought a few ready meals under £1 usually just to break the monotony of leftovers/using it up. To me a ready meal is a treat, a meal I can ping and eat and there was no need to gather ingredients and no leftover ingredients to use up and no 2nds to eat the following day.

What I tend to do is to use ready meals as food ideas - and think how I can do them better/cheaper for more food, while not busting a gut.

There are some nice sounding ones at £3.50, but my target budget/day is £1, so I've never had one that pricey.

Ready meals are not necessarily bad for you. What is "bad" - YOU decide what is bad and read the labels to see how they fit your version.

I quite often eat pies/burgers where the packet flashes RED symbols for fat or something - but it's all "in balance" and over the day that might be the ONLY fatty thing I eat.

So you decide what's important to you and then check the labels to see if it's important to you.

Some ready meals are infinitely "better" than what a lot of people might put together themselves. You can't tar everything with the same brush; a lot of the scare-mongering uses sweeping strokes to write things off. Don't fall for it.

You can't be "good" on every item... so many fads and fancies, you'd die trying to find something/anything to eat if you believed and followed them all

Work out what frozen meals are catching your eye - and see if you can build that yourself from individual items, giving you more choice over what's on the plate and a wider choice of variations on that theme.

Frozen chicken/fish and add veg sounds great to me ....

I've been working my way up to buying a bag of frozen chicken breasts, but, to date, I've not eaten that much chicken to be able to see how I'd get through the bag without being bored.

Thanks for this, its reassuring. I keep hearing about prepared foods are not only full of fat but full of additives and should be avoided but then again if everyone avoided them the companies who make them would go out of business and this food wouldn't sell, which it does.

I admit I used to eat full ready meals all the time and that did get a bit much but the frozen food and veg combo I find satisfying and don't feel as if I've eaten junk so to speak. I also do batch cooking occasionally, in fact I have done some tonight, but I know I'll not want to eat the portions once I've frozen them, I'll just find it all unappealing somehow. As you say its all a case of balancing things and being sensible.

Fusspot

Hollyharvey wrote: »

There is nothing wrong with buying frozen chicken/fish and adding your veg. On another forum that I read a lot of people do this because they find it is cheaper. There is also nothing to stop you buying chicken or fish and freezing it in individual portions, however, I think that you can cook the chicken/fish that you buy frozen from frozen, but you would need to check the cooking instructions for each product. If you think that this will work for you, you don't have anything to lose by trying. The worst that can happen is that you are left with a couple of bags half used of chicken/fish that you will have to work out how to use up, and that is a perennial problem for those of us that are CFO


As to ready meals, again, if you think that using them is the way forward for you then you have nothing to use by giving it a go. I don't think that they are bad for you provided you balance your overall diet out. I don't know what sort of budget you have for food, but some places like M&S do some that they market as healthy options, I haven't read the labels so I don't know whether or not they are more healthy than the other ones, but you could investigate these options if you have concerns about what is in the ready meals.


I buy them now and again, not that often though. I don't mind cooking and find it easy enough to batch cook and have some 'home made' ready meals in the freezer for when I don't feel like cooking or am in a hurry.

Thanks for this. I do buy from M&S about once a week. They do have the healthy type ready meals but then again I read where these type of meals are more full of fat then the normal ones so you can't win. I do batch cook sometimes, as I've mentioned in another reply, but I go in fits and starts with it.

I think there is just so much talk about food and what is bad for you these days that's its easy to get paranoid.

When I was in my early twenties I used to deliver meals on wheels to the elderly and they were like ready meals and they never did the people any harm. So you are right, I just need to go with it.

PasturesNew

Hollyharvey wrote: »

..... some that they market as healthy options, I haven't read the labels so I don't know whether or not they are more healthy than the other ones, but you could investigate these options if you have concerns about what is in the ready meals.

Some recent studies (aka newspaper articles) have compared some "posh meals" -v- the budget versions and found that, quite often, the 80p-£1 meals are "better for you" because to make food "premium" or "luxury" means they have tossed a load more salt, butter and cream into them.... so the cheapo versions came out better when you compared all that stuff.

PasturesNew

Fusspot wrote: »

....

Don't stress about what "the press" say. Think things through for yourself.

If you are normal weight, never/rarely ill, fit/healthy (of sorts) then you must be doing SOMETHING right - NEVER feel food-shamed into feeling bad about your choices if, on balance, you're "doing all right". Educate yourself, in the pieces that interest you, but don't feel you need to educate yourself to PhD level before a morsel can pass your lips.



Remember that for every scare story (which just promotes somebody really), there'll be another along in 2-3 years saying that's disproven.

Only the other week "they" said "actually, after all these years, we think white bread's fine!"

Just do/follow what YOU feel comfortable and read labels.

A lot of the modern day reports are more about getting people noticed and newspapers getting eyeballs reading them ...

I eat pies .... not every day .... I am not obese. I must be doing something right. What am I doing right? I have an awareness that eating too much of anything makes you gain weight, so I keep a very vague awareness of overall calories ... and whether my jeans are a little snug this month

Balance.... in all things.

More salt, less salt, no salt, low salt .... if that bothers you, then read some labels and see how you feel about some of your favourite products....

More fat, less fat, zero fat, low fat.... if that bothers you, then read some labels and see how you feel about some of your favourite products.

I like a pie ...and I KNOW that if I pick up a pasty it will most likely contain ~600 calories.... so I'll enjoy one ... but not every day.

Just don't be "guilted" into living a life of misery because somebody you will never meet said everything you love was bad in a vblog post that trended and got into the Daily Mail

Anne_Marie_2

Fusspot wrote: »

Do any of you here favour frozen meals, not exactly ready meals but say Birds Eye frozen fish/chicken and then add veg? Or what about full ready meals? I know they are not supposed to be good for you but the convenience of them when you live alone is too tempting to ignore

Goodness yes, used to buy frozen chicken and fish at times for the family, sometimes joints from Iceland, that could be cooked from frozen, particularly when they were on half price offer. Full ready meals, yes at times in the past. Sometimes one is just too flipping busy.

I do get some ready made veggie meals when I go back to Scotland annually. It's just easier, as I stay with my parents, and although I do share the cooking, I don't want them going to the bother of having to prepare an extra veggie meal when they have meat, poultry or fish. I do tend to read the packaging, but am not going to fret over a few ready made meals.

Can't really get packaged ready made meals here, not that I have seen anyway, and I don't look in the frozen meat/fish section, as I don't eat it. There are plenty of choices in the deli section of the bigger supermarkets. I have on occasion bought some mezes, but am soon going to be buying more stuff when the family come out, as I don't want to be cooking at all, as it will be roasting hot then. That's the plan anyway, not that I think for one minute I will get away with it, but I will try.

If you believed everything that was written in the press about bad foodstuffs, you would starve to death. Years back they said that butter was bad for you, now they tell you the exact opposite, unless they have changed their minds again. :mad: Moderation is the thing, a little of what you fancy is good. Can't wait to get back and get a custard slice, custard doughnuts, and some Goodfellow and Steven chocolate violets. No wonder I don't really eat sweet stuff here, I make up for it on my annual holiday! :rotfl:

moneyistooshorttomention

Question for Doom & Gloom - reminded by your chia seeds with breakfast thing:

I saw a huge packet of chia seeds reduced in price yesterday - so bought them (as chia is such an expensive food - I decided such bulk buying would save me money).

It is a rather big bag - so wondering whether I should have.

- Is it possible to store chia in the freezer? - as I thought maybe I could bag up half of it and do that - if they'd keep okay

- what ways do you use chia seeds besides in morning cereal?

Hollyharvey

PasturesNew wrote: »

Some recent studies (aka newspaper articles) have compared some "posh meals" -v- the budget versions and found that, quite often, the 80p-£1 meals are "better for you" because to make food "premium" or "luxury" means they have tossed a load more salt, butter and cream into them.... so the cheapo versions came out better when you compared all that stuff.

That's interesting. Thinking about it, it does make sense because it is fat, butter and cream that make things taste so much better. That's why the chefs on these tv programmes quite often use a lot of these things when making something.

PasturesNew

A nutritious breakfast this morning: one choc ice



Scorchio here!
Curtains all closed, it's still 81°F/27°C

All sorts of sweaty bits going on ....

Hollyharvey

PasturesNew wrote: »

A nutritious breakfast this morning: one choc ice



Scorchio here!
Curtains all closed, it's still 81°F/27°C

All sorts of sweaty bits going on ....

My kind of breakfast.


It's about the same temperature here, like you all curtains closed. I'm melting.