Best way to buy food and cook it!

annieb64

We were living in temporary accommodation recently while waiting for our new house to be ready. I started off buying more ready meals but soon went back to cooking from scratch. 

MrsStepford

Excellent qustion @madonna1000000

Ready meals don't seem like they are economical, but there's no way that I can make a proper fish pie for £1 so in some cases, can be cheaper than cooking from scratch. Offers and yellow stickers reduce the price too.

Jack Monroe's cook books show how to cook using cans and packets from cheap ranges. Brilliant BUT absolutely useless if you can't happily stuff yourself with carbs though.

The initial cost of a microwave will be higher than that of a slow cooker. Since the microwave cooks so quickly, it's probably not that expensive, but I'd be wary of combi ovens. Slow cookers have a reputation as being just for stew, but we've made goat curry, pulled pork, chilli as well. The only warning for slow cookers, is that if you're usinf dried red kiney beans, you have to soak then boil. Slow cookers won't kill the toxins, so good idea to use value tins which are pre-cooked. 

Cooking from scratch.. well if you can grow veg in your garden or an allotment then that's cheap. Offers and yellow stickered meat, fish and veg  cut costs. 

Pressure cookers will cook food more quickly but again, it's buying them first. Plus they need to be used with a cooker.We have an electric steamer, but I have no idea how cheap that is, compared to frying or baking. 

In eastern Europe people use Remoska cookers which are electric table top cookers which will fry or bake and supposedly cheap to run. Same price Lakeland or Amazon. 149.99 which is steep but 3 yr guarantee. Might be possible to find them cheaper in an Eastern European shop. 
Standard Remoska Electric Cooker with Glass Lid | Lakeland

Some stores are stopping selling disposble barbecues, but in summer, it's a cheap way of cooking in the garden. Please don't use on a balcony though, they have been known to cause fires. 

Floss

MrsStepford said: 

Ready meals don't seem like they are economical, but there's no way that I can make a proper fish pie for £1 so in some cases, can be cheaper than cooking from scratch. 

But that is for one person - if I were making a fish pie it would give at least 6 portions for around £5 using Aldi frozen fish pie mix.

catz4m8z

Floss said:

But that is for one person - if I were making a fish pie it would give at least 6 portions for around £5 using Aldi frozen fish pie mix.

Im cooking for 1 but its easy to just make a family sized dish and freeze the extra (TBH though Im usually happy to just eat the same thing for a week til its gone!).
Ready meals are ok in a pinch but its cheaper to just batch cook something I think. I use alot of beans and lentils which are cheap and also tend to shove grated carrot in most things as it bulks your meals out nicely. Then just microwave portions as needed.
You just have to read the ingredients on ready meals to know they probably arent the best thing to eat every day.

goldfinches

I'm weighing in here to say that when I've bought ready made meals I've often found the food doesn't taste especially nice and that there is precious little fibre to give texture to the dish which means they're not very satisfying. Depending on what sort of food you need and like to eat there may not be much ready made choice available to you either and I thoroughly agree with the comment above about the ingredients which can be very offputting indeed.

All that said, things are getting pretty tough for many people so like an earlier commenter suggested do you want to ask more about your specific situation as I'm sure there will be others who've been in that boat before and can pass on what they learned.