'convenience' food - what you recommend?

[Sloe-Gin Profile]

I will let you define ' convenience'. Frozen, tinned, fresh supermarket...

Mine is currently Aunt Bessie frozen carrot/swede mash. No peeling/chopping/boiling/mashing/waste. Great topping for a shepherds pie.
And I fess to grated cheddar on top.

And, shock horror, frozen cauli cheese at times with gammon (with said grated cheese)

Any more wheezes to save us time?

[OneMoreCheekyOne Profile]

Frozen spinach, frozen savoy cabbage, frozen edamame.

Microwave rice pouches.

Aldi sell a Spanish ‘grains’ rice microwave pouch which is a great base for lunch or a side dish.

I don’t know if this falls within “convenience” but my best friend keeps telling me to try the cheats pizza dough recipe which is equal quantities of self raising flour and yoghurt.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/quic ... izza_88026

[KeenCook2 Profile]

Ha, omco, the best cheats' pizza dough is the readymade, which I discovered courtesy of Amyw! I've had Tesco and Asda, and both have been really great.

[OneMoreCheekyOne Profile]

Ha, omco, the best cheats' pizza dough is the readymade, which I discovered courtesy of Amyw! I've had Tesco and Asda, and both have been really great.

I like the jus rol one which pops out of the tube. We don’t have an Asda near us but I will check out the Tesco version, thanks

[Suelle Profile Website]

I don't use milk with any regularity. I just keep a long-life carton for the odd occasion that someone needs a cup of tea - that's happened once in the last year, for obvious reasons. When it reaches the end of it's shelf life I make rice pudding and/or cheese sauce.

That's a long winded way of saying I use tubs of bought cheese sauce for pasta bakes or cauliflower cheese the rest of the time, for convenience.

[KeenCook2 Profile]

Suelle, have you a favoured ready made cheese sauce? I'm not great at white sauces and tend to avoid making them. Of course, if I made them more often, I'd probably get more proficient

[Suelle Profile Website]

Suelle, have you a favoured ready made cheese sauce? I'm not great at white sauces and tend to avoid making them. Of course, if I made them more often, I'd probably get more proficient

I've only ever bought the Waitrose 'Essential' cheese sauce, so although it does the job, I can't compare it to others.

[Stokey Sue Profile]

I too have problems with not being a daily milk user, I do keep dried whole milk for some cooking and for making set yogurt, when I can eat it

I bulk make cheese sauce, tomato sauce and onion gravy and freeze in little pots, I do a better job if I spend 30 minutes making a batch of cheese sauce than doing in little bits

When Morrison’s sold it, I used to buy Barilla sauce Napoletana in a jar, just tomatoes much reduced with a few other veg, if you are going to make sauce with canned tomatoes, you might as well let someone else do the 2 hours simmering it seems to me
And filled pasta such as tortellini, which keep for ages in the fridge and freeze too
Also gnocchi, I make those but bought are fine
In fact continuing a theme of things too fiddly to fill, fresh or frozen pierogi and Chinatown Dim Sum

I also like instant noodles, ideally Nissin Demae Ramen but nearly all good, especially the really cheap lobster flavour (I think Koka brand), just add veg and crab sticks

[Renee Profile]

McCains jacket potatoes, four in a box. 5 minutes in microwave each from frozen. I let them cool a bit then make four thick slices. I spray oil, then a few grinds of Jamie's Thyme, Lemon & Bay salt. I place the slices on, spray with oil on top and a few grinds of the herb salt. I use my halogen oven at the top, or you can grill or fry.

Tilda rice pouches

[karadekoolaid Profile]

Hahaha!
No such thing as "convenience" food here. We´re still in the Stone Age in the USSR Venezuela.
Just a question though. Is convenience food cheaper/more expensive/better/worse quality than home-made food, or is it just "convenient"?
I´d just LOVE to nip down to the supermarket on a Sunday morning and buy a "convenience" lunch, let me tell you!

[ZeroCook Profile]

.

SG, i take it you mean convenience as in bought as convenience or bought ready prepped in some way rather than diy?


KDKA - you surely must have frozen veg or fruit or meat etc?

.

[Pepper Pig Profile]

If they have them Reduced to Clear in Waitrose then I will forgo whatever I was going to cook and buy a Charlie Bigham’s Meal for 2. They are expensive but very good and OH loves them. Except the spicy ones. The Fish Pie is a particular favourite.

I too always have the McCain’s jackets in the freezer and I can’t remember the last time I made a cheese sauce.

[Earthmaiden Profile]

Trying to think of things not already mentioned. I invariably use tinned beans rather than soaking and cooking - discovering them was quite liberating for me.

Dried fried onions to add to dishes.

I do occasionally buy cheese sauce but have not found one I really like, they tend to have that sterilised milk taste.

I do like macaroni cheese ready meals as well as several others and look out for them and other things I wouldn't usually have in rtc sections. I think that some convenience foods are useful if you live alone which you wouldn't dream of using if you were feeding more (like microwave rice pouches which are great. I love the Tilda one with quinoa and pumpkin seeds and stock up when it's on offer). Someone put me on to crumble mix which I wouldn't have thought of buying but it is ready to use and will keep for quite a while once opened so you can make an impromptu crumble for one very easily. I find tinned custard useful to have in the cupboard too.

Sainsburys still do tinned chicken in white sauce, I don't know if M&S still do. This was a treat pie filling for us in the 70s and it still tastes nice to me. I like it in a pie, with rice or even cold. A useful store cupboard thing.

Frozen puff pastry ...

[Binky Profile]

Gino d'Campo frozen pizza Margarita from Iceland (the shop). Made in Italy.

Sadly they have been out of stock for some weeks now, and I wonder if they're a casualty of Brexit?

[mistakened Profile]

Sadly they have been out of stock for some weeks now, and I wonder if they're a casualty of Brexit?

Very probably.
I can buy very few of those convenience foods except for some frozen vegetables, such as peas and artichoke bases, then I am fussy about the brand, usually Birds Eye, Findus or Stathis, a good Greek brand. I forgot to add oven chips. I do buy frozen puff and filo pastries and a local variety of pastry somewhere between shortcrust and puff pastry. It is excellent for Chicken Pasties

In fact continuing a theme of things too fiddly to fill, fresh or frozen pierogi and Chinatown Dim Sum

I wish, I wish

Moira

[Stokey Sue Profile]

No such thing as "convenience" food here. We´re still in the Stone Age in the USSR Venezuela.
Just a question though. Is convenience food cheaper/more expensive/better/worse quality than home-made food, or is it just "convenient"?
I´d just LOVE to nip down to the supermarket on a Sunday morning and buy a "convenience" lunch, let me tell you!

The answer to that is a qualified yes

I wouldn't personally regard most basic frozen food as "convenience" foods, it's (to me) just a method of storage - but a lot of useful things come ready frozen and they are often prepared ready to use so that is convenient - as people have said frozen pastry and also the frozen chapattis to cook at home - they are not expensive, though probably more than making my own, but then you take into account time and wastage, a pack of 20 chapattis gets used 1 or 2 at a time, no waste at all (though too much plastic) . And I do like have prepared spinach ready to go

To take the example of the pasta sauce - it would take an hour or 2 to make slow cooked, cooking down canned tomatoes and adding other ingredients, quality and price in the end not very different, might as well buy it and tweak it, unless you want a lot (comes in 400g jars)

The McCain spuds are also a good example - they aren't expensive, though it's cheaper to bake your own, unless perhaps you cook a single spud in the main oven. But they take 5 minutes in the microwave instead of 90 minutes in the oven, and if you don't have access to a conventional oven they are much nicer than cooked from raw in a microwave as they have been very slow cooked to develop the flavour and texture,

The filled pasta and dumplings I referred to are a boon for me, they make an inexpensive meal, they are nice, and I'd never bother to make them unless a project for at least 6 people

So I think with each thing you have to decide if it's a win for your circumstances or not, and for small households they can save throwing stuff away as you get a portion without excess - mixed salad leaves are a good example of that, 3 portions in a packet, if I bought 4 different varieties of lettuce most would go in the bin

[scullion Profile]

i'm sort of at a loss as to where convenience starts and ends - a tin of chopped tomatoes is convenient rather than skinning chopping and cooking your own but then they are an ingredient in something i make.
buying flour, rather than milling your own on a quern is very convenient!
i didn't know you could buy ready made cheese sauce - it's never occurred to me to not make it although i buy mayo in a jar and rarely make that.
a friend once sent me the recipe for sambal pecel that his mother in law made. it consisted of de-shelling peanuts, discarding the growing tips from inside each 'nut' (to reduce bitterness), roasting them, pounding them in a pestle and mortar - and then there was the preparing of the chillies etc.
i use peanut butter and sambal oelek - that's very convenient!

[Stokey Sue Profile]

The other thing is we seem to assume that prepared ingredients are an effete western supermarket luxury

Go through a market in the developing world and you may well see people selling cauliflower florets by the cup, saves the expense and waste of buying a whole cauliflower when you only want enough to mix in with your noodles, bundles of prepared green beans too etc etc

[MagicMarmite Profile]

I came to say ready rolled pizza dough!
Anyway, since that's been mentioned I'll add McCain's frozen gastro chips.

[MagicMarmite Profile]

Sainsburys tinned artichokes.
Im not a fan of the jarred ones, or the tubs, as I find them really oily, so the tinned are great, especially on a white pizza.