Why do I never learn?

Yes, I have fallen for that one. Now I just overcook when cooking a variety of dishes at home and freeze the rest in 2 portion containers so that I always have a good selection of my own ready made meals when I need them; 1 chicken curry, 1 vegetable curry and 1 container of cooked rice.

Quick & cheap.

Actually I rather like Mr Waitrose's 2 person portions of pork shoulder with garlic and rosemary as a freezer standby.
I also buy their "deboned chicken" with a tomato marinade again in the freezer.(feeds 3 or 4)
I don't enjoy doing creative things with leftovers the way I used to and with paw now preferring his main meal at lunchtime, these are useful and don't take up the whole morning yet are not "ready meals"

I have tons of frozen stuff monica but feel like a 'treat' on Saturday! And I really hate depleting my freezer stocks! I'm not sure what they are there for - emergencies i suppose!

Get a take away. You don't have to do any cooking. That's my idea of a treat.

kitty sounds as if like me you suffer with "siege mentality", my freezer is ready for a nuclear war!

It's daft really queen's, I currently have two pasta sauces (each enough to feed 6!) similar ok army chicken curry, lamb curry, chicken casserole, sausage casserole, chicken in cream sauce and chilli. I have stock, gravy, salsa, mash, rice and creamy potato stacks.

I think I can't get away from feeding 5 children and their friends years ago and now family visits!

I really should get a grip.

DH was a great advocate of "cook two, freeze one", until it came to eating them. Then it was "Oh I really don't fancy that. Can we have something else?” And the something else did not usually figure amongst the things I had frozen. Like you, Kitty, I am usually disappointed with ready meals which often promise so much and deliver little.

I try to avoid ready meals. It usually just DH and me, so I like to prepare everything fresh. I do use jars of sauce though.

5 children and friends, that's me too kitty. Now it's just me and the old boy on a daily basis and I still can't get out of the habit of mass catering. But on the other hand when the family do descend it's gratifying to know I can still do it!

Well we only eat ready meals! M&S ones though so all fat/salt/calorie controlled etc. Yummy and no waste ever.
I draw the line at phoning out for curry or pizza. I simply can't bring myself to pay that amount for one meal.
Places tin hat on and braces self for hurled opprobrium!

We hate ready meals though we do tend to have one on the first day away on holiday as it's usually a busy day with travel . It fills a hole and that's it .
I do double doses when I can and freeze half .

I love cooking and have an enormous thirty-five year old chest freezer which is almost always full. Every now and then I have to sort through it to remind me what I've got.

Right now I'm mass producing ratatouille to use up overgrown courgettes etc and I am soon going to have to find room for fruit pies and crumbles as the apples and plums are nearly ready and the rhubarb is still going strong.

No opprobrium from me, Jane10!

Yes. I used to love cooking in my early years of marriage but was never a mass caterer. Now it's just me it's so much easier to buy an M&S ready meal - no waste or faff!

I'm with Ana and Jane10! When we all left home, my mother said she was looking forward to never having to cook a meal again, she would live on baked potatoes, and I follow her example, plus ready meals

I think when you are on your own it is easier to pick up something that is ready prepared (not talking complete meal as I always do fresh vegetables). These days if I don't have something like that in the fridge I am more than likely to make do with a sandwich.

It's strange (or possibly not!) but I enjoy cooking more now than when I was doing mass catering, as queenie calls it!!

But, I will still make a bolognese sauce or shepherds pie base or chili with 5lb of mince and freeze in portions of 1,2 and 3! Or a vast chicken curry and do the same. Sausage casserole anyone? I've got quite a lot of that too.

In my defence - DD2 and her 2 daughters are coming for 10 days (and her DH for 4) and I would much rather be with them while a meal is thawing than cooking something from scratch.

Mr P is away during the week, and I work Monday, Tuesday & Thursday.

Confess that on those days I do use some ready meals, have found that some of the Morrisions ones (3 for £6) are pretty good.

Tomorrow is a day off, so I will cook something simple (there is some salad and new potatoes in the fridge that need using, so will probably defrost a chicken breast and have that.)

However, Mr P will be home on Friday, so proper cooking all weekend.

Confession time: I grabbed a fresh, ready stuffed, roast in the bag whole chicken in Lidl last week (£3.99) and very good it was too! Did "proper" fresh veg and home made roasties, so not really a ready meal, just saved a bit of time and washing up!

Aldi do those roast in the bag ready stuffed chickens as well. I was catering for the masses last week so bought TWO of them

Never been known!!

It was a good move though because just shoving them in the oven gave me plenty of time to prepare lots of yummy home grown veg.

DH doesn't get it at all and wanted to wash the tin foil dishes they come in because he thought they might come in handy.

DD2 shouted, 'Noooooo. That's not the point! Step away from those tins!

He's a terrible hoarder.

DH does most of the shopping but is not a cook so he buys stuff he likes but never thinks to follow through with appropriate veg. He bought a hog roast from M&S and it was truly disgusting,slimy and slippery fat. He also bought some what I call sandwich steaks "for a stir fry". As the family had just left the veg was non existent so he picked up astir fry pack from small Tesco. Gruesome. Thick cut carrot which tasted old and strips of coarse cabbage ( not Chinese cabbage) and slightly browning bamboo shoots. I checked the sell by date- well within . I hadn't wanted to cook as I was in Chinese laundry mode post family visit and have more visitors coming and only a limited number of duvetovers and sheets.

We were going to treat ourselves to a ready meal from Tesco (our only supermarket) recently as neither of us wanted to cook. There was quite a selection, but all the chicken dishes had chicken from Thailand!!! I have complained about their wraps before for the same thing, but nothing seems to have changed. Do we not have chicken in this country?

Aldi's crispy roast duck, hoisin sauce and pancakes is lovely and is only £4.99 . Much cheaper than any Chinese takeaway near me and just as good.

Now and then, especially after a long drive home from friends, we do stop and pick up a couple of M&S ready meals. Have no complaints - they certainly beat cooking when it's late and you're weary.
As a general rule they're a rare thing in this house, though. Dh will also treat himself to one if I'm staying over at dd's, helping with Gdcs. He's very happy with a fish pie and some peas on the side.

I was having the M&S Count on Us meals a couple of times a week and enjoyed the fish pie in particular. Calorie counted already but then I went off the potato, too 'gluey' for me so back to cooking from scratch most of the time although I do buy the £10 meals for 2 sometimes.
I freeze home-cooked dishes and have enough stock to make soup for the whole town I think. Plus home-grown fruit.