Ready meals

Welbeck, does your John Lewis tin opener open all makes of tines? I ask because my electric tin opener can do some tins better than others. Someone here mentioned Fray Bentos pies. My tin opener sounds like a disaster movie when I give it one of those to opne.

We don't have them very often, typically after a long drive home from wherever - pick them up at a petrol station with an M&S or Waitrose.
Usually go for some spicy Asian thing.
Dh really loves the Waitrose Nasi Goreng - he was based for a while in Jakarta where he became addicted. Very authentic and ample is his verdict on that.

Not exactly ready meals, but I've been known to pick up a couple of those Fray Bentos tinned pies to keep in for when I'm just too tired or can't be bothered. One each, no potatoes, just plenty of green veg from fridge or freezer - nice lazy meal.

I do not use ready meals much but they do have their uses.
My GD who lives with me has a tonsillectomy last Tuesday and doesn’t want to eat much so I got 3 M&S Italian meals for £7.
She toyed with the 4 cheese ravioli which she said was good whilst I had the mushroom risotto which I enjoyed.
Then on Saturday she was admitted again with bleeding and It was 8:45 pm when I got home, how thankful I was to be able to pop the last one in the oven. It was chicken and bacon Tagliatelle and very satisfactory.
They certainly have something going for them in times of need.

For the OP they have obviously been a Godsend in that situation. Have to confess we have one ready meal a week when we are both out all day and arrive home exhausted, just seeking something comforting, we can eat healthily the rest of the week!

Charlie Bingham's fish pie, or even Morrison's best are great, and actually love Morrison's home cooked in store chicken and steak pies. They even do a steak and kidney, which brings back memories, and the shortcrust pastry is as good as home made.

We rarely eat ready meals but one night last week we had an M&S spaghetti and meatballs. It was OK, but I had to cook vegetables to go with it as the meal was devoid of vegetables, beyond a hint of tomato and onion in the sauce. In which case I might as well have got some home-made bolognaise sauce out of the freezer and cooked the spaghetti.

The packet did not contain any grated parmesan either, something I would always scatter over a dish like this, so I had to provide that and grate it.

The experience only confirmed my belief that by the time you have done all that is necessary to turn a ready-meal into a meal, you have spent as much effort as you would with a meal cooked from scratch.

Every time I see this thread in the list I think that someone is trying to catch my attention in a mention!

Last night I had a Lean Cuisine ready meal (I'm in Australia). It was Beef in red wine sauce with mash and tasted pretty good. One thing I did notice though while perusing the ingredients list is that it contained the grand sum of 7% beef!

Cook meals top our list, then Charlie Bigham. Don't rate M&S meals much and tend not to buy the others.

I think it's ok to live a little dangerously every now and again.

I do think that you just can't beat a meal cooked from scratch, for taste or value. However, nobody really wants to cook every day, especially only for one.

Yes I do batch cook a lot ExperiencedNotOld, but then I'm not ill or convalescing. Good quality ready meals really aren't that expensive, especially compared to takeaways, and aren't all packed with dodgy ingredients either.

Why not batch cook your own (much more cost efficient that Charlie Bighams )
Did you read OP?

I really would suggest that you consider what’s added to these meals and what’s taken away through not preparing your own. As regards added, most contain too much salt as well as preservations with scientifically dubious long term effect. What’s taken away is the nutritional benefit of ‘whole’ food, i.e. in its natural state where digestion works to break down the food in the best digestible way. In fact, ready meals allow you to opt out of a fundamental part of life, the appreciation of finding, preparing and enjoying food. Why not batch cook your own (much more cost efficient that Charlie Bighams!).

Just had the COOK Hunters Chicken.

Yuk! It was so salty that I’m having to down multiple glasses of water to try and quench my thirst. ??

friend who lives there and she said that all ready meals are pretty disgusting over there
GrandmaKT; I don't think you'll be changing your name to GrandmaKFC any time soon!
I'm sorry and surprised about your friend's low opinion of our food, but I need more details about what you chucked in the bin. Must admit I've never dined in a 7/11, (not aware you can); MacD, KFC, Red Rooster, yes, no probs.
I've also survived very well for 4 years on home-delivered frozen meals and never looked better.
Perhaps if you could give me your friend's phone number we could arrange to discuss this over a meal somewhere! OoRoo

Iceland have upped their game, popped in there a few weeks back with my daughter and bought a few of their 'Luxury' frozen ready meals, very nice they are.

Some days when I have no idea what to cook, or haven't taken meat out of the freezer, I'll have a ready meal. These are nice.

I find that rather than buying ready meals, I buy more convenience ingredients! I use packet rice ,tubs of cheese sauce, ready made mash, occasionally a ready prepared joint. We buy ready made 'gruyere potatoes' from the farm shop - they are hugely expensive but lovely and we can have them anytime, DH came home with frozen cauliflower cheese lumps once. I thought he was silly but it was very nice and we have cauliflower cheese more often now that I dont actually have to make it.

These convenience ingredients are one of the bonuses of there only being 2 of us. I could never have afforded them when I was feeding 7 of us!!

Ooops! I'll try that again!
@Rufus2 - aren't you in Aus? I bought a couple of ready meals in Melbourne last year and they were the most disgusting things I have ever tasted in my life! I threw them both away after one bite. True they were from one of those 7/11 stores in the city centre, but I mentioned it to a friend who lives there and she said that all ready meals are pretty disgusting over there. She said that where we often buy ready meals in the UK, it is much more normal to get takeaways in Aus.

@Rufus2

Cook do a good gluten free range.

Please can anyone recommend ready meals that might be suitable for someone with DF/GF intolerances?

When you are looking after someone who is ill, and there is little time/opportunity to shop, it is really wearing and time consuming having to go through the small print every time for every package....!

Charles Bingham 's rissoto is lovely, but again expensive.
When my H was at home we would have one of the small (for one) between us as a starter when we were eating "properly".

I bought Charley Bigham's Thai chicken curry yesterday for the first time.

No rice supplied, no vegetables and I thought it was very expensive but it tasted gorgeous. I added rice and a medley of vegetables.

R always 'cooks' on Saturday night. I always have fish cake, oven chips and frozen peas. As someone has already said - I sit and wait for my meal as I watch "Strictly". He also makes a cup of tea afterwards and does the washing up!
It's my favourite night of the week

Well, I am impressed at how many of you are familiar with ready meals - it's been quite a new experience for me, but to be honest I've enjoyed discovering how good some of them can be.

I should say that The Wonderful Man still cooks for me at the weekend when he's home. On Saturday he minced some venison (from a deer he butchered himself) in order to leave me his delicious home cooked meatballs before he left me this week. He even boiled the accompanying rice so that all I needed to do was heat the meal in the microwave. (And that's why I call him The Wonderful man!! )

I don’t cook dinner on Thursdays. I buy M&S Chinese or Indian meals when they are 2 mains & 2 sides for £10 and freeze them.
They’re better than takeaways and DH ‘cooks’ them ?