BBC "Eat Well for Less"

[Fonty]

1 hour ago, bangorballetboy said:

 

Forgive me for having a full time job (that is much more than 9-5) and a busy social life.  Sometimes I'd rather use the time prepping for, and clearing up after, a meal doing something else.

 

Well, I have those as well, BBB.   And yes, who hasn't reached for the jar of ready made pasta sauce after a particularly heavy day, or a rotten commute home.  I am not against the buying of ready made foods for a quick, convenient meal.  But I wouldn't use such things on a daily basis, when they are so easy to put together with just a few minutes of preparation.  Also, I don't believe in wasting my money.  That self peeled and chopped carrot and onion could, over the course of the year, could save me enough money to buy another theatre ticket. 

 

I am intrigued by the fact that buying pre prepared vegetables saves time clearing up after a meal.  I am still trying to figure that one out!

[RuthE]

Well, it's one less chopping board and knife to wash up...

 

Edited to add: and actually, I don't think I've ever bought a jar of ready-made pasta sauce in my life! I'm not saying that in the spirit of snobbery or one-upmanship; just because it's true.  I do other things when I need a quick fix (a packet of filled fresh pasta with olive oil, black pepper and grated Parmesan is one) but jars of Dolmio have never been on my radar, for some reason.  The same goes for curry sauce.

Edited November 13, 2017 by RuthE

[Anon2]

One of the things that the participant of this programme had was anxiety at the thought of going to a large supermarket which they helped her to tackle. And I suspect like a lot of us she no longer has the luxury of a local greengrocer, butcher etc hence her reliance on the more expensive garage forecourt 'food to go' stores. 

I love this show for the same reason I like studying what other people are loading onto the supermarket till - pure noseyness! Sometimes I really have to bite my tongue to not ask why for example the person ahead of me is buying 24 litres of UHT milk or 16 loaves of bread. Are they anticipating a shortage and I'm oblivious. 

[Fonty]

1 hour ago, zxDaveM said:

you can't beat those pre-prepared mix veggies for stir fry though. If you bought the veg separate (and limited yourself somehow to the same value if possible), and laboriously chopped and cut, you'd probably have 5 times the volume at least - and end up throwing 80% of it away (unless you had stir fry 5 times in a week). You save yourself loads of time too!

 

I am not sure which mixes you mean, Dave.  How many vegetables do they put in their stir fry?  When I chop veg for that, I don't end up with 5 times too much, I just cut up what I need for one or two portions.  I am a bit puzzled!

 

When I said pre prepared veg I was thinking of those trays they sell in supermarkets, with chunks of carrot, parsnip, swede and so on sitting on a little plastic tray, and labelled "Casserole Mix" (or whatever it is they call them.)  Where you have just enough for a single meal.  They work out hugely expensive. 

 

25 minutes ago, RuthE said:

 I don't think I've ever bought a jar of ready-made pasta sauce in my life! I'm not saying that in the spirit of snobbery or one-upmanship; just because it's true.  I do other things when I need a quick fix (a packet of filled fresh pasta with olive oil, black pepper and grated Parmesan is one) but jars of Dolmio have never been on my radar, for some reason.  The same goes for curry sauce.

 

They are quite nice, and extremely convenient.  I am not a food snob either, and I appreciate that everyone will have something tucked away for those days when we just don't feel like cooking.  Nothing wrong with that.  

[bangorballetboy]

43 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

I am intrigued by the fact that buying pre prepared vegetables saves time clearing up after a meal.  I am still trying to figure that one out!

 

Pierce the bag and steam in the microwave.  Throw out the bag - no pot, board or knife to wash.

[RuthE]

10 minutes ago, Fonty said:

They are quite nice, and extremely convenient.  I am not a food snob either, and I appreciate that everyone will have something tucked away for those days when we just don't feel like cooking.  Nothing wrong with that.  

 

I think the only reason I don’t is that in pretty much the same amount of time as it’d take to heat a pre-made sauce, I can do something equivalent with half a carton of passata, half a chopped onion, a clove of garlic and a sprinkle of mixed herbs, which will cost me much less. It’s the same mentality which makes me reluctant to order many kinds of pasta & sauce in restaurants, namely “I can make that easily at home for less, so if I’m going to pay for the privilege of somebody else cooking my dinner, I’d rather it be something I’d be unlikely to rustle up at home...”

[RuthE]

23 minutes ago, Fonty said:

 

I am not sure which mixes you mean, Dave.  How many vegetables do they put in their stir fry?  When I chop veg for that, I don't end up with 5 times too much, I just cut up what I need for one or two portions.  I am a bit puzzled!

 

I think these are the packs which have, maybe, half a red pepper, a handful of bean sprouts, some sliced mushrooms, baby corn and mange tout. Many of which are not easy to find loose, by weight, and therefore may get wasted if you bought the smallest available quantity of each individual item.

[alison]

Or the nice little one I got reduced to 60 p the other day in M&S: strips of carrot, butternut squash, baby leeks and courgette.  I saw it and thought: "risotto tonight, then".

[zxDaveM]

4 hours ago, Fonty said:

 

I am not sure which mixes you mean, Dave.  How many vegetables do they put in their stir fry?  When I chop veg for that, I don't end up with 5 times too much, I just cut up what I need for one or two portions.  I am a bit puzzled!

 

 

 

there's about 1/6 each of a red and a yellow (or green) pepper (capsicum), a few slices of red onion, a few slices of green chili, a small handful of finely sliced carrot, a small handful of bean shoots, a few pieces of shredded green cabbage, same for white cabbage. Some of the ingredients change depending what 'type' of mixed stir fry veg you've gone for. Costs about £1.25, and makes a hearty meal for one, or you can fill out with extra rice and stretch it for two.

[Melody]

I was shopping for a cauliflower once and the shop had run out, but I saw a package of pre-prepared cauliflower and thought, "oh good, I'll get that," until I realized it was about three times as expensive as buying a whole one. I tend to avoid the pre-prepared vegetables for that reason.

 

But I do find a couple of things really annoying in the supermarkets here; not sure if it's also true in the UK. One is that many of the items seem to be supersized, so it's actually hard to get something like a cauliflower that's a sensible size for a small family unless you're going to eat it every day for half a week, and apples are really expensive because they're getting on for the size of small melons - it's impossible to buy small apples or oranges these days. The other problem is the number of items that are sold pre-packaged (not pre-prepared, just pre-packaged) so that you have to buy the amounts the shop thinks you should buy rather than the amounts you want to buy. It's years since I saw grapes available to buy in bulk, they're all in those bags, and there have been times I've had no choice but to buy something like 10 oranges at a time because there were none to buy singly and the smallest amount was a 4-lb bag. That just asks for food waste, which is something we keep being told we should be avoiding.