To eat ready meals each night?

[Buckinbronco]

DH has taken over food shopping as I'm too busy. We have 2 DCs who eat at nursery and we get home at gone 7.30. DH answer is to buy 5 scratch meals a week. They taste ok and take 5 mins to Bung in a pan and hardly any washing up.
Their nutritional content looks fine- low fat sugar and salt. They're normal meals like curry and pad Thai.

I am probably over thinking this but I am Just not sure about eating packaged food every week night night.
But, I have a tendency to take the hard way out of everything and worry and this is easy. Peasy. And I can't find anything wrong with the food...aibu?

It's these: m.tesco.com/h5/groceries/r/www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=286931301

Have you thought about using companies like Hello Fresh? They deliver meals and recipes to you, for you to make. Think portion size is ok, so you're not left with leftovers. You get to keep the recipe cards too, so can buy the ingredients again

Why would hello fresh be better though

Tonight we had organic sirloin steak, cooked on barbecue.

Lots of salad, baguette (to make sandwiches).

Cooking/preparation took 5 minutes, tops.

Enough for 4 and still less than the OP is spending on ready meals for 2.

I've just had a look at those meals, and I'm sure they're nutritionally fine. It's just pre-packaged ingredients innit.

You could always pad them out with roast potatoes and cauliflower cheese if you start getting hungry. And some garlic bread and/or cheesy chips. With a side of pizza.

Maybe finish off with apple pie......

Mmm. Where do I buy?

But maybe op doesn't need to save money.
They don't do them near me :(

Do ocado deliver to you stealth? That's where we get them from
We tried hello fresh last month- not quick at all! The meals all took between 30-45 mins. That was his last "solution"

Bbqs take forever to get to the right cooking temp.

I've been using Hello Fresh & Gousto over the last few months. Just today I stopped my deliveries for the time being as the weather is too warm to have fresh food left on the doorstep in a cardboard box for up to six hours till I get home. The meat in the chilled bag has been fine, it's the fresh veg, herbs etc that are just in the main box.

You could buy your own mince, chicken breasts, sauces, fresh veg and it wouldnt take any longer to prepare or cook than those meals really. It would be a hell of a lot cheaper too.

Fajitas are a one pan meal, chop the chicken, chuck in chopped peppers and onions, throw the spice in and simmer. Stuff into a tortilla.

Spag bol, fry mince, onions, add veg and sauce, boil pasta.. Make double amount of bol sauce and freeze for next week.

I buy diced frozen onions. You can prepare the veg buy chopping it and having it ready in sandwich bags in the fridge where it will keep for a few days.

Me and DP both work long hours and neither want to spend hours in a kitchen each night but its easy to eat a varied diet without having to do that.

It would take about 9 days to clean my BBQ

How can making a spag bol be as fast as those meals? Not possible!

Crisp but what does that add?
No ocado delivery :( even Domino's don't deliver here

Expensivo!

Random but if you have Instagram or Facebook look at the body coach/lean in 15. Mega quick meals

Op hasn't mentioned wanting to save money.

Here's a 5-10 min example of his stuff
http://www.thebodycoach.co.uk/blog/boshtrythisnawwwtycheesychorizochickenandspinachrecipe75.html

Get NHS Easy Meals app. It's amazing, you pick the meals, it makes you a shopping list. They're all healthy and dead simple. Only problem we've found is that most of the meals are for 4 people so either you have to halve everything or save half for freezer/lunches/tomorrow's dinner.
We have saved so much money since using this, buying lots of veg instead of lots of ready meals and shite!

I have heard about lean in 15! Is it really 15 mins, not like Jamie Oliver pretend 15 mins actually hours?

theres only 8 meals in ocado and i dont eat any of them.
We ate M&S ready meals for two years when the DD's were 3 under 4 years

They're not really ready meals in the traditional sense though, they're fresh ingredients just prepared for you. I'd never heard of them before but they look good. We've just started Gousto as there is 4 of us eating and I love it. Similar to scratch but as you say requires more prep.

I think they look fine and as long as you like them, who cares?!

This week, i've just bought a load of chicken breasts and salmon fillets, marinading them overnight in a sandwich bag with chilli, garlic, garam masala or whatever i feel like. Then just having either pre prepared roasting veg, or frozen risotto type things. No fuss or mess and pretty cheap too.

My "solution" for those nights where we couldn't be bothered/stuff going on was to buy an electric pressure cooker. Probably not as fast as what you are buying, but very little work you stick it in, turn it on and walk away, it beeps when it is done and keeps it warm until you are ready. Our standard is throw some meat/veggies/onion quarters/(potatoes or rice) in, add some sauce or salad dressing or pasta sauce and come back in half an hour and it is done. No standing at the stove any more. You can even bung in frozen meat if you want, just takes a little longer. Really cheap and tastes good, no measuring or stirring, one pot plus a chopping board for the onion (when I'm really lazy I put in dried diced onion or pre-smushed garlic) so washing up is easy.

You can even make egg custard or cheesecake in it.

Try cookfood.net
I think they're fab

Go for it I say. We do the same. DC1 doesn't go to sleep until past 9pm so we don't have time or energy for elaborate cooking at that point. We cook on weekends only!

I don't eat processed food and I would never feed my kids a ready meal when I can make the same thing in the same amount of time from scratch. That sounds really snobby but it's not, we're just really big foodies and have to take into consideration and allergy and a diabetic when cooking.

Bulk cooking is easy and doesn't take any longer to make a couple of extra portions than it does to cook for 2 people.

Quite aside from the sheer amount of money you are wasting, what sort of example is that to set for your kids - I know these specific meals are more the ready chopped rather than ready made but kids can't tell that and all they understand is that mummy and daddy are eating ready meals every day so ready meals must be fine. Not a great example.