To ask the most useless "convenience" food you've ever purchased

[EveryDayIsADuvetDay]

I recently added oven chips to an online shop, not realising they weren't pre-coated with oil.
Given that I prefer skin-on fries why do they always cost more? I'd effectively bought a bag of expensive sliced up potato.
On the plus side, it has made me realise that buying oven chips is a total waste of time, particularly as I have very limited freezer space.
What's the daftest "convenience" food have you purchased before realising it's a total waste of money?

@WombatChocolate

Barbara, also some people lack cooking confidence. We might know pancakes are piss easy to make, but some people don’t know how and it puts them off. Sad but true. Buying a shake-up pot requires no measuring (dont need scales) and don’t need a recipe or a measuring jug or anything except some kind of frying pan.

You’d be surprised how meany people lack confidence and a measuring jug and scales and a stock of eggs an flour.

Lots only have pancakes once a year...they fancy them on pancake day and if it can be done easily and for a cheap upfront cost, they will do it and then not again until those pancake mixes are in the end of shelves a year later,a long with the golden syrup, lemon juice etc.

This is me. I do make my own, but they don't turn out great even when I follow Delia's recipe.

*For me it's ready made meals, and I have eaten plenty over the years and the better quality ones. However many I have tried a ready made lasagne will never ever be on an equal with a home made one . Or a pie or a risotto. I'm always left disappointed.

I guess they are fine for busy people that don't cook, but I think they are shit.*

The Charlie Bigham lasagne is very good.

"Takes approximately 30 seconds longer than dumping oven chips onto a tray, healthier, tastes better. "

It takes more than 30 seconds to wash potatoes, get your cutting board and knife out and lice them doesn't it? Even if you save a lot by not peeling them.

@IToldYouIWasFreaky

Pancake mix is 10 times more expensive than flour and milk? It was a quid in Asda! And it's so much easier!

Genuinely not meaning to be goady but I don't understand how it's easier. For me, the difficult bit of making pancakes is actually cooking them....getting the right amount of mix in the pan, not letting them stick etc etc. Mixing up the batter is the easy bit, and cheap as chips if you use flour, egg and milk

I don't really understand the point of frozen baked potatoes for the microwave when you can just use a microwave to cook a potato from raw. Am I missing something?!

We don't eat baked potatoes very often, so i's not worth keeping fresh ones; as they go soft and sprouty. And if we suddenly fancy one, it saves having to go out just to get it.

@marriednotdead - the drizzle cake looks amazing, I've bookmarked the recipe
I bought an excellent brownie mix from Lidl when I was on holiday.
(self catering, that's when you often don't have basics like flour, baking powder, sugar, and convenience stuff comes into it's own. Holidays, remember holidays?)

@longtompot. I agree about frozen cauliflower florets, but I made a discovery recently; I like to get baby cauliflowers in for cauliflower cheese, and I bought extra at Christmas, thinking my SIL would be with us as usual. Obviously she wasn't, so I blanched and froze them. They're beautifully firm when cooked.

Frozen grapes are great, but I just grab a punnet fresh, take stalks off and stick them in a bag and freeze. They are magical in wine, and they're such a funny texture when eaten frozen, really nice in the summer. I use grated cheese for convenience but every time I'm always sad I didn't have a block to grate. My absolute go to convenience food for a comfort tea is Heinz cream of tomato soup (whole can, ooo) with part baked baguette. Done in 10 mins. Part baked baguettes are my favourite thing ever. I scoop out the middle bread so it's just the crusty goodness, plus scooping the middle out means I can fill it with more haha

Oven chips are pre-fried and have just as much oil/calories as if you'd fried them yourself but just don't taste as nice. You do save yourself time and the trouble of dealing a quart of boiling oil but if you think they're healthier, you're deluding yourself.

Rubbish. Oven chips can be very low in fat. If you pan fry potatoes they will be much higher in fat than most oven chips.

All the pancake mixes need egg adding. They're flour and powdered milk, maybe salt, nothing else.

Thanks to this thread I just bought some pancake mix from Sainsburys, which was reduced to 50p. You just add water. No eggs required. I don't think that I've ever bought a pancake mix that required eggs though I'' sure that some do.

@Isabella70

I bought some water in a bottle once but it turned out to be much the same as what came out of the tap. I diluted it so it went further.

😂😂😂

Oatssosimple
Literally just oats in a tiny packet.
Oats were already simple

@Belladonna12

Oven chips are pre-fried and have just as much oil/calories as if you'd fried them yourself but just don't taste as nice. You do save yourself time and the trouble of dealing a quart of boiling oil but if you think they're healthier, you're deluding yourself.

Rubbish. Oven chips can be very low in fat. If you pan fry potatoes they will be much higher in fat than most oven chips.

Rubbish yourself.

Potatoes are 75kcal per 100g so if you add the 40 calories in a teaspoon of oil (pretending none gets left on the tray) my recipe is 115kcal per 100g .

McCain oven fries are 247kcal per 100g.

McDonald's fries are 293kcal per 100g.

Less than 50kcal difference. As I said, oven chips are pre-fried, they aren't healthier by any great degree. You can purposely buy lower-fat or lighter versions but that's not what we're talking about here is it?

[quote EveryDayIsADuvetDay]@marriednotdead - the drizzle cake looks amazing, I've bookmarked the recipe
I bought an excellent brownie mix from Lidl when I was on holiday.
(self catering, that's when you often don't have basics like flour, baking powder, sugar, and convenience stuff comes into it's own. Holidays, remember holidays?)[/quote]
Adult DD has chosen it as her birthday cake for the last couple of years!

It scrubs up well when done gluten free too but I'm trying to lose the lockdown tyre so not done one lately...

@cookdabooks

I agree that frozen oven chips are pointless and rubbish. It takes very little time to chop potatoes up into chips or wedges, sprinkle on some oil, salt, pepper and anything else you want like paprika, and cook in the oven. They taste a million times nicer.

I despise frozen oven chips and hate when they're served up in a café. I do love MacDonald's fries and chippy chips however.

That's all well and good if you're fully able. Many people aren't. My mum, for example, has very limited use of her hands due to RA and physically can't chop a potato.

McDonald's fries are made by McCain. If you like them, there's no reason to bash all other frozen chips. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Potatoes are 75kcal per 100g so if you add the 40 calories in a teaspoon of oil (pretending none gets left on the tray) my recipe is 115kcal per 100g .

You are not actually pan frying them you are just putting them in an oven with a teaspoon of oil. You are pretty much just baking sliced potatoes. Fine if that's what you like but I would much prefer oven chips.

Less than 50kcal difference. As I said, oven chips are pre-fried, they aren't healthier by any great degree. You can purposely buy lower-fat or lighter versions but that's not what we're talking about here is it?

It's not the calories that tells you whether it is healthy. It is amount of saturated fat. McCain original oven chips are 5% fat but as it is sunflower oil only 0.6g of saturated fat per 100g. That will be a lot lower than Mcdonalds chips.

@ElvisPresleysSideburns

My mum used to buy boil-in-the-bag rice. 40 years later and I still don't understand why?

I can’t cook normal rice to save my life. I’ve tried it starting off with cold water, putting it in when boiling, stirring/not stirring, measuring it out, I just can’t seem to get it right (I can cook generally)

I’m not sure if boil in the bag rice is part cooked or what, but it’s just so simple. Bring water to boil, drop the bag in, 10-12 minutes and it’s done. Never turned out under or overcooked.

Frozen avocados..never again!!

@QuestionableMouse

That's all well and good if you're fully able. Many people aren't. My mum, for example, has very limited use of her hands due to RA and physically can't chop a potato.

McDonald's fries are made by McCain. If you like them, there's no reason to bash all other frozen chips.

That's fine. I am fully able. The thread is about people's opinions on pointless convenience foods. Macdonalds fries are very thin cut which I like and they're fun to get now and again as a takeaway. My gran eats frozen ready meals because she can't cook dinners anymore. What's that got to do with my preferences?

I think taking a minute to cut up some potatoes makes chips that are a million times nicer than frozen oven chips. Skin on, they are better for you and I love the taste. You seem really invested in chips if you're saying I'm "bashing" them. I just don't like them.

Have a 🤷🏻‍♀️ right back at you.

@ElvisPresleysSideburns

My mum used to buy boil-in-the-bag rice. 40 years later and I still don't understand why?

I get you.

However...

I can't make rice to save my life!

I am an accomplished cook and can cook pretty much everything but rice stumps me every.single.time! I have tried every single method under the sun and it always ends up either sticky (when it's not meant to be), half cooked or mushy. My son used the rice cooker and makes splendid rice. I use it and it burns.

Boil-in-a-bag rice Forever!!

Chinese takeaway last week. Supposed to be beef with ginger and spring onion. No ginger, about 0.05g of dried spring onion covered in unseasoned cornflour paste. Grey tasteless gloop. I threw it all away. Never done that before. It tasted how I imagine prison food.

Oven roast potatoes. Aunt Bessie's or whatever. Absolutely foul and take all the goodness and joy out of a roast dinner.

And I'm now tempted to try one of these pancake mixes! My DC love pancakes but mine are ALWAYS a failure. They never look or taste right. I think it's the texture and now a family joke.

I make once a year and dread it, tbh.

@BrilliantBetty - try the ready made ones, 30 seconds in the microwave

@Dixiechickonhols

I make chips but have an airfryer. I have a crinkle cutter as I like crinkle cut Chips. Never understood ready made Yorkshire pudding but they seem popular. Aldi skin on frozen fries are amazing and very cheap.

You can chuck Aunt Bessies yorkshires in the airfryer for a few minutes, so much quicker than making your own in the oven.

A block of frozen garlic puree when I was a student. I had to literally chisel chunks off, I have no idea if it was intended for purchase for bulk cooking etc but it just didn't work. Wouldve been quicker (and safer) to just crush some fresh garlic...