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?

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.

@MatildaTheCat

Ready made jacket potatoes? I’ve never bought one but why??

I thought that too, but when my dad had Carers coming in to do his lunch, and they were limited for time, they were a godsend

Sliced bread 🤢
Roast potatoes, they always taste weird.

I've never successfully made my own oven chips.
can do wedges but the chips always turn out dry and horrible. I've tried parboiling, skin on, skin off, oil, lard, flour, egg white. They're always unpleasant.

McCain Gastro chips are ok otherwise I deep fry.

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

ASDA

Plain flour - 45p for 1.5 Kg
Milk - 50p for pint or £2 for 340g of milk powder
Eggs - 15 for £1.18

Pancake mix (in a jar) add water and shake. £1 for, what 6?

Pancake mix home made, 1 jar with a lid, an old jam jar. Add 1 egg, 1/3 of jar milk, 1/3 flour, put the lid on and shake. 6 pancakes.

Have left over 14 eggs, 1.2Kg flour, 1/2 pint of milk.

There are no loose potatoes in either the co.op or Morrison’s where I live, in fact it’s a problem for most lose fruit and veg. Such a waste 😕

Single slices of cheese wrapped in plastic. I could understand someone with arthritis etc being unable to slice a block of cheese, except that the plastic inevitably requires three hands and a knife to open up .

@BarbaraofSeville

"No point buying a bag of potatoes as I wouldn’t get through it before it goes off
Just about every shop sells loose potatoes, so just buy one potato"

My local Lidl and Aldi don't. I get a weekly delivery from Iceland and an occasional one from Tesco. If you're getting deliveries then you'd opt for a lot of these products, rather than end up with none. I do have issues with my hands and at one point was living on pizza for dinner. Now I buy prepared stuff and actually cook. I don't own a microwave because my kitchen is tiny and I don't want to lose a worktop.

Some of the things listed are handy for work. I wouldn't buy them, but I know people who do. I've bought some of them for camping/caravan. Iceland's frozen spinach is ok.

@DietrichandDiMaggio

Are there people who actually make chips themselves nowadays, or even own a chip pan? I thought everyone just used oven chips.

Yes, there are people who don't like the taste of oven chips (or the smell, in some cases).

I don't own a chip pan. However I do make really good chips, if I have time or can be bothered I peel and cut potatoes into chips and fry them in a frying pan. If not I either peel and cut and use a small amount of oil and put them in the oven, so - oven chips that taste a lot better than the frozen, plastic bagged ones.

Sometimes I don't peel them.

Not everyone wants to buy weird tasting chips that are sprayed in random oil, some of us like decent chips.

*Now I fancy s trip to Costco

But it's illegal!*

Why? Not why do you fancy it, but why is it illegal?

@User1511

Definitely frozen fruit and veg. Yuck. I have a friend who only uses frozen veg 🤮

Much better than so called 'fresh' veg they have in supermarkets, which has often been hanging around for ages before it's sent there. They haven't lost as many vitamins either.

Not sure about fruit though, most doesn't freeze well.

@EssentialHummus

"Single slices of cheese wrapped in plastic"

They last longer if you only use cheese for burgers. I buy the mini blocks in a net bag because of the time that they last.

No point buying a bag of potatoes as I wouldn’t get through it before it goes off

Bake or mash them all and freeze what you don't use?
I buy grated cheese so the kids don't make a mess if they make themselves a wrap. I buy blocks of cheese too -usually have both.
I buy frozen berries to put in my gin. Frozen raspberries in orange gin is my favourite combination

Prepared fruit is coated in preservative, has a weird kind of feel and taste.

Tried it once as I fancied some mixed fruit while I was out, it was peculiar and not a bit like fruit. I then discovered it was interfered with.

I've never bought it, but grated cheese.

Some of you obviously lead a very different life to me, the more products which make life easier the better. Frozen vegetables and fruit are actually better for you than fresh as the nutrients are preserved.

I’ve some trays of cubed cheese, sliced apples and grapes - brilliant for a snack when I’m busy at work and don’t have time to stop.

frozen avocado - I had to throw them away they were so awful and I Iove fresh avocado

I also agree re pancake mix. DH always buys it and I keep telling him not to as I make the mx myself and it is a fraction of the price . The difficulty with panakes is how to cook then right not how to mix them up!

Love frozen onions though, they are fab

Not going to disagree with you @CounsellorTroi* 🙂

I don’t use it myself. I’m just refuting a poster saying that even if you don’t bake, you have flour - for example, to make cheese sauce. I think that’s a bit of a bubble to think that everyone has flour - and makes their own cheese sauce 🤣*

I take your point, but during first lockdown there was a massive shortage of flour, you couldn't get it for love or money!

Always baffled by those small packets of bread/pizza dough mix. It's flour!

@CounsellorTroi - I don’t have flour, can’t remember the last time I bought any. Have no need for any.

For whatever reason there’s definitely a place in life for convenience food. Plus the pictures all look quite delicious & very tempting for just £1, & 5 mins in the microwave. For me it has to be those 3 bird game roasts that taste of absolutely nothing. 2nd place goes to the micro meals, you cannot distinguish between a pea, sprout, carrot, or potato.

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.

Frozen raspberries in orange gin is my favourite combination

Ooo thanks for that I have some orange gin, I might have to try putting berries in it.

LemonCrab

Can he get meals on wheels?

With things like pancake mix, people see it’s ‘only £1’ but don’t realise you can gather the ingredients for less than 30p.

If they contains eggs, well. If you don’t usually have eggs in, you’d have to buy a whole box and won’t find them for less than a pound, so with buying four too, it might be cheaper just as an upfront cost, but the bag of flour and 6 eggs costing perhaps £1.40 altogether could probably make you 3 lots of pancakes.

Also don’t get the expensive jacket potatoes.

Not that keen on ouch rice either....one bag for £1.50 of basmati will create 15-20 meals easily. You’d get 2 pouches for that which will maximum feed 4.

But I guess if you need your ice in 2 mins rather than 10 cooked normally on hob or microwave you might decide it’s worth it and there won’t be a pan or cooking pit required for it either.....some people do t have those.

Ready grated cheese can be handy if you need vast quantities.....but it always feels coated in something and isn’t so nice.

Don’t like individual bags of grapes and apple slices. They also seem coated in something.

Some of these things seem to be for people who do t have a knife or a cooking pot. Some people don’t.

Would be handy if camping, but wouldn’t bother otherwise with pouch rice or ore prepared fruit.

Frozen veg like broccoli is good though. Also like frozen chips..definitely not interested in doing deep fat frying.

The most uneconomical seem things that are basically a bag of flour with perhaps a sprinkle of cocoa or milk whatever.

As a one off just once a year, might make sense if you never have staple ingredients like eggs, potatoes, flour. I’d have thought most people gave that stuff..but the market for these things suggests not.

Frozen avocado is useful as I'm the only one who eats avocado and I don't want a whole one in my salad. I just get out what I need for lunch about an hour before I eat