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?

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

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

But how many people, who might actually make pancakes, never have eggs in anyway? We use at least a dozen a week, usually more. I actually get a panicky if we have less than half a dozen in. That's the 'must buy eggs now' trigger in this house.

But if half a dozen eggs is beyond normal consumption, you can buy them in Morrisons singly, for 20 pence each.

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

If can buy pancake mix which just needs water adding. This year I bought a pack of ready made pancakes. Just needed 30 seconds in the microwave. We had two each with sugar and lemon. Lovely to taste and so quick.

Lidl frozen sliced peppers I bought to try and save money and speed up fajita making. They are full of hard stringy stalk-like bits that are absolutely revolting, I have no idea why. I ruined a couple of meals then threw them out.

Barbara, some of the pancake mixes DO contain eggs.

You’d be surprised how many people don’t have eggs in the house on a regular basis. We always do, but know lots of people live very differently.

Some won’t have eggs or flour and it will be cheaper to buy a £1 mix as an upfront cost and mean no waste. Most people don’t mind having a half full packet of the flour in the cupboard for weeks or months, but some people don’t like it.

Therse things are never the cheapest and often it will be those who can least afford them that buy them, but convenience often requires less pots and plans, might just need 2 rings on a hob or a microwave instead of a 4 ring hib, and the vital thing for lots of people is less upfront one-off cost, rather than being cheaper over the long term,
.it’s the reality.

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.

I had a block of cheese replaced with a bag of pre-grated cheese on an online order and thought I'd give it a try. Absolutely tasteless and was coated in some sort of floury substance (presumably to prevent clumping). I don't understand why foods like these which help those who are less able or have less time to prepare fresh ingredients have such terrible quality.

@User1511

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

Easier and healthier. I can only afford summer fruit frozen. Spinach makes more sense to buy frozen than have a big bag that goes down to nothing.

HRTFH as at work. Tinned strawberries are the work of the devil. Frozen/oven chips are the work of the gods.

We use frozen veg daily! Other than the aforementioned peppers we couldn’t be without it. Much more economical and still nutritious.

"Just about every shop sells loose potatoes, so just buy one potato confused"

Loads of smaller supermarkets don't sell loose veg. I personally make my own jacket potato in the microwave, but some people don't like micorwaved ones.

The Offending Article Definitely marketed as oven chips - I just didn't read the description.

I loved the description of frozen spinach as anti-matter
I do always have some frozen veg as a stand-by - including frozen mash, which is a real faff to make a single portion (and the tubes are brilliant to lay on top of cooked mince for a superfast cottage pie).

prawn cocktail sauce (marie rose) in small jars at £1 a jar why? its a bit of mayo, ketchup, lemon juice and a touch of worcester sauce in a bowl and mixed together takes 30 seconds and tastes much better

Jacket potatoes I start off in the microwave for speed, then 20-30 minutes in the oven for super crispy skin

@Unicant

Frozen spinach. Just breaks up and slips thru the holes in the steamer or collinder.. and somehow has even less quantity than cooked fresh spinach... its like anti matter

I think you are meant to add it directly to whatever dish you are cooking , pasta, risotto, curry . I think it's really useful .

"There's a special place for Lidl frozen strawberries, I use them to make this drizzle cake. It's been my most requested repeat."

What's very soft butter please? Could I use margarine?

"@clary I don’t think you understand “don’t bake” 🙂 If you don’t bake, you quite possibly don’t cook either.

• cheese sauce: mix with water from a packet, or never make a cheese sauce because it’s already in your ready meal
• gravy: just mix your granules with water
• ready made pastry: buy a premade pie

Lots of people have no need of flour at all!"

Nope. It makes a mess because all the packets leak and the next time you go to use it in a few years might be full fo weavils.

Someone gave me a gingerbread house kit. Inside was a bag of biscuit mix to which I had to add eggs and syrup (so basically flour, sugar and ginger) and then bake my own gingerbread on a flat tray; a bag of icing to which I had to add egg white (so basically a bag of icing sugar) and use with my own piping bag; and a paper diagram of the house for cutting out the pieces. 😶

@SpeakingFranglais

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.

I think it depends how good a cook you are. They taste better than what I can cook so I'm happy with them. Better than my parents' cooking too.

I also find shop bought cakes much better than home made ones.

Frozen avocados, disgusting.

@EveryDayIsADuvetDay
Ok yes I agree that's a bit of a pointless item; the useful ness of prepared chips is something that sits in the freezer til you need them . Don't think I would bother with fresh ones .

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

Loads of oven chips have a flour coating on so it's often the choice of make your own or do without if you're coeliac. My food processor has a chipper blade so luckily it only takes a minute. Flour gets into all sorts of convenience foods when it has no right to be there, e.g. onion bhajis

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.

Any situation where I might normally have oven chips at home - I just cut a couple of scrubbed (not peeled) potatoes into .5 cm thick slices, toss them with a teaspoon of olive oil, and then bake them in a hot oven for ten minutes each side. They call these 'cottage fries' in the states. Takes approximately 30 seconds longer than dumping oven chips onto a tray, healthier, tastes better. Not as good as McDonald's fries but definitely better than oven chips.

A lot of these mentioned are great for people who need care
In 20 mins I might have to (as a carer) arrive, chat, check book, hoist, change pads/catheter, wash, tidy up after that, rearrange bedding, give medication, make a drink, cook food, wash up, fill book in and leave
Realistically it either has to be cooking while you do everything else or be done in 5 mins. No time for chopping much or grating

@Northofsomewhere

I once bought a cold to-go pasta pot, the type you find next to sandwiches. When opened there was no spork, the packaging said something about reducing plastic except the pot was plastic covered in large amounts of plastic tape to keep it shut, but no spork. Fortunately I was somewhere I had access to other forms of cutlery but not sure what I would've done if I was in my car or something . The pasta was a bit thick and wet to try and eat without something.

I do also think some chopped fruit and veg falls into this category, particularly those little chopped apples with grapes and strawberries that are aimed at lunch boxes. They're so expensive for a few mins work chopping an apple and a few strawberries. Other veg like butternut squash I can get behind, they're a pain to chop up.

I bought a little set of reusable cutlery in it's own case for situations like this. Takes up hardly any room in my bag, and has proven it's usefulness so many times. Stainless steel, includes a metal straw and chopsticks plus little brush for cleaning the straw. I use them in preference to the plastic sporks that tend to break anyway when I try to use them.

Meanwhile, I wouldn't buy pancake mix. A waste of money for me, since I always have the ingredients in, and it takes hardly any time to make the batter. I use a recipe for american pancakes as they are thicker, and I cook them in my sandwich toaster.

And frozen baked potatoes, again a waste of money IMO. I mean, depending on sizes, then 5 to 10 mins iin the microwave, and 10 mins under the grill and you have a potato that's cooked and fluffy on the inside while being crispy on the outside.

The only frozen veg I have are sweetcorn and peas. I bulk buy onions and chillies and dice/slice (I do both) and freeze at a frraction of the cost. I sometimes blanch and freeze veg if they're on offer and I know I won't be able to use them all up before they go off. It doesn't take much work for me to do this, I know others might not have the time or ability to do the same. I make use of the time I'm standing up chopping by doing my kegel exercises too.