To not realise that McCains baked potatoes are nothing special.

[boredwfh]

So my DD is a fussy eater however decided she wanted a jacket potato this week with cheese and bean. As it was a last minute request but eager to find new meals she likes, I only had some sad looking potatoes that were starting to sprout but managed to make one and she thoroughly enjoyed it. I decided whilst doing the weekly shop online & after reading a recent thread where everyone said McCains frozen baked potatoes were good, to add them to my basket thing they’d be good to have in as a quick meal if my DD asks again. Now I don’t know what I was expecting, maybe that it had been part cooked so it would be faster for me to bake, or maybe it had some special seasoning on the jacket. But AIBU to be bemused that it literally is just potato with vegetable oil on the outside & it still needs cooking for 45-55 mins! So no less effort than me just getting a spud and cooking it myself?! Am I the only one who doesn’t get the point of them?!

I've toyed with the idea of starting a business selling 'dehydrated water - simply dilute to taste' - I wonder if people would actually pay me to buy empty bottles that don't actually help them one bit?!

It's also a US thing, whereby everything has to be a mix, however simple it is for most people to mix two or three basic ingredients themselves. It just wouldn't occur to a lot of Americans that you can just do it yourself without it having to be a finished 'product' - be it Betty Crocker pancake mix, Makin' Bacon or whatever.

Mind you, I still smile when I remember what one poster wrote on a thread ages ago. I can't actually remember what the thread was specifically about; but she was getting married and her MIL-to-be presented her with a handwritten copy of her own 'recipe book' of how to make the foods that her son (the poster's fiance) liked best. As if that wasn't bad enough, one of the recipes was for roast potatoes, and the instructions said "Take several Aunt Bessie's frozen roast potatoes fron the packet and bake them on a tray in the oven for about 20 minutes until golden brown" !!

Bag of Bannister frozen baked pot are amazing. Mcains are 🤑

YES!!!!!!

Bit late to the party, but if you’re near Sainsbury’s, get their Vivaldi baking potatoes- they are perfect every time. They honestly taste buttery so you technically don’t need to add any butter (but I do). 5mins in the microwave and a couple of mins on the crispy setting on the air fryer…..tasty and crispy jacket potato.

i don’t get the love for a frozen jacket potato they always seem a bit watery and lack flavour to me. It’s a Vivaldi for the win every time!!

And how big is your freezer?

I will not eat heated up pre cooked potato unless it has been to the correct temperature to avoid that reheat spud flavour. Bleurgh 🤢. CF Heston- starch gelatinisation then retrogradation. Is why proper triple cooked chips are spectacular

I wrap mine in foil, stick them in the ash pan of the fire in the morning and enjoy the most tasty baked potato you will ever eat.

People are really affronted by them. It’s like a moral failing if you say you buy them. They are the weight loss injections of the cooking world!

they are quicker, not better just quicker.

It’s is really weird that some people are so bothered by them. 😅

I love this idea. It’s never occurred to me that I could bake multiple potatoes and freeze some for another day.

Bannisters are good, better than McCain, and I like their stuffed with cheese ones, but I oven bake those.

Agreed. They are ore cooked so very convenient for the microwave

They are an additional cost of auDHD 😂 Buy a bag of normal potatoes and let them go green and be unused?? Or buy some horribly overpriced ones for the freezer..and actually manage to cook and eat them when the mood strikes.

I bought these once as I just wanted them as a standby freezer option if I ran out of fresh potatoes. The ones I had were revolting. I cooked two, tried a bit of each, and ended up throwing them all out.

See also yorkshire pudding mix, just add egg and water, so you've just bought a pack of flour and dried milk. Crumble topping, just add fruit, crumble has to be the easiest thing in the world to make ( that's why it's a staple of canteen catering), if you make it yourself you can reduce the amount of sugar and miss out the palm oil. I'm not sure if it's lazyness, an inability to read the list of ingredients and question why some of them are needed, or a desire to increase supermarket profits so they can complain about them.

They take 6 minutes in a microwave and you get a crispy potato without a lengthy oven stint. That is the point of them. They are great.

I buy large potatoes cook them in the oven then freeze them myself so if someone wants them quickly they just pop them in the microwave for a few minutes.

No, they aren't anything special, but you're rather missing the point. They are meant to be a quick and easy meal.
You're meant to microwave them - they take about 8-10 minutes - not oven bake.
I buy them occasionally, as they're a great "I want something quick and easy" meal.

For those getting very uneven cooking in microwave and hard at the bottom, try moving the potatoes to the side of the turn table and away from the turning element. There tends to be an uneven microwave concentration there that over cooks. This seems to have got worse with modern microwaves. Never had it with all ours until the last two we bought.

I'm not sure anyone here on the West Coast of Ireland would admit to buying frozen potatoes. But they are for sale so someone is buying them. Not us, obviously😁

Oh anything to have a pop!
I bet they are mainlining cheap processed crap and meal deals day in day out

*Waits for the knit my own yoghurt brigade Thats me

Yeah I like the juicyness of the way I do them. But yeah, any jacket potato is acceptable when the craving hits. Except one that's just a raw potato cooked and eaten straight from the mic. That is a shrivelled monstrosity with pale soggy skin!

We all save time in different ways. I might microwave a potato but paint my own kitchen. You might hire a decorator but walk to work. I might drive to work and not have a cleaner. You might have a cleaner and grow your own tomatoes. I might open a tin but make my own crumble topping.

I don't think it's that hard to see that people will make different choices as to how they allocate their time and money. There are payoffs and we balance them. There's no need to be describing this as laziness.

Never bought them until about a month ago, the M&S ones as that’s where I was. Until then I was in the how ludicrous camp, but actually now I am a convert and I suspect in the long run for me they are cheaper than buying four bags of potatoes just to find one of correct baking size and then the rest go mouldy as I only want a baked potato every now and again. I microwave it and then finish off in air fryer for a few minutes to crisp it.

I was coming to say this. Bannisters are delicious. I keep a bag in freezer as I’m only one who eats baked potatoes and they are a convenient quick lunch in microwave sometimes.

I can't get the Bannisters ones where I am but I could get their potato skins. Are they any good?