to think that people who buy ready-grated and ready-sliced cheese from the supermarket are nuts?

[GetOrfMoiLand]

I mean why would you bother. (Normal exceptions apply - people with disabilities etc who can't grate cheese).

How hard is it to grate cheese? Plus that ready grated stuff must be as dry as a bone.

Plus ready sliced cheese. Why would you now just slice your own cheese? What use are those slices anyway, they are thicker than a pound coin, you would choke on sandwiches made of that.

So expensive as well.

For those who get grated knuckles, you could try this cylindrical cheese grater

I buy the bags of grated cheese for sauces, pizzas etc. It's quite cheap I think.

I also buy nice farmhouse cheese for eating on crackers etc. and sliced gouda, emmental etc for sandwiches.

I see it as a bit like buying sliced bread, baguettes/ciabattas, bread rolls and such- or tins of tomatoes and sugocassa and fresh tomatoes- they all have their place.

I agree about the anti-caking flour- but if your are using it for melting into cooking it's fine, I would never serve it 'raw' so to speak.

I do have one of those flat cheese slicers for swiss/norwegian cheese but the sliced cheese is admittedly just laziness on my part combined with wanting to make picnic sandwiches very quickly if the weather is nice- a bit like buying sliced cooked meat.

Can't believe I'm rambling on about this I really should be asleep!

sliced cheese - bl**dy handy when you are making a zillon cheese butties for 18 children at a birthday party.....

LyraSilvertongue - I wondered that very same thing myself until I owned one!
My slow cooker died and I replaced it with a Tefal 4-in-1 jobby - does slow cooking as well as rice cooking - I love it!
Perfect rice, easy to clean.

I honestly used to think 'just do it in a pan, tch' but I am now a proud convert

(plus a billion Asians I saw when travelling can't be wrong!)

Hell - my chinese SIL has a rice cooker - she thinks it funny that we spend ages trying to cook perfect rice when you can do it in a rice cooker!

Re the OP and sliced cheese - you must have plastic pre-sliced cheese on bbq food. It is against all the bbq rules to slice normal cheese. That has probably been said before, but I thought I would add my tuppence worth in for measure

oh I dont know, we had a rice cooker in India, it came out pretty soggy and overcooked, even when our Indian cook did it, and she for sure should know how to make rice in a rice cooker. She took me to buy that blasted thingy!

Shadow you must have had a duff one

Mine is my new best friend.
Plus it steams as well, at the same time as cooking perfect rice.
And no I don't work for Tefal

I saw pre-shelled hard boiled eggs in the sandwich section of Morrisons.

I do use the chopped swede and carrot in a 50p bag and think it is absolutely worth it. I cannot bear peeling and chopping swede, it just seems such a wretched task.

Love micro-rice with veggies in and often have it for lunch with a micro bag of veg and a dollop of barbeque sauce which makes all my staffroom chums gag.

GeneHunt....you and i must sing from the same song sheet not only with swede and carrot but our taste in sexy bad tempered policemen!!! [wink

I'm almost ashamed that I bought the entire box-set collection of Life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes for my dh's birthday just because I want to drool. [/shifty]

This is after saying for years that people who buy dvd's are profligate wastrels.

I asked my sister for the soundtrack to A2A last year and she accidentally ordered me the boxset, i wasnt complaining!!

Have you ever tried grating mozzarella???????

Pre grated stuff is far easier than trying to grate a squidgy piece of cheese.

Wouldn't buy any other ready grated cheese though.

I buy it because I'm lazy, not nuts.

It's a PITA to grate cheese and then you have to wash out the grater.

I bulk buy ready grated mozarella from Costco. It is no more expensive than the mozarella balls, but a lot easier to use! Obviously, I don't use it in mozarella salad, but it is ace for pizzas.

If I am grating cheese, I usually get the food processor out and do the whole block, which I then store in a ziplock bag. It doesn't dry out.

I buy sliced ham too. I could buy a ham, cook it and then slice it myself, but I choose not to. And I buy sliced bread - how lazy of me.

Maybe they are just on a diet.

I buy sliced cheese for the same reason that I buy sliced bread, to save time in the mornings.
you sound like my mother, a SAHM who criticised everyone that didnt have as much time for trivia as she did.

NightbyNight I'm a SAHM and I buy grated- that must make me really lazy

I buy grated mozzarella for pizzas because you can freeze it and then just use as much as you need. I don't buy grated parmesan or cheddar or anything else though.

pinky, you certainly wouldnt have escaped her eye

My sister had a holiday job working in a pie and quiche factory...stay with this as I am going somewhere relevant! Her job was to cut all the green slime off old blocks of cheese before grating to use in lovely quiches.Bleugh!Sure they use proper fake cheese for ready grated market though!

I always buy easy cook rice (brown of course) & it cooks perfectly every time.

I only eat tubs of pre-prepared fruit because you get a lovely mixture - if I bought a melon, a mango, a pineapple & some grapes, it would take me forever to prepare it, then I'd have throw half of it away because it wouldn't keep.

I used to wonder who bought ready made ice & thought they were mad - till my DS pulled a muscle in his shoulder playing on a rope swing at the park near to my IL's house - he was in a lot of pain & luckily we passed an off-licence on the way home. They sold ready made ice so we bought a bag & held it to DS's sore shoulder all the way home - it really helped.

All these ready-made products have their place & imo, anything that makes life easier can't be bad.

Slice mozzarella with scissors-easy! Works well for pizza and capresse salad posh

nearly 200 posts about grated cheese and assorted topics. Now that's nuts. I love MN

sliced mozzarella doesn't work well when you need grated for the tops of lasagne though,

is that the 200th post

I am quite contrary with my attitude to pre-prepared food.

I won't buy mince - I buy steak and mince it. I make my own stock, gravy and sauces. I grow a lot of my own things to eat.

But I love fake plastic cheese slices. I also love microwaveable rice as it's quick and I don't have to clean the pan afterwards. Baby bells, pepperami and scotch eggs are some of my furtive disgusting treats.

Total split food personality.