"Cheat" products that you love?

[DomesticSlobbess]

As much as I love cooking, there are the odd occasions when dinner comes "pre-prepared" in some form.

Products I love and would recommend are...

Colman's sausage casserole mix
Swartz roast chicken gravy

What are your recommendations for jars/packets/ready meals etc that you love to use?

Chopped onions / garlic / ginger / chilli

Either in a jar or frozen

Bisto best gravy
Waitrose pesto
Frozen garlic and ginger
Canned chickpeas/ cannellini/ borlotti beans
Fresh filled pasta (ravioli/ tortellini etc)
Aunt Bessie's swede and carrot mash is very good as are Asda frozen roast parsnips.

Sausage/chicken casserole mix
Frozen mash ( handy for doing small portions for the dc)
Jus Rol pastry
Heinz tomato soup

One of the meals that is guaranteed to be eaten this house - pasta bake made with pasta, tin of tom soup, tin of tuna, tin of sweet corn, handful of frozen peas... No effort on my behalf at all!

EAZY tinned fried onions. Pots of fresh crushed garlic and ginger. Ready rolled puff pastry. Ready baked sweet pastry cases. Frozen parathas.

Sliced leeks, Asda, great for casseroles.

YY to Colmans sausage casserole mix. very handy :)

Bitsintatters, where do you get your chopped chillies and ginger? Are they in packets/packs? Never seen 'em..

Is the chopped onion finely diced or is it big chunks? I only ever use a little bit of onion when cooking because I don't like it much so have thought about buying it chopped so I only have to grab a teeny bit when I need it. But I hate eating large bits of onion so prefer mine finely chopped.

Schwartz shepherds pie mix. Love it!

The frozen stuff is diced small. That's why it's good for us fussy children

"Either in a jar or frozen"

D'er just saw this..:s

Please ignore.

As you were ...

I've recently started buying frozen diced onion and it's amazing! Only a quid from asda and you get loads. So much easier to grab a handful of frozen than stand and chop a load.

Oh yes, Heinz tomato soup for sure. I've made various soups from scratch before but none of them are as good as Heinz tomato. Probably all the yummy sugar!

I got frozen crushed ginger in cubes - Sainos yesterday. I am a recent convert to frozen onions, garlic and shallots, bloody brilliant. cant think why I waited so long to try them. Also love frozen mash.

I always do gravy granules. Dcs wont eat 'proper' gravy.

Frozen sliced mushrooms. And the jars of chopped garlic, ginger and red chillies. Peppadew pickled peppers in a jar.

and frozen Yorkshire puddings - cant forget those.

Frozen diced onion.

Thickening granules (you can put them straight in hot liquids)

Jus-roll pastry.

Straw those peppers in a jar are so delicious!

I would also like to add Seeds of Change bolognese sauce and also Ragu smooth bolognese sauce to my list for the times where I really fancy spaghetti bolognese but feeling really lazy.

Really lazy ginger
All butter puff pastry
Waitrose Hoisin sauce
Chinese supermarket chilli paste type stuff
Frozen berries to add to crumbles etc

Microwave brown rice, cannot be bothered to boil it for 40 minutes!

Those microwave pouches of rice. Great for work lunches.

Microwaved rice pouches. I can cook rice but have had so many disasters of the years, so much easier to just grab a sachet.

Frozen chillies. Garlic puree. Ready made pastry. Aunt Bessies mid-week roasties (DH and I both obsessed but cook them for longer than the stated 20 mins to get them crunchy). Canned beans. Had a pouch of puy lentils the other day too which was fab but prob too pricy for everyday use.

Meringues. Eton mess the only pudding I ever make.

Pataks curry pastes are very good. I cook onions and peppers, add chicken and tin of tons. Lovely curry and v adaptable!

Frozen onions ready chopped.

Definitely frozen garlic, chillies and ginger (from Waitrose or Ocado).

I've used Sainsbury's own microwave rice before but it has a taste and texture to it that isn't like ordinary rice. Maybe I should try a better brand.

Used Dolmio bolognese sauce tonight and it was good! I haven't used a jar bolognese in ages but I was feeling lazy and now I'm wondering why I bother with the hours of faff when DS didn't notice and wolfed the whole thing down.