convenience food that you've only recently discovered

[startingtolooklikemother]

I've only just discovered that you can buy frozen chopped onion, frozen mash and frozen roast potatoes. They honestly have (vaguely) changed my life! What else am I missing out on, what have you discovered.

recently in convenience foods which has (vaguely) changed your life?

"Micro rice has added oil to prevent it sticking together"

The frozen stuff doesn't, it's literally just rice.

Falafels!

if your kids are starving and you don't want them to eat just pure carbs while you're making something, falafels are a healthy snack. if you don't eat them all

yy to grated cheese and chopped onions!

Oreos. They're vegan

I love the steam bags of frozen veg. Expensive but aldi do them now.

Yy to all the other frozen stuff on here already.

Not a convenience food but a life hack, when rolling out pastry put clingfilm over it and roll it. As long as your board is floured enough your pastry (esp rough puff pastry) won't stick to the rolling pin or the board. Then you can flip it over take thr board away and put on the top of the pie or whatever.

Micro rice is a godsend. Love the brown basmati sainsburys at 50p a pack and excellent to chuck into veggie stir fries etc. I haven't boiled rice in months

Steak ready cut up into tiny strips for stir frying. Lazy but brilliant.

Yes to anything you can freeze.
None of your little fridge freezers for me I have a giant chest freezer and an upright one,

Oooooh tabulahrasa sounds like I need to get on that frozen rice thing

Lazy garlic, I use the oil in cooking too.

Oriental markets have chopped & dried which I love for stir fries.

I buy the chopped peppers/mushrooms/leeks/courgettes/butternut squash.

It lasts longer, no chopping involved & I feel works out cheaper with leeks & courgettes anyway.

Also tins of ratatouille, I add them to any pasta/lasagne/dish that requires it.

We only ever use microwave rice, unless I'm making risotto.

So much easier when you are only cooking for 2 (plus toddler).

grated cheese, I dread to think what they treat it with, but it doesn't go mouldy.

Microwave rice for when I'm doing a 'big' meal, to reduce the amount of washing up! Will deffo try the frozen stuff now.

Ready chopped butternut squash for roasting or for soups, when I don't need a huge amount and cba with the axe-job needed for a whole one.

Yes to falafels - they are such a pain to make and often just disintegrate, and I avoid deep fat frying.

Must admit we've been buying oven chips recently as well, although I do feel a bit dirty when doing so!

Diced onions and chopped mushrooms - hand when batch cooking!!

Although I knew they existed I always wrote off tray bake vegetables. They aren't as bad as what I thought and I love the fact that you peel and go.

Grated cheese usually has a bit of corn starch (flour) added to stop it from sticking together.

I do have issues with it going mouldy though! Rarely lasts long enough to use a whole packet in our house. I end up putting half packs in the freezer once it's been open for a while.

Frozen avocado, and ds loves it at the moment.

I actually prefer frozen mash to my own.

Haven't seen frozen avocado though.

I like tray bake veg bung them in no faffing.

Frozen okra, peppers, spinach leaves. Jars of garlic and ginger puree from the Asian grocer.
Vacuum-packed tortellini and gnocchi which don't need to be in the fridge.

Cartons of bechamel sauce. Pour over fish or Bolognese, add lasagne noodles and cheese, shove in oven. From Polish deli or sometimes in Lidl, though Lloyd Grossman does an expensive version.

We're on a budget so "make" convenience food by chopping/grating and bagging stuff then bunging it in the freezer. A bit time consuming to start with but mindless and easy to do with radio to sing along too. Chop and freeze onions, grated cheese, freeze cherry tomatoes whole for chucking in casseroles, blitz stale bread for bags of breadcrumbs, freeze ginger and chilis whole and just grate from frozen. If you feel up to it, make Nigellas speedy pancake mix, bag it and keep in fridge to just add eggs and milk. Also make crumble mix and freeze. Convenience food without the additives!

Came in to say frozen rice. Bloody marvellous. Ds loves curry, DD hates it. So when I am cooking two different dinners it's fab to put in the rice and Bing! 4 minutes later.

Frozen roasties are nice - we love the duck fat ones from aunt Bessie's or Aldi.

Can someone explain why the packs of rice are OK when I see constant warnings on here about reheating rice. I love the uncle Ben's tomato rice and quinoa , I'm just wondering why there's no risk.

yy to the microwave brown rice. Also frozen butternut squash chunks.

The rice will have been treated to kill micro organisms before freezing and they are frozen quickly-not the same as leaving cooked rice to fester in a warm kitchen!

Or packaged quickly if not frozen.

Carnation Caramel - no more boiling cans of condensed milk

if you are to reheat rice it must be cooked and cooled immediately...so presumably they have that covered

dire warnings about reheating rice are usually when it's left over from the pan/take out/rice salad and has sort of lurked for a while, maybe been shoved in the fridge, maybe not. might be warmed through instead of reheated properly

although even if left over rice is reheated properly it can still cause issues iirc.