advertisement


Healthy but tasty meals - easily prepared

madmike

madmike

I feel much better now, I really do...
I'm on a mission.

SOH starts her second round of Chemo in the new year, or possibly sooner. We will be effectivly isolating and I will be shielding as her main carer and working from home. To avoid infection risk our adult daughter with special needs will be staying at my other adult daughters house.

So yours truly will need to take over the kitchen duties. I can cook but time will be at a premium.

Yes there are some good things on the shelf of the Supermarket. We are more Waitrose/Booths and Charlie Bigham than Tesco value !

Is there a home delivery service that send good quality and varied meals that I can just heat up at home?

We have tried some but they are fiddly if we have to put the ingredients together and prepare.

I'm thinking Charlie Bigham quality but home delivery.

Are there any ideas out there ?
 
Many ready meals are high in salt which may be an issue. One thing I would suggest is to cook large batches and freeze single or double portions, something like a slow cooker is low effort after initial prep. Soups especially are easy to make, freeze and serve up.
 
We’ve used COOK. They’re OK. I would also agree with epo1 about cooking & freezing large batches - I tend to pass a leisurely afternoon (with an appropriate musical accompaniment, naturally, and possibly a glass or two of “leftover” vino) cook a large le Creuzet of chilli, spag bol sauce, et al, then divide it up into the square lidded Pyrex dishes in single and two portion sizes for freezing. It’s great to be able to pull out a chilli or spag bol sauce, knock up some rice/pasta and eat twenty-five minutes after starting.
 
Try Hello Fresh, you can pick the meals you like the look of and the ingredients seemed very good. They usually have an offer on, even if you only do it for the offer period you can keep the recipe cards and use them with your own ingredients, most of them were only 20-45 minutes in my experience.
 
@madmike can you cook? If not you’re direction makes sense, but if you can - or have enough confidence to try - there are so many healthy options…

Curries - get some cook in sauces as a start and lots of veg/mushroom. Wholewheat rice - or Bulgar wheat.
Chilli - again, easy to do as veggie or with mince beef
Pasta - go wholewheat pasta and any number of options. A healthy favourite is lasagna substituting a layer of aubergine instead of lasagna to up the goodness (and taste to be honest!)
Etc.

Loads of good cooks on here I think if you’re prepared to give it a go.
 
suzywong said:
We’ve used COOK. They’re OK. I would also agree with epo1 about cooking & freezing large batches - I tend to pass a leisurely afternoon (with an appropriate musical accompaniment, naturally, and possibly a glass or two of “leftover” vino) cook a large le Creuzet of chilli, spag bol sauce, et al, then divide it up into the square lidded Pyrex dishes in single and two portion sizes for freezing. It’s great to be able to pull out a chilli or spag bol sauce, knock up some rice/pasta and eat twenty-five minutes after starting.
Click to expand...
No pre made food delivery services up here that I’ve seen, just Tesco or Asda hence we batch cook/freeze and use those pyrex glass dishes with the clip on lids. I prefer the slow cooker, Mrs AA the le Creuset we got as a wedding pressie 30 plus years back.. Once you’ve done the prep/chopping which doesn’t take that long usually it’s more or less fire and forget.

Maybe a mix ’n match of Cook ready meals + Batch every so often.

@madmike best wishes for a successful outcome
 
matt j said:
Try Hello Fresh, you can pick the meals you like the look of and the ingredients seemed very good. They usually have an offer on, even if you only do it for the offer period you can keep the recipe cards and use them with your own ingredients, most of them were only 20-45 minutes in my experience.
Click to expand...
I've supplied ingredients (meat) to Hello Fresh, it's good gear. Well thought out. As others have said, if you like a recipe it's easy enough to reverse engineer it and then buy the components yourself.
 
Another option is the quick “one-pot” meals, from various cookbooks: we can heartily recommend:
Diana Henry “From the oven to the table”
Dominique Woolf “Dominique’s Kitchen” (if you like Thai)
The Hairy Bikers “One Pot Wonders”

S. usually hits one of those books for a mid week meal - often lasts two days if there’s just two of you (HB scheduled for next week, I think)
 
If you can find time at weekends to batch cook something it’s really worth it. A solid stew, curry, chilli and ragu recipe you can freeze portions of are really worth the effort up front. also look at simply marinating meat or fish for grilling / roasting and serving with steamed veg or rice. simple and will taste fresher than any “ding” meal,and won’t take any longer to cook.
 
this is the time for stews and slow cookers -eg just cubed beef preferably with a bit of fat on, carrots and onion and powder sauce.
 
suzywong said:
Another option is the quick “one-pot” meals, from various cookbooks: we can heartily recommend:
Diana Henry “From the oven to the table”
Dominique Woolf “Dominique’s Kitchen” (if you like Thai)
The Hairy Bikers “One Pot Wonders”

S. usually hits one of those books for a mid week meal - often lasts two days if there’s just two of you (HB scheduled for next week, I think)
Click to expand...
Adding to this Jamie also has a one pot out called 'One'. Super easy to get really good meals out of.
 
Hello Fresh is good, easy to follow instruction cards and large number of meals that can be cooked in 20mins or less.

All the ingredients are included and raw so you can control the salt level and good amount of veggie and fish meals.
 
If you want ready meals see if any of your local restaurants/pubs will do take aways for you, I know some near to me do, a left over skill from covid lock down.
 
Charlie binham is superb but very expensive . Wiltshire farm foods are not bad

Good luck with the treatment
 
Wife and I do a spag bog every couple of weeks this time of year. 500g minced beef (M and S as it's not a congealed, vacpac slab) 1 each green pepper, red pepper and large red onion and a (300ish g) pack of cherry or plum tomatoes plus a 660g Gross Loydman Original Bolognese mix.
Initially cook meat with salt/pepper/Worcester sauce and stock cube for about 3/4hr in 2litre casserole dish in oven, stir occasionally to stop it becoming a large patty. Add chopped up veg, Gross Loydman, bit more seasoning/Worcester sauce plus another stock cube and some cornflower made into a paste to thicken it. Cook for 2hrs (along side baked tatties for your evening meal) and stir occasionally. Leave overnight to cool. Keep in fridge. This then makes us 5 meals over next 8-9 days by warming a portion in a small pan. Cook some whole-wheat spaghetti with it (it tastes so much better than white spaghetti) and Bob's your uncle.
Really tasty and quick.
Best of luck with your situation
 
a.palfreyman said:
Wife and I do a spag bog every couple of weeks this time of year.
Click to expand...
Great scheme. I do all sorts of things like this. Portion it up, put it in the freezer, fish it out when you need it. Do I fancy spag, chilli, risotto or something else tonight? If you leave it out at breakfast it thaws over the course of the day and all you have to do is warm it up when you get in.
 
we typically make a beef shin and pork ragu. A chilli with similar ingredients - both take about 5 hours cooking time. Portion it up and freeze. Always double up on some curry dishes - portion and freeze.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.


advertisement


Back
Top Bottom