Home delivered ready meals

[lobeydosser]

I guess that quite a number of older people do not eat as much as us and so the firm that we get our meals from, also do "Mini Meals".

It may be financially beneficial to her to have a look at these meals.

Mini Meals

[Pepperty]

Thanks for the helpful link lobey. I've cajoled the care staff to 3x daily visits as won't get out of bed, so now she'll get her meals done.

I've packed her fridge with microwave meals so care staff can heat up and give her but now she's got a pressure sore from laying in bed 5 weeks but least she's now got a bed wedge and alarm is set up so I know she's safe for now.

She's been signed off by the copd nurse so she really should be building up her strength and getting on her feet but she's showing no sign of improvement

[lobeydosser]

Someone mentioned on Page 1 that there was nothing to beat home cooked meals.
Well because this was a bit of an experiment to try these home delivered meals, we went for just 7 meals as an initial taster session.
Because it would be two weeks before we would get our next order, we have had those 7 meals, interspersed with home cooked meals.
I cook most of the meals at home while the missus does all the baking and, quite frankly, we are both highly impressed with the quality and the taste of the delivered meals. They are far better than anything we cook at home. They are more varied, easier to prepare and, because they are frozen, if for any reason we don't fancy a full meal on a certain day, because they are frozen, there is no waste.
All these meals have a "use by" date that is over a year away.

Oh we will still be enjoying our Tatties, Haggis and Neeps and our Mince and Tatties from time to time, but from here on in, it will be Home Delivered Meals all the way, for us.

[joeten]

Glad it is working out for you lobeydosser

[sydsut]

Mar 15, 2017 20:27:12 GMT lobeydosser said:

Someone mentioned on Page 1 that there was nothing to beat home cooked meals.
Well because this was a bit of an experiment to try these home delivered meals, we went for just 7 meals as an initial taster session.
Because it would be two weeks before we would get our next order, we have had those 7 meals, interspersed with home cooked meals.
I cook most of the meals at home while the missus does all the baking and, quite frankly, we are both highly impressed with the quality and the taste of the delivered meals. They are far better than anything we cook at home. They are more varied, easier to prepare and, because they are frozen, if for any reason we don't fancy a full meal on a certain day, because they are frozen, there is no waste.
All these meals have a "use by" date that is over a year away.

Oh we will still be enjoying our Tatties, Haggis and Neeps and our Mince and Tatties from time to time, but from here on in, it will be Home Delivered Meals all the way, for us.

But how will this affect your vegetable beds that you've been working on for the past couple of years lobeydosser I hope you won't be letting them go to waste.

[lobeydosser]

The thing is joeten it is working better than I ever expected it to.
The missus is a bit picky with her meals and I really expected her to dislike a lot of them but so far she has only disliked one, a Potato, Sausage and Peas main meal and a Bread & Butter Pudding. She ate both, but would rather not have them again. Fair enough.

The next lot that we have ordered, she fancies the sound of all of them, 12 main meals and 10 puddings. We will wait and see how she gets on with these. These will all be different meals with 2 Beef, 2 Chicken, 1 Pork and 1 Fish over 6 of 7 days. We will be eating out 1 day a week.

If variety is the spice of life, then we have never eaten so well as we are now.

[lobeydosser]

Hi sydsut, we still have lunches to prepare at home and so we are once again growing some veg, especially the ones that did well last year.
However a lot of the veg we tried was a failure last year and so only 2 beds will be veg and the rest will be fruit.

Up until now, all our fruit was grown in containers. All of these will now go into the spare raised beds and additional fruit bushes brought in.

Living up North, even using poly-tunnels and fleece, it is difficult to get veg, especially salad veg to all come up at the same time and we were ending up with maybe 2 salad veg and having to go out and buy the rest to make a decent salad. This rather negated the idea of growing our own. So much of our veggies are imported these days, that we tend to forget that here in the UK, the choice in the shop's Fruit & Veg counters are mostly foreign produce.

Our garden is just a big experiment and I reckon it will take us a good 5 years to figure out what is going to grow well and what will be a waste of time trying to grow.

[joeten]

[gill2009]

  Thanks for keeping us updated lobeydosser...very interesting thread 

[lobeydosser]

Because of dietary and medicinal requirements, not all the meals that Oakhouse sell are suitable for our needs and so, during this initial "test" we are limiting ourselves to 33 Main Meals and 27 Desserts.
These will all be different meals and from these we will choose the ones we want again and those we do not.

Ofcourse we still have loads of our own vegetables that we grew in the garden last year and are now in the freezer, plus Oakhouse also sell Vegetables that we can add to any meal.

So, all in all, it will probably be another month before we can give you a proper overall view of how these meals are panning out for us.
I can say though that we are saving a fortune on Gas. No boiling of veggies and no roasting of meats. A wee bonus that we did not calculate for.

[lobeydosser]

Last night we had a "normal" meal. Mince and Tatties followed by Rhubarb Crumble and Ice Cream.
The Mince was bubbling away on the gas ring for about 3 hours before the Tatties went on to boil and then simmer for 20 minutes. Meanwhile the Oven also went on to bring it up to temperature.
When the Tatties were done, both the gas rings under the Mince and Tatties were put out and that part of the meal was served. The Crumble went into the oven and stayed there for 40 minutes to bake. Eventually the Crumble was ready and the oven gas was put out.
I do not know how much gas was used over the 4 hours and 20 minutes that the gas was burning, but the same meal from a Ready Home Delivered Meal, straight from the freezer and microwaved, for the 2 of us would have been 9 minutes for the main meal and 5 minutes for the Crumble, times 2, all heated at 700w.

I have no doubt that the ready meal would have been more expensive than the home cooked meal, but once you factor in cooking costs, well it will be interesting to see, at the end of the month/year, just how much more expensive these meals turn out to be.
They are certainly just as tasty as home cooked meals.

[lobeydosser]

Today we had our first full fortnight of meals delivered. It took me some time to sort them all out and then stack them, in reverse order, into the freezer.

Tonight's meal was Beef Lasagne with Wild Mushroom Sauce followed by Lemon Sorbet. Yummy!!

Going on what we have ordered so far, these meals, with desserts, are averaging out at £6 per head.

Tomorrow Night will be Chicken Supreme, possibly with Apple Strudel and Wednesday will be Gammon in Onion Sauce followed by Fruit Salad and Ice Cream.
I canny wait!

[lobeydosser]

Okay, so that is our first month of our frozen, home delivered, ready meals.
So far we have had 20 main meals, all of which I liked but SWMBO did not like 4 of them.
We have had 13 puddings, one of which we will not have again and the ice cream type puddings we do not consider value for the money.
Overall, I reckon these meals are costing us about £7 extra a week, over the cost of our normal weekly shop.
However, we heat the house and cook all our normal foods on Bottled Gas and as these meals are 98% microwaved, we are using virtually no gas for cooking. As we pay our gas by Direct Debit, it will be quite some time before we know just what savings there will be from that, but I have already noticed that our gas is lasting longer.
There are ofcourse other savings like having to drive 20 odd miles to the nearest decent food-mart or farmers market, plus the fact that there is no waste.
But these meals would not suit everyone. We are retired, so sitting in waiting for the delivery is not a problem.

So far we are happy with these meals and they are certainly giving us a wide choice of fair, plus, if for whatever reason we decide that we would rather have Beans on Toast some night, well there is no problem, that dinner just stays put and will get used some other night.

[taz96]

lobeydosser brilliant, thanks for the update. i'm chuffed for you both that mostly you're enjoying these meals.

[lobeydosser]

Changing over from our "normal" type meals to these meals has meant a big change for us. We tend to decide halfway through the afternoon, what we are eating at night and that can mean rushing round the local shops or seeing what is in the house already.
It is a strange concept to have 2 weeks of meals in the freezer and knowing what is available both for main course and sweet on any particular day and as they take only 10 minutes to cook, we truly can decide at the last minute whether we want a big meal or just something small.
Or for that matter, a take-away from one of the many such places within a 20 minute drive.