Why COOK?

Well, there are the obvious reasons: the simple fact you don’t always have the time or inclination to cook from scratch. Or that when you tot up the cost of doing it yourself there’s probably not much in it. Or that, since 1997, we’ve been COOKing using the same ingredients and techniques you would use at home, so our food looks and tastes homemade. Then there are the less obvious: no food waste (the beauty of frozen); a lot less washing up; the hospitality you get in your local shop (a far cry from the supermarket); the chef’s name on the label; the no-quibbles, money-back guarantee if your meal doesn’t taste as good as homemade.

We thought it would be intresting to compare the time and price of two of our hand prepared meals against what it would be to do it yourself. We shopped like you would at home not buying any of the ingredients we had in the kitchen cupboard and bought the smallest available amounts of the items we needed.
 

Lamb Tagine Recipe

Here is how we made our Moroccan Lamb Tagine. It cost us £13.32 and took 2hrs and 45mins to cook.

(We used prices from ocado.com in July 2015) 

Ingredients

 - 2 tbsp olive oil

 - 1 medium-sized onion, finely chopped

 - 1 clove garlic, finely chopped

 - 280g leg of lamb, diced

 - Spice mix

    ½ level tsp cayenne pepper

    ½ level tsp paprika

    ½ level tsp ground cumin

    ½ level tsp black cardamom

    1 heaped tsp Ras El Hanout

 - Salt to taste

 -  Pitted prunes x6

 - 1 tbsp sugar

 - ½ level tsp mint dried  

 - Mugful of lamb stock  - 2 tsp tomato puree

 - ½ tin chopped tomatoes

 - 1 tsp corn flour

 - 180ml water

 - Bay leaf

 - Cinnamon stick

 - ¼ tin chickpeas

 - Flaked almonds

Classic Fish Pie Recipe

Here is how we made our Fish Pie. It cost us £12.30 and 1hr 25mins to cook.

(We used prices from ocado.com in July 2015) 

Ingredients

 - 120g tiger prawns (raw or cooked)

 - 180g mixed diced cod and smoked haddock (or fish pie mix)

 - 20g plain flour

 - Half a small onion, diced

 - 30g butter

 - 50ml semi-skimmed milk

 - 1 lemon

 - Fish stock cube

 - Small glass of dry, white wine

 - Small glass of dry sherry

 - Sherry

 - 2 tbsp double cream

 - 350g Maris Piper potatoes

 - I egg yolk

 - Small handful fresh chives, chopped

 - Handful of fresh parsley, chopped

 - Salt and white pepper to taste

 - Paprika to sprinkle