I have this argument with my wife often. I like to cook, and for me cooking is more than taking frozen meatballs and dumping them into a pan full of jar pasta sauce. I would rather make the sauce, maybe have some meatballs made in advance. My wife seems to think that pre-made stuff or mixes are the way to go. I would rather just make pancakes scratch, which isn’t hard, where she would rather I just open the mix, add water, and make the food. But I do agree that having a frozen lasagna is better than taking the full effort when I just want to get dinner going. So where are your eat the pre-made vs make it from scratch?
On days when I feel like this, the two most important pieces of equipment are a rice maker and an air fryer. Now I can have chicken breasts over rice at the touch of a few buttons.
take a look at how much sodium too much instant rice has, plus it’s overly processed to make it quick. With the rice maker it might take 15-20 minutes but all I do is pour rice and water in and press the button…. Much better than instant and no sodium. This is what converted me from a potato guy to a rice guy.
air fryer gets a bad rep because it’s only the chicken tenders and fries labeled with directions, but it does a great job with chicken breasts or thighs - just press the button and wait for it to ding!