Forgive me, for I have sinned

[CAMRAMan]

I went to Tesco tonight - never a good thing to do - and I was tempted by one of their meal for two deals, namely a chicken tikka and lamb rogon josh plus rice & onion bhajis. £5 for the lot should have told me to expect it to be crap, but just how crap was scarcely believable.

I only tried the rice & lamb dish and a little it of the bhaji. Feck!  sums it up. Fatty lamb in a nasty sauce; undercooked (possibly short grain) rice and bhajis with not a hint of texture. I was saving the chicken tikka for tomorrow, but no way am I going to touch that.

There must be a hell of a lot of people content to eat that shite for them to keep selling it - or even more gullible people like me who buy it just the once!

[a lower gear]

The first curries I ate were the 1970s dehydrated Vesta boil-in-the bag thingies. Thought they were great but soon graduated to proper cooking. Around the late 1980s I tried a Vesta for old time's sake. It was truly a revelation how nasty and inedible they really were...

Am never tempted by ready meals - all that cost, all that packaging, and the knowledge that two thirds of what you're buying is simple carbohydrate that is way, way over-priced.

My failing (seeing that this is a confessional thread) is to buy a range of things from the deli counter and at home add cheese, olives, sun dried tomatoes, pickles, crusty bread and an interesting beer. Very nice but neither cheap nor healthy!

There's an old adage that you should never go food shopping on anempty stomach!