My local (good) market has a hot foods bar, same rotation of main curses depending on the day. Wednesdays, friends, the pot roast is to die for. Yes, pot roast. And homemade mashed potatoes, with chunks. There’s your comfort food, @wis75. And the issue for me with so many frozen prepared foods is the sodium. Blows my mind.
I like to keep Kirkland brand frozen cheese pizza from Costco in my freezer. When I don’t feel like cooking or H is home alone we doctor them up by adding artichoke hearts and kalamata olives.
My D likes the frozen lasagna from Trader Joe’s. My other D likes some of the frozen Amy’s meals. She also keeps Trader Joe’s frozen quinoa and cauliflower rice in her freezer. Personally I find it pretty easy to make my own quinoa even if I’m in a rush or tired.
I also keep cans of black bean chili and regular chili in the pantry. Both vegetarian they are great on top of rice or quinoa if you are just back from a trip and don’t have anything fresh in the house.
Never grew up with pot roast on a regular basis and the time or two I tried it it seemed vile. Not into big hunks of meat like that.
The high end frozen dinners can be a lot more health conscience than the good old ones from childhood.
Am I the only one who defines “ready-made” as “buy and eat?” 
For me, pretty much anything off the hot bar is fine with me, although I do look forward to the days when butternut squash soup is one of the options at the soup bar.
Ready made means not having to do all of the prep work- cutting, chopping spicing, combining, boiling the rice/pasta/potatoes… Cooking/heating are the no brains/no effort/no dirty dishes parts.
This pot roast isn’t chunks, it’s sliced but so tender it almost shreds when you lift up a piece. “Fork tender.” Gravy is a side option, the meat isn’t sitting in it. The mac n cheese at WF is pretty good. I have to do portion control on all this.
OK, I’ll go with that.
poached salmon with dill sauce…poki tuna…basil soup
Speaking of ready made foods that you still have to cook - there’s a supermarket near me that has some insane things, and all with bacon. Asparagus wrapped with chicken breast and bacon and heavily seasoned? Two for $4.75? And that’s the veggie course. Pork chops stuffed with whatever + jalapeños and wrapped in bacon? It just goes on and on.
Where do you get poached salmon and dill sauce? I’ve never seen those at a grocery deli.
We are about to get a Jensen’s market in our neighborhood (high end West Coast) and I’m really excited. I’m expecting above average deli and hot prepared foods.
I just got hooked on Noosa strawberry rhubarb yogurt. 0h. My. GOODNESS. It tastes better than ice cream to me, and up til now didn’t really care for yogurt too much. One look at the label was all it took to explain the tasty deliciousness…cane sugar, honey, along with the lovely combo of strawbs and rhubarb. I have rationed myself to half a container due to the high caloric count
Gelsons for the salmon. The poki and the tomato basil is from Bristol Farms. And Bristol Farms has senior Tuesday. Ten percent off everything. The only problem is the parking lot…crazy making.
Dang…no Gelsons near me
I am another rotisserie chicken fan, just had it for dinner tonight. It is actually cheaper to buy the whole cooked chicken than to buy an uncooked one and cook it myself, especially when you add in the cost of my time, the ingredients I need to add at home and the electricity to cook it.
I like some of the soups at my local supermarket. I like the butternut squash and my husband likes the lentil. My husband likes the pork loin they sell.
I also like to buy a plain salad at the supermarket and we add green olives (everyone in our house hates black olives and Kalamata olives, but we all love the green ones) and feta cheese for those who want it. It’s much more efficient than buying produce and having it go to waste.
Sometimes, I buy a pre-made sushi package for the boys, though I personally hate sushi.
Costco has terrific whitefish salad. Some of that with a toasted bagel or crispbread is a great brunch or light dinner.
I mix 1/3 or 1/4 of a container of Noosa with fresh fruit or frozen cherries and a sprinkle of homemade granola. Which is technically breaking the purpose of this thread! So one container lasts 3-4 days.
@Hanna -
My H agrees with you about the whitefish salad. I hate it, personally, but he loves it.
The rotisserie chicken at our WF is great, crispy and juicy. Only issue is that roasting chicken is a family tradition, one of those things each generation has done with memories of the former. A “big deal.” Still, we sneak in the WF ones on occasion.
Soup - cedar lane chopped vegetable and barley soup. ( bought at costco)
Delicious as it is
Although I’ve added some handfuls of spinach, and half a can of diced tomatoes and even some Kirkland microwaved meatballs.
But, it’s great just as it is.
This thread is especially helpful for mother in law, who doesn’t want to cook now she is alone.
Are y’all talking about the white fish salad in the fridge case at Costco? the one in a tall round container? Or something else?
I love rotisserie chicken from Costco or Sam’s. They tend to use bigger chickens than the regular markets do. Like many of y’all do, rotisserie chicken one day, chicken soup another.
With just the two of us at home, it’s so hard to cook and not end up with a bunch of waste. I’ll put leftovers in the fridge with H’s promise that he’ll eat them later, and sometimes he does, but too often they end up being thrown out.