>Sure there is. There are likely plenty of copies of various dishes in the freezer section of your local grocery mart. Some are, objectively, pretty good; others are likely just much better than you could do yourself.

Huh. See? I am a /terrible/ cook. Like one out of three times I try to cook something it is objectively inedible.

However... frozen foods? seriously?

Please link me to some that are "pretty good" - I mean, I want to believe you, but I have tried many, and so far have been quite disappointed, both by the cheap and the expensive.

Edit: When I say "frozen foods" I mean TV-dinner style fully-cooked food. I practically live off of frozen chicken... the uncooked kind that you throw in the oven.

It's virtually impossible to be a great cook at home; commercial cooking equipment puts out a lot more heat than consumer equipment and it does make a difference. Take a simple roasted chicken: what comes out of your home oven will not be the same as what comes out of a commercial oven.

That said it's not difficult to prepare decent food at home; if you're unable to, maybe fundamentally it's just not something you care to do. Fine, nothing wrong with that, eat out or buy prepared food. If you don't like what's in the freezer, I find that the deli section of most supermarkets has a variety of prepared dishes that are ready to reheat and eat.

> It's virtually impossible to be a great cook at home; commercial cooking equipment puts out a lot more heat than consumer equipment and it does make a difference. Take a simple roasted chicken: what comes out of your home oven will not be the same as what comes out of a commercial oven.

You can create a great roast chicken at home. Very few dishes require a specialized oven or more than 450 degrees F.

The key difference between a home kitchen and a commercial kitchen is that in a commercial kitchen, you have more space, stocked ingredients, and more tools. And a bunch of apprentices to do stuff for you. You can cook everything at home that you can in a commercial kitchen, just less efficiently.

(I say this as a former professional chef...)

In fact, of all the home cooked dishes that is easiest to reproduce with minimal effort/intervention, I'd say roast chook it about the best/easiest/simplest.

I'd suggest people that say they can't cook, try to cook roast chicken from recipe. Make sure to use a timer and you really can't go wrong.

>It's virtually impossible to be a great cook at home;

I don't believe you.

I've eaten some absolutely mind-blowing meals made at home on mid to high-end consumer-grade equipment. Obviously, I wasn't the cook, and I'm no expert, but the proof of the pudding is in the tasting, as it were. I don't think restaurants can consistently match the better cooks in my family until they approach the $50/head range.

I am absolutely convinced that it's primarily skill and not equipment. I do think it is something I could get better at if I was willing to put a lot of effort into it. But it is a whole lot of effort, and it's not just the effort of learning, it's the effort of doing it every night. (In fact, putting the effort into /learning/ is on my to-do list. but even if I can, if I can pay $10 and avoid an hour of work, even if I can do that work well, I will.)

But if I could buy prepared frozen food (that took minimal effort on my part to prepare and clean up from) that was even just acceptable? I'd pay. It doesn't need to be mind-blowing, just 'good enough'

I mean, part of the problem is that it's a process; you have to plan what you want, then go pick out fresh food, then cook it, etc, etc. Which reminds me, I should set up the safeway delivery again. that was pretty cool.

>If you don't like what's in the freezer, I find that the deli section of most supermarkets has a variety of prepared dishes that are ready to reheat and eat.

Yeah... I usually get a rotisserie chicken once a week or so. Cheap and good. Most of the other stuff... well, maybe my standards are too high? but it's pretty hit and miss, and mostly miss.

This is funny. Commercial kitchens are better because there's more of everything - more ovens, more burners, more prep equipment, more fridge space - not because of more heat. The average home cook uses far too much heat already.

I'd rate DiGiorno pizzas fairly high, and also Beecher's Mac & Cheese. The frozen stuff that you stick in the oven for 40 minutes, not the results you get on Google.

Huh. I don't particularly like DiGiorno; I mean, it's not terrible, but considering the nutritive value of a pizza, I'm not sure it's worth it. I mean, a good pizza is worth it. Also, it's like 50% off actually getting delivery pizza (well, not quite 50% if you get a good one.) I'm probably better off throwing some frozen boneless skinless chicken thighs in the oven instead, if I'm not going to get something super tasty.

Also, I'm not sure if that counts as 'fully cooked' - I mean, it's not much easier than the aforementioned chicken thighs; also, the part of cooking I screw up most often? spacing out over the alarm and burning it. Really, some sort of convection oven that would automatically shut off (and somehow stop the food from overcooking?) would go a long ways towards solving that problem.

The /idea/ of fully-cooked food that you pop into the microwave for a specified period of time is pretty great for me; usually the cook time isn't long enough for me to get distracted and if I do, it's just cold, the fire alarm doesn't go off. But the reality comes up short. the only food I've been able to stomach like that is the "steam bags" of chicken alfredo.

Eh, DiGiorno started doing this new thing (or at least, a new thing showed up at my local supermarket) a few months back where they seem to layer on the herbs pretty heavily with good results. I would call their standard fare average, especially in comparison.

Interestingly, I was a fan of Newman's Own (the aforementioned steam bags) for a while, and then the quality of what I was getting seemed to drop, so I stopped buying them. I haven't done frozen pastas for months now.

Jack Daniels sells some stuff that looks nice; the frozen ribs turned out remarkably well for 5 minutes in the microwave. As meat, it's not great, but they've just done the herbs and spices in a way I find appealing. Put some garlic bread or instant mashed potatoes with it and it's pretty good.

Really, though, it sounds like we have significant differences in taste, so maybe you should take my suggestions as things to avoid. :D

Well, they are things to try. I actually haven't tried a steam bag /or/ DiGiorno for some time now. I've been doing the 'cook a weeks worth of food in the crock pot and freeze it' thing. It just seems so weird to me that a terrible cook like myself can make /frozen food/ that turns out better than the experts.

> Some are, objectively, pretty good

There's no such thing as "objectively, pretty good". Its an inherently subjective descriptor.