In what way is a tub of cheese sauce 'essential'?

Coming back on the ferry from France yesterday I spotted two full page ads promoting Waitrose's budget 'essential' range and how easily you could run up a ham and leek pasta bake with it.

Most of the ingredients were fair enough. A pack of penne, a pack of sliced ham and a couple of leeks (though £2.70 a kilo isn't particularly cheap) but then I spied not one but two 350g tubs of ready-made cheese sauce at £1.59 each which would bring the cost of the dish to well over a fiver.

OK, I get where Waitrose is coming from - we're all short of time these days but how long does it take to make a cheese sauce? Particularly if you use the Delia all-in-one method which couldn't be easier. And which instead of costing you £3.18 would probably work out just over £1, even allowing for the fact you'd have to buy a pack of cheddar.

The fact that Waitrose is spending so much promoting this way of cooking also underlines how determined supermarkets are to wean us off low value basic ingredients and onto 'value added' ones. By implying we don't have the time or knowledge to make a cheese sauce they undermine less experienced cooks' confidence in their ability to make a meal from scratch and make them spend more than they need.

I don't know about you but I think that's a shame.

PS another thing that's odd. How come the recipe has a five star rating when no-one appears to have rated or commented on it? Just askin'.

What you pay for convenience

I was going to write about my amazing trip to The Ginger Pig farm up near Pickering this week but I've been so insanely busy it'll have to keep for a day or two more. So let me highlight instead the ridiculous amount you pay to have your cheese chopped up into squares.

Spotted at Sainsbury's in York: a 200g pack of feta for £1.60 for 200g next to a - wait for it - 150g tub of feta cubes for £2.15. That's £14.33 a kilo compared to £8 a kilo.

I don't know what to get more worked up about - Sainsbury's for ripping off its customers or our apparent inability to cut a piece of cheese into squares which would take all of - oooo - 45 seconds? A minute, max. Who doesn't have time to do that? Or who considers the time saved worth £1.27*? Plain daft, if you ask me.

Anyway, good opportunity for a rant. Have you spotted any pre-prepared products that get up your nose? Or, come to that, ones you think are worth buying?

* The difference in price between 200g of the uncut cheese and 200g of the pre-cut cheese. I think. Maths was never my strong suit.