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?
Whenever we order out, when I don’t have the energy to cook my son orders the gross pasta that cost 15€ and complain afterwards I do it better.
Today I did not want to cook, so he wanted to order the carbonara… if you would serve that to an Italian they would rather jump into the Vesuvius than eat it. I just skip the meal anyway because ordering out is not satisfying to me.
So damn it, made him a take away style tortellini with spinache and ricotta, shrimp (out of the freezer) and cream with fresh herbs, and on top mozzarella out of the oven, then salmon filet on skin out of a skillet, in compound butter on young salad leaves with a mildly sweet and sour garlic vinaigrette. This is cheaper than the 15€ take away. Took me half an hour, but I am a trained chef.
I do freeze prepared meals though, but I say fresh food over anything else. I certainly don’t buy any prefab from the supermarket.