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?
Depends on how much I care about that particular meal and leftovers vs the effort. This includes stocking separate ingredients.
I definitely love prepared frozen vegetables like shredded potatoes for hash browns, frozen cut broccoli, etc. that just need heated up. I also buy pasta instead of making it myself, although there is a chicken and noodles recipe that I have made fresh noodles for. But not for spaghetti, or even lasagna even if the rest of the lasagna is assembled manually.
But I do tend to make my own diced and slow cooked peppers (mix of colorful bell peppers and jalepenos) that I will use to top scrambled eggs just because I find it fun.
I’m all over the map, just depends.