Yeah, like us, he is getting older and like me, he's taking some shortcuts. He also uses store bought chicken stock and chicken base. He sometimes uses canned beans, but mentions that it is cheaper to use the dry ones.
I used to stick my nose in the air about buying shredded cheese. But, that was mostly because of the price and the stuff they usually add to it to keep it from clumping. I still use the shredder attachment on my meat grinder if I want a lot of shredded cheese. But, I have found sources of shredded cheese that don't add anything to the cheese. I like to have some on hand all the time. Yes, it's more expensive, but it means I can cook something when I don't have so many spoons. So, it works out cheaper and healthier than ordering from a resto. I still grate Parm as needed. I usually use a microplane, but, for larger amounts, I have a hand cranked, fine shredder. It doesn't grate it as fine as the microplane, but it's good enough for most uses of parm.
I promise you, if I could get this here, I would. Apparently, the frozen food section of Danish grocery stores now has "rustic cut", frozen root vegis. I have a number of dishes that would go a lot quicker if I didn't have to peel and cut up those dense root vegis.
Back in the day, when most people lived in multi-generation homes, the kids would have done a lot of that prep work. It was part of how they learned to cook.
