#bulk cooking

[acidloe]

I love batch cooking, I love my huge ass pot and if i had a bigger kitchen id get a bigger pot!

Just boxed up 10 portions of lentil curry which hits almost all my criteria for a good recipe

It's cheap to make

Easy to make

Easy to bulk (if you can math)

Few ingredients

Adaptable (so long as the base ingredients are there)

Tastes awesome

It does take about an hour to cook but that's after throwing everything in the pot, after the first ten minutes you just need to stir it occaisionally

[bigheckinbraindrain]

Once-a-Month Meals

I recently found a website called Once a Month Meals (OaMM). The idea behind it is that they have many MANY recipes that you can prep ahead of time and freeze for later. You can create a menu plan, add up to 15 recipes from their site to your menu plan, and then tell the system how many servings you want each meal to be and how many make-ahead meals of each recipe you want, and it guides you through it.

Yesterday was my first attempt at this. I picked 15 meals that looked/sounded like they'd be really good. I made my shopping list (they allow you to download an exact shopping list, but I wanted to write it out to combine a few things, like there would be an entry for Chicken breast and another for chicken thighs, but I only eat breast, another entry was for diced tomatoes and one for diced tomatoes with chilis that I combined together). And when I got home from the store, I started in.

As I understood it, the basic steps for doing a meal plan session are to

Make your meal plan from the available recipes

Print out a shopping list (the website creates this)

Shop for the items on the list

Print out the prep-day sheet

Make all the recipes

Freeze

My experience of last night's endeavor was that it sucked. Hard. The recipes were good and the prep wasn't really that bad, but there are some things I could have done differently that would have made a huge difference.

I learned a lot in my first go-round. Some things I realized part-way through, some I realized once I was cleaning up my disaster of a kitchen at the end.

My tips for my next round will be:

PAY ATTENTION TO PREP TIMES ON THE RECIPE CARDS

Make my meal plan

Shop at a warehouse grocery store like Sam's, Costco, or BJ's because bulk, man

Pre-prepare my cooking by figuring out how much hamburger meat I need to have "cooked" for a recipe, chopped onions, etc. Do all that the night before

Use these little cups to measure out my spices for all recipes beforehand

Figure out what I'm going to eat for the next 2 or 3 days to keep in the fridge instead of freezing.

Make up my Ziploc bags and bowls with their labels

Group similar recipes together (like my Santa-Fe chicken and my taco pasta) because I can reuse some of those mixing bowls without having to wash and dry them in between when a rinse would do just fine

WEAR MY GOOD SNEAKERS FOR ARCH SUPPORT because I didn't last night, and my feet were dead weight about 5 recipes in

Download an audiobook to listen to while I'm prepping. Or a podcast. Or something.

Make sure I do my flash-freeze recipes in a logical order. Somehow, all my flash-freeze ones were near the end. Since I needed freezer room to store the pans before packaging the item, I couldn't do them in succession. Honestly, I'll probably ensure I only do 2 or 3 flash-freeze recipes per prep day, and do one at the start, one in the middle, and one at the end. Or just start and end.

Make an "eat" calendar. I will make a little post-it note and pre-write each individual meal on one note, then add it to my calendar (so I can move them around if I want to). I could also use calendar software to do this, but I like the tactile feeling of placing and moving stickies. I'm a very techy person but this is one thing I do like doing with paper.

Get 11 inches-wide plastic storage bins. I can freeze all my bags lying down, flat, and then put them into these storage bins in order of when I'm going to eat them

[fishysfoodblog]

RECIPE: Vegan Butter ‘Chicken’

This took much less time to make that I thought it would. Which is great because i’m lazy af.

***POSSIBLE ALLERGY WARNINGS: peanuts, tomatoes, coconut***

INGREDIENTS

4oz cherry tomatoes

1 x can chickpeas

1 x onion finely chopped

1tsp onion granules/powder

1/2 can chopped tomatoes

1 x can coconut milk

1/2 cup tomato puree

1/2 cup peanut butter

1Tbsp Tamari/soy sauce

1Tbsp curry powder

2tsp paprika

2tsp turmeric

Oil for frying (your choice)

HOW TO MAKE

Fry the onion for 1-2 minutes in a pan with an oil of your choice. I used coconut oil.

Once the onion has started to brown a little, add the cherry tomatoes and cook until the tomatoes start to reduce down.

Add the chickpeas, canned tomatoes, turmeric, onion granules, paprika and curry powder

Cook for approx 2-5 minutes until all the flavours have combined.

Pour in the coconut milk, tomato puree and peanut butter.

Simmer on a medium heat for roughly 7-8 minutes.

At the last minute, stir in the Tamari/soy sauce and serve with whatever you fancy!  I had mine with quinoa.

I sprinkled a little fresh parsley over the top as i had some left from a different recipe.

This recipe made 4 decent sized meal portions (including the quinoa), plus an large extra portion for the freezer that will easily make 2 additional meals.  

Check out my website Angry Old Spoonie for more recipes and Spoonie blogging

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[tiger-in-the-flightdeck]

Support me on Patreon for more recipes, tutorials, and creations: https://www.patreon.com/tigerdoeseverything

Bulk Breakfast Sandwiches

I love cooking in bulk. It usually takes the same amount of time as making a single serving, it's a great way to use up ingredients that would otherwise spoil before you can finish them all (Such as in the Ten Pound Potato Party) and having already prepped or even cooked meals in the freezer that just need heating is wonderful for those days when you have no spoons. So I'm considering this a Doing While Disabled entry. The very first, in fact!

DWD rating: Minimal spoons needed. I will include tips on how to get around obstacles.

Ingredients:

12 (Or more, if you are doing super bulk. I recommend figuring it at one egg per portion)

12 English muffins, toasted

12 slices of your favourite cheese, or about a cup grated

Salt and pepper to taste

Butter/margarine/cooking spray

Optional ingredients:

Diced and slightly fried bell pepper

Caramelised onion

Minced garlic

Cubed ham

Breakfast sausage patties (If you can only get links, remove them from their casing, mix with breadcrumbs or quick oats and form into patties and cook in the oven)

Bacon (Roasted in the oven in strips so you can cut in half or thirds)

Bagels in place of muffins (But you will need to make an additional half of the egg mixture)

Whatever yum ingredients and flavours you like with your eggs

Equipment:

9x12 baking pan

A large knife or pizza cutter

A large bowl, or lidded container

Fork or whisk (If you have a lidded container, this isn't necessary)

Aluminium foil or baking paper, if your pan isn't non-stick

Cookie sheet (Optional)

Freezer paper

Zip top bags, or other air tight container

How to make it:

Preheat oven to 375, and line your pans with foil. Lightly grease. If you are using sausage patties or bacon, bake them in a separate pan and keep them warm until assembly.

Crack your eggs into a large bowl, add any of the flavouring ingredients, like salt and pepper, onions, etc. Whisk together, or if you are using a container with a screw on lid, give it a quick shake like you're making a really disgusting martini.

Pour egg mix into the prepared pan, and bake for ten-fifteen minutes. Give it a shake after ten minutes, if it still wobbles a lot, leave it in for a couple more. At this point, the eggs will puff up like a soufflé. Don't worry, they'll deflate when they come out of the oven. (At this point, you've basically made a frittata, which would be great with some toast and a salad for lunch or dinner)

After taking the eggs out, turn your oven to broil, and lay your sliced muffins on a cookie sheet, cut side up. Toast until just crisp. You can do this directly on the baking rack in the oven, but by the time you take them all out, the last one will probably be burnt. I suggest sticking to the cookie sheet so they all cook evenly and you can take them all out at once.

Assembly time! Cut your giant egg into twelve portions. I like to use a pizza cutter for this, but a knife works just as well. On one half of each muffin, put a portion of egg, then your cheese, then any of the optional meat if you are using it. Top with the other half of the muffin and lightly pat down to help the cheese melt and keep everything in spot.

If you are serving these immediately for a large crowd, just serve them right away. If you are making them and storing them in the freezer, wrap them in freezer paper or foil and store in an air tight container for up to three months. To reheat, either take them out the night before and let thaw in the fridge, or put them in the microwave on defrost, unwrapped, before putting them in the oven for a few minutes to heat through and crisp up.

If you don't have the spoons to tackle this all at once, you can spread the steps out over the day, or even the day before. Sausage patties and bacon do well in the fridge after being cooked, and the eggs will be fine being chilled for a few hours after cutting. Just be sure everything is stored safely. The big positive is that all this work is about the same amount you would have to do to make one breakfast sandwich, but you can store these for those days when just walking to the kitchen is a struggle.

[currenttrent]

Commercial Idli Steamer for Bulk Cooking | Faster & Hygienic

Struggling with slow idli cooking? ASV Idli Steamer delivers fast, fluffy, hygienic idlis with high capacity & zero hassle. Perfect for hote

[nycfoodieblog]

Cooking Village Moi Moi for a Family of 30 in the Village | All Nigerian...

[homesteading-hermit]

Today’s agenda consists of making a huge batch of vegetarian chili, taking stock of all my seeds for garden planning, visiting the in-laws, and decluttering the shed a bit.

Since starting homesteading my productivity around the house has sky rocketed! I was so low energy before.

[justnicolefood]

Homemade vegan dumplings/ Gyoza

Homemade vegan dumplings/ Gyoza

Hi, and today’s recipe is Homemade Vegan Dumplings/ Gyoza

it is Chinese new year and with all the heartbreaking news regarding the recent virus., I feel a bit sad writing this.

But I already had this recipe and blog post laid out before the outbreak. Written in a way to highlight some very beautiful Chinese traditions, that come along with the beginning of a new year.

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