I've not blogged in quite some time due to my work schedule. One of the things that drives me crazy during the months that I work lots of extra hours is my inability to provide good home-cooked meals for my family.
Recently, I began to investigate 'batch-cooking'. If you aren't sure what that is, it is putting together several meals all at one time. The meals are labeled and put in the freezer for later. Unfortunately, there really aren't alot of websites or blogs dedicated to this method of cooking - at least - I haven't found them yet. I think that it will probably be alot of trial and error, but, I'm attempting to put together my own recipe book of 'batch-cooking' recipes. There will be 'keepers' and 'file 13ers' and I'm sure that I'll tweak some of the 'keepers'!
I picked six recipes among the ones that I found here and there. From these, I was able to create twelve meals in less than four hours including clean-up. I used good quality gallon freezer bags and labeled them with the name and the basic instructions such as 'add 1 c. water and cook on low for 8 hours'. Now, for those of you that don't know, I never prepare a recipe exactly as it is written. I ALWAYS change it!
The first test: Trudy's Crock-Pot Beef Stew (it's a keeper with a few 'tweaks')
- Use (2) 1-gallon freezer bags -
(1) Green Pepper Chopped, per bag
(1) Red Pepper Chopped, per bag
(2) Onions Chopped, per bag
(4) Carrots Chopped, per bag
(4) Red Potatoes Chopped, per bag
(4) Cloves Garlic Chopped, per bag
(4-5) Ibs Beef Stew Cubes, per bag
(1) 6 oz can Tomato Paste, per bag
(1) c. water or Beef Broth, per bag
(4) tsp Paprika, per bag
(1/2) tsp Black Pepper, per bag
(1/2) tsp Salt, per bag
(1/2) tsp Mrs. Dash, per bag
Remove air from bag and lay flat on freezer shelf.
Label: Cook for 4 hours on HIGH or 8 hours on LOW. Add 1 c. Sour Cream about 10 minutes prior to serving. Serve over rice or egg noodles. (Also, great alone.)
Serves: 3-4 people
1 comment:
Sounds yummy, Trudy...google Soithern Living and look for Golden Ham Pot pie. It's my fave and freezes well. I have it in a southern living cookbook, some where in the 1980's. I always have to seatch for it.
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