Batch Cooking

Anyone else do batch cooking? I mostly do it out of habit from raising a family and now we are 2.5 people and I still do it. I keep the refrigerator stocked with ready to heat and eat, or cold meals at all times. That way no matter what the schedule is, or a person's preference, there is always ready made food in the fridge.



After getting groceries I prepare all the vegetables to be ready for meals.


Today, broccoli, 6 crowns. The trees go in a bag, the diced stems in a 1 qt plastic container, into the fridge.


Cauliflower, core, trim, trees go in a bag with a little vinegar and water in case they were thinking of being moldy at some point.


3 4-cup salads, romaine, tomatoes, broccoli trees, diced pickles, kidney beans, tossed, into bowls, wrapped in saran wrap.


4 cups of red and white wheat, boiled until chewy for casseroles and salads, frozen in 2 cup containers.


Microwaved a butternut squash, seeds into a container in the freezer, the pulp into 2 cups containers to use with breads and cookies for moisture, or for pie.


2 batches of oatmeal cookies, applesauce, banana, squash, cinnamon, and diced apricots, for snacking.


Swiss chard and mustard greens, washed, steamed, cooled, sliced, frozen for eating and for soups or stews or casseroles.


This past year, my favorite soup/stew is the Greek Spinach Lentil lemon soup, in the newspaper. It makes about 5 qts and freezes well. Maximum cooking time 45 minutes and everything will keep it's shape. We each warm it up with a little extra lemon or smoked serrano peppers ground, and a touch of salt. It's so versatile, change the type of squash, or greens, or peppers and it's always a little different.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...aten-it-for-lunch-every-workday-for-17-years/


Other batch cooking we regularly do, mexican beans, baked beans, chili beans, mushroom gravy, red pepper sauce, pasta (a few lbs at at time), baked potatoes (5 lbs at a time), potato wedges (seasoned and rebaked), ww spaghetti noodles, tomato mushroom sauce, 3 qts of brown basmati organic rice, soy milk, sometimes tofu, whole wheat sprouted bread, breakfast 9 grain flake rice pudding.


And a few days a week, I do almost no cooking, just warming things up to eat and doing my hobbies, which is fun.

Wow & good for you! Very organized and thoughtful too. I don't do batch cooking, exactly, but I do have "planned" leftovers, so to speak? In other words, even though there are just the 2 of us, I will make larger batches of things that freeze well. Useful for days I don't feel like cooking and great for taking along on camping trips too.

I do have a friend that cooks once a month. She spends a weekend, cooking and packaging. Freezing or otherwise preserving foods for the month. Her work schedule is such that it pretty much demands it. She uses an app that helps her with planning and shopping. When she explained it, I was equally impressed!

Ginny, Romaine Calm and Carrot On, lol. I love that.


Planned leftovers or meals for next week! Some things scream to be made in large amounts. Especially the beans (legumes), and I make those in 3 qt batches because they freeze so well. Lasagna, too many pans, so I usually make more than 1 lasagna. The brown basmati rice also freezes well, so I do those in larger batches.


If I have a good starch like potatoes, or rice, then some vegetables, then with one sauce or another, it's a quick meal to put together. Beans make a good side or main dish.



Soup and salad, a good meal. Stir fry with rice. When I make bread and I have extra dough, then I can make a pizza with sauce and veggies and usually pineapple.



Nice cream-blended frozen bananas and another fruit (strawberries, blue berries, mango), into a thick frozen mixture are mainstays in the freezer for a dessert or snack with some cocoa nibs or fruit puree on top.

Yes, planned leftovers are a very good thing!

I make a lot of beans too. As a matter of fact, I just started a pot of Spicy Pinto Beans in the crock pot (although I use the Stove Top setting on the CP for this particular dish). I like to freeze them in pint size quantities. I make them in 2 pound (double the recipe). I do my own fat-free "refried" beans too, for the freezer. I started doing that, years ago, when they stopped selling (or at least I can't find) the 8 oz can size of refrieds. 1 cup being my preferred size for Nachos and the perfect amount for our 2-person HH as a side for any Mexican meal.

I just made a large pot of Black-Eye Peas too. More of a stew or soup dish. One meal for use and then 2 1-quart containers for the freezer too.

Come to think of it...I make a lot of bean dishes!

In the summer I freeze certain things from the garden in specific portions for certain dishes.
- Some tomatoes are skinned, quartered and frozen in quarts. Just enough for 1 batch of a tomato soup I make
- Some tomatoes are pureed with garlic, ginger and coriander for int pint sized containers for a few Indian recipes that call for that amount.
- Chard/ spinach and other greens are blanched, pureed and also frozen in pint containers for Indian dishes.
- Leeks sauteer aan frozen in pre measure amounts for Vischysoise (sp close enough
- Some red frying peppers are grilled, skinned and opened to a filet and frozen for cooking, sandwiches ...
- Some green frying peppers , same as above for a few Mexican dishes .
- Basil/ garlic .. Pesto frozen in cubes for future use
- String beans blanched and frozen for soups
- Potatoes cut into fries, parboiled and frozen in batches for fries ( sadly used out last one up a a few weeks ago).
- when I thought the world was a coming to an end I bought the mother load of dried soy beans. I now make and freeze my own tempeh.


My cooking is usually based on a weekly schedule , taking into consideration my work schedule. I have 2 late days where I pre make something, and my wife job is just to heat it up. All other days I make myself. Take in 1 night every other week or so.

Always pre make soups, especially now with just the two of us.
Usually we do a soup and salad night. 1 quart is usually enough for us. But most recipes make 2 - 4 quarts ( or more).
- Onion soup, Pea soup, Veggie soup, Butter nut squash soup all made and frozen in dinner sized portions. Sometimes, Ill make & freeze other soups made to a certain freezable point in the recipe, then finish it off the night we have it ( in the past this would be soups with cream in it, or other soups that certain ingredients dont freeze well).

Ill sometimes do the planned left overs as well.
Eggplant Parm one night
Left over eggplant parm for eggplant parm hero
If still left overs, put on top of pasta or occasionally do eggplant parm stuffed shells .

Ginny, oil free re'fried' beans, great idea to make those. I saw an interesting recipe I tried the other day, and they mixed refried beans into liquid, then used that to thicken a 'soup'. It was a tortilla soup, so it was ladled over strips of tortillas. It was great.


If I can't decide what I'm hungry for I will sometimes have a bowl of salsa, put some refried beans on the side of it, eat it with oil free tortillas baked crisp. (I buy 4 lb packages of Mission corn, oil free tortillas, and bake them for 18 minutes at 350 deg F, then bag those up to use anytime.)



Larry, I have just one freezer now, we sold off our other, so freezer space is limited, which is why I dehydrate and can food too. One of the things I use a lot of are red peppers chopped. In the summer we grow them, then ripen until red, chop and freeze. I use these in baked beans and lots of different dishes.


Today I'm making baked beans with black beans $1.50 dried. Then I add the frozen red peppers, cooked diced onions (that we grew and keep), molasses, honey, seasonings and end up with 3 qts of baked beans (12 servings) for about $1.50. The red peppers aren't "free", the onions aren't "free" but since we grew them ourselves, time involved, they are a lot less expensive than buying peppers in the grocery store this time of year.


Our menu gets planned around loss leaders if any at the grocery store, and we make a list of things we like and agree on, it goes on the little white board on the fridge, and that's what I make. Pizza will be coming up soon, it's been a while since we had that.

I like to bake the "burrito size" flour tortillas to make my "taco salad" bowls. I use a gizmo -- https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TCFB4FK/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1 -- to shape them, but I think one could figure out other ways to do it. I like this way because it is, again, fat-free/oil-free. Sorry...OT.

Ginny, those look like fun! Cute little bowls. I'm not sure oil free cooking is off topic, it's just another method to use to cook. Oil can always be added, but it's harder to remove it.

LOL...thanks...I just meant it wasn't terribly pertinent to Batch Cooking? For DH, I need to keep meals fun and interesting...so he doesn't think about it also being healthy? And, let's face it, guys love food that they can eat with their hands...

Ginny, I hear you. There's pizza, pizza on sub buns, pizza on tortillas, handy food.
Burritos, egg rolls, spring rolls, sausage sandwiches, open faced hummus and tomato sandwiches.


My DH likes diced tomatoes over hot casseroles, and tortilla strips for texture on top of soups. Zaatar seasoning mix and nutritional yeast on spaghetti w/sauce. Mushrooms in everything.



All my batch cooking is refined oil free, but, it doesn't have to be if other methods work for people.

You know, I do a kind of batch thing for pizza crust. When I make it, I make 4, use one that day and freeze 3 for later. Put it on the counter in the morning and it is ready for pizza at lunch. Pizza is super quick/easy that way!

Winter, batch cooking.
I made 9 burgers, whole food plant based bean burgers to eat in the future*. I froze them.


And I made little breakfast sausage patties, from nutmeg notebook. To go with mung bean eggs for some breakfasts. Those are in the freezer too.


*future. There is no future. When the future arrives, it happens in the now. The past is but now a memory. There is only now.

Reduced produce today, 12 lbs of sliced mushrooms for $12. I canned 8 wide mouth pints and frozen 5 pint plastic containers of cooked mushrooms.

blissful said:

Reduced produce today, 12 lbs of sliced mushrooms for $12. I canned 8 wide mouth pints and frozen 5 pint plastic containers of cooked mushrooms.

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How do you prepare the mushrooms before freezing ?

Hi Larry, all the mushrooms were prewashed and sliced, except for one of whole mushrooms. Those got washed and trimmed and sliced. I put about a cup of water in each of 2 big kettles, pile in the mushrooms, use a cover, bring to a boil. The water comes out of the mushrooms and they sink down. I add more mushrooms until they are all in the kettles. That's it. I don't add salt, it's optional, to canning or freezing.
The short answer is just cooking, nothing else.

I bought more mushrooms than I could use and will be away for a few days, so want to preserve them while they're fresh before letting them dry out and making mushroom powder ( I have more than enough mushroom powder)

Do you save the liquid for mushroom stock ?

larry_stewart said:

Do you save the liquid for mushroom stock ?

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Yes, always. I keep it with the mushrooms. It has that delicious earthy flavor.

blissful said:

Yes, always. I keep it with the mushrooms. It has that delicious earthy flavor.

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Kinda figured

@larry_stewart did your nose itch last night? I was talking on the phone with my youngest son, about the bee hives we're building and future plans. He asked me if we were growing mushrooms. I told him we aren't but I had to tell him about all kinds of your mushroom growing. My youngest does a wonderful job of gardening since he was young. I'm wondering if he's going to begin mushroom growing.