01/22/2023
Barbara always has so many delicious meals featured on her page My Island Bistro Kitchen and blog, a wonderful source of inspiration.
I agree that batch cooking makes life so much easier and has been one constant things to do over the years.
My personal favourite containers are the lock & seal glass ones but also I use zip freezer bags in various sizes to save space as well. Anything from chopping up extra peppers to cubed chicken breasts in marinade for freezing when you find them on sale.
Just be sure items are well marked with what is inside and the date it was made/purchased. Then you can plan your meals accordingly based on what should be used up first.
homecooking
I'm back with Tip # 4 for Controlling the Grocery Budget and Still Eat Well. This one is all about Big Batch Cooking and Freezing Make-ahead Meals.
Tip #4 - Batch Cook and Prepare Make-ahead Meals for the Freezer
I have been doing big batch cooking and preparing make-ahead meals for the freezer since the late 1970s when I moved out on my own. I wasn’t long discovering that making a brand new dinner from scratch every night of the week was not going to work for me nor was buying my coffee break snacks and lunch out every day, either! That’s when I began batch cooking and freezing a variety of meals. I have never looked back or strayed from the convenience and economics of it.
No denying, you have to put sweat equity into it upfront and you have to buy the ingredients but, in my view, it is so worth it and it is the most cost-effective meal planning and preparation I know of. I believe that, no matter how busy we are, we make time for whatever is a priority for us. So, for anyone who wants tasty, affordable eating for the family (or just themselves if they live alone), they’ll find and put some time into economical meal preparation.
Whether you are living alone, as a couple, or a family of several members, batch-cooking and freezing meals is a great meal preparation strategy. For singles or smaller households, it offers the benefit of having a variety of meals on hand from which to choose each day without having to prepare new individual small-sized meals on a daily basis. For larger families, it provides tasty home-cooked meals on busy weeknights when everyone is running in multiple directions to and from activities. The only difference is the size of servings and whether one batch of a recipe is needed or several. For example, a single living alone will probably make one batch of a recipe and will freeze the meals in single-serving dishes or containers while a family might make two to three batches of a recipe and will freeze them in larger dishes/containers suitable for the number of servings needed for a meal.
Today, there are a wide variety of plastic freezer containers on the market in every size imaginable. Likewise, there are freezer-to-oven baking dishes also available for single and double servings and for family-sized servings. These can be found in all kinds of stores from supermarkets to big box department stores to speciality kitchen shops to thrift and second-hand stores. Over the years, I have amassed a large collection of various sized baking dishes and plastic freezer containers. However, if you are making a recipe and need several baking dishes but don’t have enough to tie them up, say, with frozen casseroles in the freezer for several weeks, simply line your baking dish with tin foil (leaving enough overhang to wrap the casserole), and spray the tinfoil-lined baking dish lightly with cooking oil. Place the assembled casserole in the dish, pop it in a zippered freezer bag, and freeze it. Once frozen, remove the casserole from the baking dish, ensure it is fully wrapped in the tinfoil, and then place the casserole in a zippered freezer bag. Label and date it and return it to the freezer. When you are ready to bake the casserole, remove it from the freezer and place it back in the baking dish in which it was originally frozen. Voilà! It should fit perfectly and you can proceed with baking it and it will be just like freshly made that day.
What follows are my hints and tips on big batch cooking and preparing make-ahead freezer meals.
- Invest in a Freezer – this is obvious but, if you are going to batch cook and freeze meals for later use, you will need freezer space! Once I have my freezers (yes, freezers plural!) filled with make-ahead meals, my ongoing grocery list just usually consists of the basics such as dairy, fresh fruits, salad makings, and the like.
The ability to prepare my own meals and freeze them allows me to eat well, at home, and quite economically. Plus, I know what I’m eating and the foods are not full of preservatives or ingredients I can’t pronounce. So long as I have tasty meals in the freezer, I am not tempted to eat out, get dinner from the deli or frozen food section of the supermarket, or take-away. This saves on my grocery bill.
- Make Meals You and Your Family Like - Now, this does not mean that the make-ahead meals have to be high-end restaurant quality (though they can be if you so choose) nor does it mean the meals have to be mundane and boring. They do, however, have to be tasty and appetizing and they have to be made with ingredients that you and your family like. Otherwise, they will live perpetually in the bottom of the freezer taking up space and not saving you any money if they eventually have to be turfed.
Choose entrées that not only suit your taste but also suit your budget. Some of the entreés and side dishes I make and generally have on hand in my freezer include Baked Beans, Macaroni and Cheese, Tuna Casserole, Chicken Marsala, Stuffed Baked Potatoes, Potato Patties, Tuna Stuffed Potatoes, Spaghetti Sauce and Meatballs, Beef Bourguignon, Chicken Pot Pies, Beef Pot Pies, Rustic Beef Stew, Irish Stew, chili, quiche, various kinds of soups and casseroles, cranberry sauces, Harvard Beets, and so on. (Recipes for these and other freezable meals can be found on my website at https://myislandbistrokitchen.com/ )
I try to maintain a freezer inventory mix of “stand-alone” meals (e.g., hearty chowders and stews, pot pies, etc) that don’t require any side dish or salad as well as other entrées that need a salad, for example. The former are great for nights when you’re too tired to even make a salad and just need something that will bake or reheat with minimal effort on your part.
- Watch for Sales and Dedicate the Time to Batch Cooking – Create a list of recipes for dishes that will freeze well. Make a list of the ingredients and watch for sales on them – that’s a big key part of batch cooking and making it economical. Set aside a few days and prepare several make-ahead meals for the freezer – soups for lunches, muffins for breaks, entrées for main meals, and desserts for when the sweet tooth calls. If you have others in the house, engage them to help with preparing the meals. It’s a great opportunity to teach the next generation how to prepare home-cooked meals and how to do meal planning.
- Work with the Seasons – While I generally do two mammoth ‘fill-the freezers’ batch cooking sessions a year, usually followed by a third, slightly smaller replenishment, I also (outside of that) work with the seasons. I recommend creating a list of favorite recipes to make when fresh local produce (perhaps from your own garden) is available and at good prices. For example, I do a lot of soup making and freeze portion-sized containers of the soup for weekday lunches. Some of my favorite soups are Cream of Roasted Tomato Soup, Roasted Cream of Cauliflower Soup, Cream of Celery Soup, and Cream of Broccoli and Cheese Soup so I make those in the fall when I either have the produce from my own garden or it is available locally at good prices. Freeze the soups in individual serving-sized freezer containers or larger containers suitable to your size of family.
I also make a lot of sauces using tomatoes from my garden in the fall - tomato sauce, pasta sauce, spaghetti sauce, and pizza sauce, etc. and freeze those in whatever portion size I know I will need.
Side dishes like cranberry sauce and Harvard beets are great to make with fresh fall produce when it is more economically priced and stow away in the freezer as they complement many meals well and so are convenient to have on hand.
The same holds true with fresh fruits. For example, I make my Blueberry Peach Crisps, Apple Crisps, and applesauce when the fruit is available locally and at a good price. I then freeze these desserts for use throughout the year.
- Label and Date Frozen Foods and Keep a Master List - Properly package items for freezing and label and date everything. Keep a master list of the freezer contents and the dates items were frozen. As an item comes out of the freezer, notate its removal on the list so you always know what meals you have on hand and how many. It also ensures that items don’t overstay their time in the freezer.
While the money has to initially be laid out for ingredients to batch cook (watching and taking advantage of sales helps here) and the prep work still has to be done, it does cut down on the grocery bill on an ongoing basis and lessens the task of meal prep on weeknights. Plus, it discourages the old fallback of stopping at the supermarket deli for dinner on the way home from work because you will know you have quality homecooked meals already prepared. And, as we know, a stop at the supermarket deli for dinner often means a quick tour around the store and picking up other items hence driving up the food bill.
I’ll be back again in a few days with more Tips for Controlling the Grocery Budget and Still Eat Well. Stay tuned!
