8 meals from 1 kilo mince?

valk_scot

At 1oz per portion you're practically not going to even notice the mince is there, basically, so why bother? Assuming you're going to use 1Kg of mince plus X quantities of Y other non-meat ingredients to make 40 meals you'd find it far tastier and easier to make say 15 meat meals and 25 honest-to-Gawd tasty non-meat meals, rather than water your mince down to invisibility. Tell your OH if he doesn't like it then either you'll have to up the budget to cover more meat or he can give it a go instead.

Bunny200

I can get 12 portions from 500g mince using lentils, stuffing mix, carrots etc. Do it all the time now and no-one complains. In fact recently due to laziness I made spag bol using pure unadulterated mince and I found it too meaty! If you have a reluctant partner the answer is slowly slowly catchee monkey. Just add one thing at a time, start with veg to bulk it out and then try lentils, just make sure you cook it long enough with enough water to make sure the lentils disappear so he's none the wiser. Leave the porridge oats til last IMHO as they really change the texture and are noticably. We've stopped using them as I find then a bit too much so would recommend trying that slowly otherwise there might be a revolt!
Good luck

jcr16

i'm sure you can do it. you won't end up with a meaty meal just a hint of mince in a meal. post back as to how it went.

zzzLazyDaisy

I always used half mince half veggie mince, as I prefer the taste. Adding grated carrots and/or grated courgettes is also good as they 'disappear' into the mince. So you can bulk out the mince quite a bit without losing that 'meaty' taste.

I also add loads and loads of coarse chopped onions - just because I love onions!

rosieben

I make the Batch baked minced beef recipe mentioned above, regularly. The person who submitted the recipe says it makes 40 portions 'for a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 small children)' so she's not claiming it makes 40 adult portions.

zzzLazyDaisy

rosieben wrote: »

I make the Batch baked minced beef recipe mentioned above, regularly. The person who submitted the recipe says it makes 40 portions 'for a family of 5 (2 adults and 3 small children)' so she's not claiming it makes 40 adult portions.

That is a great recipe, thanks, I am definitely going to try this!

One suggestion - when you get to the bolognese part, you can add half-cooked rice to the mixture - it should still be crunchy and the cheapest rice will do fine- and use it to stuff peppers (slice the top off, scoop out the seeds, fill with the bol/rice mix, put the lid back, stand upright in a saucepan of boiling water about halfway up the peppers and simmer until the peppers and rice are cooked. You may need to add more water.

You can also do this with cougettes, marrow, butternut squash, and even make parcels of cabbage leaves (gently simmer to soften first). You can also wrap the peppers/courgettes/marrow etc in tin foil and roast in the oven with a bit of water in the pan if you prefer.

NualaBuala

I was watching Ken Hom on some cookery programme the other day and he said that in Chinese cookery, meat is often used more like a seasoning/flavouring than as the bulk of a dish. So I guess this is just the same principle. We're just used to eating lots of meat I suppose.

zzzLazyDaisy

Am hoping you guys can point me in the right direction....

Is there a thread for batch cooking? (I did a search and ended up back here!)

I live on my own and am new to batch cooking (well, tbh, apart from a very few tried and trusted recipes, I'm new to cooking.... )

For 'batch cooking' I make HM soups and yogurt, a turkish green lentil dish, and mince dishes - that's about it. I'd really love to stock the freezer with home made 'ready meals', but need a step-by-step guide like the one Rosie posted for mince.

Thanks in advance - Daisy x

patchwork_cat

I have said before that I do have concerns about overly padding out meat with carbs like oats, but pulses as in the batch cook with just a bit of oats is an excellent way of weaning a meat eater onto a bit more vege food. The batch mince looks good, but yes more like the 16 per 500g is more realistic I agree.

LazyDaisy I have a bag of puy lentils can you share the turkish green lentil dish, please?

I batch cook my own tomato sauce in the slow cooker I could make it up, but my DS doesn't eat beef and if I do it as a tomato sauce then I can vary what I make it into depending on the mood! I use to hide extra veg - based loosely on a Jamie Oliver dish in his school dinners - I use butternut squash, carrots, onions, tomatoes and puree. I did try courgette and pepper too, but we felt they weren't right for us. I reckon each serving gives us 3 of our 5 a day ( more but it is tomato heavy and it has to be 5 different fruit and veg!)

Here is one http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=440655#post440655