Help!!

Linda32

lizzie_b wrote: »

Linda- going to look into getting more use out of my slow cooker, starting to wonder about preparing things that we can then reheat in the microwaves at work so we're having our main meal in the middle of the day and not an hour before we're going to bed.

:T So batch cooking is the way forward then. Think of the meals that are considered to be "ready meals" in the supermarket freezers. Mince based meals or pasta and cheesy sauce type meals. All of these can be made as a big batch and portioned up and froze.

So say for lunch on Monday, I would take out a portion Sunday tea time and leave in the fridge then re-heat in the microwave on Monday lunch time. If its cheesy based I would personally take a portion of grated cheese to sprinkle ontop before microwaving. You can experiment its just that I think it improves the texture.

You could use your slowcooker to make a big batch of mince and tomato type meal to re-heat maybe with some crusty bread. Does that sound a big enough meal?

lizzie_b

That sounds like a very good idea.
A big vat of spag bol or something will do us a couple of weeks I think if I mix it up every other day with something different.
Now to set reducing the contents of the freezer down at the weekends to make some room to freeze my batches
Thanks for the ideas
Does anyone know how well (if at all) a pasta bake would freeze, I have a couple of jars of the stuff in the cupboard that need making use of

xxxxx

unimaginative_user_name

I often make a large batch of bolognese sauce and we eat a third of it with spaghetti. I freeze the rest in two batches and the following week I turn the second third into pasta bake with salad or frozen peas and a week later I add red kidney beans and Tabasco to make chilli con carne. I've even used leftover bolognese sauce as a base for cottage pie.

Roast chicken is another useful food for cheap leftovers. We have roast one night (one breast between us). The other breast becomes risotto the next night, then I boil the carcass for stock the next day and the following day make stew which does two days. Any leftover stew I blend to make soup for lunch. Even in summer when I don't feel like stew I freeze the carcass and make stews with the stock in the autumn.

Stews and casseroles are great as you can reduce the meat content and bulk them out with seasonal veg, pulses and potatoes or pearl barley which tend to be cheap all year round. They also rehat well if you want to take them to work.