Starting From Scratch

Smallholding77

What would you put in your store cupboard and on your meal plan/batch cook list if you were starting over?

So we are doing the whole "blended family" thing and after being together about 6 years finally combining our two households (inc 4 teenagers). The house we are renting is wonderful and has a lovely big kitchen inc Aga, traditional oven and hob, utility room, store cupboard and room for a nice big dining table ... super exciting :j I have never used an Aga before so have searched the board and found some useful tips :beer: I have been focussed on building my business for the last few years and let my OS ways completely slide. I am really looking forward to getting back on the bandwagon

gettingtheresometime

I think it really depends on what you tend to eat - that's not being flippant but I know my mum's food cupboard would look completely different to mine

Personally mine is chillis/spag Bol which we now tend to have with jacket potatoes rather than pasta or rice. Cooking a couple of cottage pies tomorrow (btw did you know Pyrex do dishes with lids ?) I've also batch cooked curries and soups.

Depending on whether the 4 teenagers will live with you full time, I'd also invest in a slow cooker.

Nargleblast

Perhaps if you look at it in terms of the types of meals you will be having?

Starting with breakfast - I would suggest not having a cupboard full of different breakfast cereals. Get them all onto porridge, excellent stuff, and the oats can be used in other things too, like flapjacks, or a handful shoved in bolognaise to make the meat go further. You could also stock Weetabix (supermarket own brand is cheaper), the supermarket version of Shreddies malt wheat cereal and muesli. There you have four different breakfast options to choose from, and they are all slightly more nutritious than the sugar coated cereals that don't fill you up. You could even make your own muesli or granola, so might be worth getting ingredients in store for that, ingredients that can be used in baking or even, (thinking of nuts and dried fruit) in curries!

Also for breakfast, eggs are a good option, and bread for toast. Fresh fruit, plain yogurt. Maybe decent quality bacon, mushrooms, tomatoes. Go to the shops later in the day and you get fresh stuff reduced in price. Sometimes you might pick up reduced price crumpets or croissants as a treat now and then.

So that's breakfast options, do a similar thing for lunches and evening meals. Wherever possible get ingredients that will go in a number of different recipes, not just one. Go for natural healthy stuff where possible, and don't try to fill up your cupboards, fridge and freezer in one go, you will just lose the will to live. A good store cupboard takes time to develop.

buildersdaughter

I'm guessing that by now, you tend to know everyone's preferences? However, a meeting with the aim or organising the household - tasks, responsibilities etc. can be useful, and can include a list of 'likes' 'all rights' and 'real dislikes'.
I would get them all involved - in planning and cooking. In our family, there was an agreement of no criticism during the meal, some constructive criticism after.
I agree about porridge instead of cereal (Aga is great for this) but if kids are feeling a bit fragile they may like their 'favourite' cereal as being familiar whilst the household settles in. So I'd bring the idea to the meeting, but be prepared to cede. I'd also talk about money saving and the benefits to all!

Largish family, Aga, I'd be doing pot roasts in all their variations; and I'd be cooking big batches of mince (my favourite is mixed pork & beef). I'd guess there will be quite a bit of to-ing and fro-ing on week nights to various activities, so portions of mince can be useful. But I would definitely give them space to develop their own style of cooking.
HM cakes very useful for hungry teenagers (again - get them to try recipes during the holidays) especially flapjacks and their variations (ours have choc chips and raisins).
Always have:
Sliced bread in freezer, and some 'half-baked' loaves.
Block of cheddar
Tins of beans
Eggs
Also useful:
Large potatoes
Onions
Tinned tomatoes
Add any other ingredient that you all agree will turn those into a decent snack.

Good luck (and don't forget to budget for the cost of that Aga!)

PasturesNew

So long as I have a bag of frozen chips in the freezer and a can of beans in the cupboard, I'm happy

Doing_it_my_way

Hey! I batch cook and freeze, curry, corned beef pie, spag bol (cook spaghetti just before serving), lasagne, bread rolls, bread, and fruit loaf. I cut the bread into slices so its easier to use and there is less waste. I make a large tray of lasagne, cut it in to at least 6 slices and freeze individudally, same with the corned beef pie, the spag bol and curry is frozen in portions to suit however many are living here at the time. I also make large quantities of fairy cakes, rock cakes, welsh cakes maid of honour cakes etc. and freeze them, so I tend to have all the ingredients to make all these things in the cupboard. Onions are bought cut up and frozen, same for mushrooms. I also freeze pitta I always have frozen chips and mash as well. The freezer is my friend and my aga is the love of my life lol!
I find when they all come in for mid morning cuppa or lunch they are starving and some homemade cakes go down a treat. Our aga is oil so it cooks and does the heating and hot water running on a boiler, it is very clean and economical. I run the cooker on around 90c from late September until mid April permanently so it acts like a huge radiator in the kitchen and then the heating and water kick in on the timer. Because the cooker is always running I cook cheese toasties direct on the hob, toast from homemade bread - gorgeous!, welshcakes, a kettle is always just off boiling on the side once moved over to the hotter side it is ready in less than half a minute and I can put things like sausages into the oven in the morning and they are ready by dinnertime. Basically it acts like a slow cooker if you put a say a gammon in a casserole dish with a lid in the morning it will cook slowly all day. I absolutely love mine
One very important thing to have at all times though is 'tomato sauce'! teenagers staple.

thriftwizard

Oooh, now I have Aga envy! (But will have to continue to make do with my Rangemaster...)

3 of my 5 have left home now, but I well remember the manic days when they were all at home, in from school & out to football, rugby, cadets, band practice, music lessons, dance sessions etc. etc. (Not to mention me hanging around seedy nightclubs at midnight waiting to pick The Band up...)

Some good ideas up above, and one I'll take a little further; rather than batch-cooking say, bolognese sauce, I used to cook up a huge batch of "savoury mince" (i.e. mince with garlic, onion, celery, tomatoes etc.) divide into smaller batches & freeze. When defrosted, I'd just add whatever to each batch - tomato puree etc. for bolognese, kidney beans & chilli for chilli con carne, mashed spuds for cottage pie, and so on.

If you have a cool dark shed or garage to keep them in, look at buying potatoes by the 25Kg sack. There's so much you can do with spuds, most of it pretty quick & easy, and they're usually much cheaper to buy that way; a sack used to last us about 4 weeks & baked potatoes generally feature in my meal plans at least once a week to this day.

Plain noodles are a blessing from Heaven, buy them by the box... stir-fries are so quick & easy, and there are plenty of other ways to flavour them and/or make them more nutritious. Soy sauce is a must for your store cupboard, and Worcestershire sauce, and mine have developed a fondness for balsamic vinegar. Don't forget things like Marmite, which can be used as a flavouring, a hot drink, or on toast, and peanut butter is probably obligatory. Let your teens enjoy experimenting when they have the time, & they'll be quite competent when they have to budget & fend for themselves at uni or otherwise living independently.