Once a Week Cooking!

[abifae]

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[maf8009]

Me too... we cook in large batches and always have a soup, stew, or sauce to make dinner quick. Great ideas......

Of COURSE I'm posting about food

To keep my budget and diet in line, I cook once a week. I make two big dishes and eat leftovers all week. Every few weeks I don't need to cook at all because there's lots of extra in the freezer and I don't have much storage space.

I thought I'd share what I make

This week:

Moroccan meatballs (ground lamb and beef with cumin, paprika, garlic, coriander, fresh cilantro and parsley) fried and then add onions until caramelized. Add sliced tomato and cover until everything looks done. Add more of the spices. Serve with a fried egg on top. I'm adding sardines and gouda too. And endives steamed in with the tomatoes.

Alien Head soup: turban squash (it looks like a star trek alien reject, it does!) baked and then mushed with coconut milk, chicken broth, and thai spices (cilantro, lemon grass, hot peppers, sembel oelek) and cooked in crock pot with lots of root veggies. Add cooked chicken and caramelized onion. Stew all day.

I'm also going to make low carb peanut butter cups (ganache topped with a mix of almond meal, peanut butter, and a bit of protein powder, and topped with more ganache).

And low carb cranberry bread .

I think that's all.

Anyone else have meals that work well as leftovers and freeze well? It is snowing here which makes me want to make lots of foods and store it by

I somehow have to do it ALL tomorrow because roommates are cooking a whole big meal for Christmas. So tomorrow will be super duper busy since I'm leaving at 2 for most of the afternoon!

 

[FarmerChick]

I don't cook for the week ever.

But if I am cooking lasagna and such I make extra and freeze for later meals. Soups, stews, taco meats, etc.--all the bulk batch stuff I can make gets frozen for later meals.

With a family no one wants to eat the same 2 meals thru the week.....it wouldn't fly here. I could do it and live on soup and grilled cheese for my entire life practically..LOL..but Tony wants variety in meals and he is not a leftover type eater truly.

So I do what I can to make cooking easier and save time by my extra batches for the freezer.

 

[hikerchick]

Abi, can I come to your house?? You made me hungry with that soup.

 

[hwillm1977]

I bought a cookbook from www.savingdinner.com called 'Five for the freezer'... you can make two weeks worth of dinners (that freeze before they are cooked, so you are essentially making your own 'pop it in the oven' dinners) in a few hours on a Sunday afternoon.

I LOVE it... and it means weeknight dinners never take more than 10-15 minutes to make. Savingdinner.com is by the same women who do the Flylady website.

I also use the '1bag 5dinners' menus from here (I don't use the recommended Kraft ingredients, homemade stuff works just as well, but their dinners are SUPER easy to cook):

http://www.kraftcanada.com/en/Dinner/1Bag5Dinners/1Bag5DinnersCB.aspx

 

[Wildsky]

I like to freeze meal parts not whole meals, I do freeze leftovers from meals, but if I'm planning on freezing I'll do parts.

Different meats, cooked, ground beef always works, with very little seasonings - that can be added when it gets reheated. Meat balls.
grilled chicken, or baked, or fried. (chopped up or whole pieces)

I love my bags of rice in the freezer, they come in handy all the time. I cook almost the entire bag of rice when I buy it, and then freeze in our family sized portions and vacuum seal. you could do noodles etc. the same way.
I freeze all extra veggies, (well I'm messing around with drying them, but it takes so long)

WHen you're hungry - you can dig around to find the parts you feel like and put them together in many different ways.

 

[ohiofarmgirl]

yep! i like to cook for most of the week. i had the knuckle The Big Man down so he'd eat 'leftovers.' i'll make a roast one day then it will be come grilled sandwiches for lunch, some kind of nacho/enchiladas/whatever, and maybe a stir fry.

i figured that if you eat the 'leftovers/cooked for the week' every OTHER day you can sucker 'em in
;-)

but there's nothing like a good grilled cheese!

one of the great things we did with our TurkeyDay supersale turkeys ($5!!!) was part 'em up, cook em, then portion into already cooked and ready for whatever baggies. i made enchiladas in 12 mins last nite. what a timesaver! whoot!

ps that alien head soup sounds delicious!

 

[hwillm1977]

one of the great things we did with our TurkeyDay supersale turkeys ($5!!!)

You bought a WHOLE turkey for $5?! WOW... I'm jealous... our turkey was $45, at $2.69/pound you can't get a turkey LEG here for $5

I'm also hungry for Abifae's soup now too

 

[noobiechickenlady]

If I'm making meatballs or something else that freezes well, I'll double or triple the amount and use all the meat I have available.
I like to keep cooked chicken, turkey, ground beef, patties or meatballs in the freezer. It really does make quick dinner or lunch.

Since it's gotten colder, I've started back to keeping soup on the stove or in the crockpot. I'll add a little more stock, some other veggies, so it's constantly evolving. We'll eat that when we want something hot & comforting & don't want to mess with cooking.

Those Moroccan meatballs sound yummy!

 

[abifae]

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