Back in 2012, in the depths of my cooking hatred I started my batch cooking journey.
I despised being in the kitchen and despised the age old daily chorus of “whats for tea” even more, In fact so much so I began to resent tea time and cooking in general.
Over the last 2.5 years things have changed radically … not only have I started to love spending time in the kitchen I have also discovered that by taking the bull by the horns and trying it seems I am not half bad at cooking either!
I now in fact love nothing more than an afternoon in the kitchen batch cooking meals for the month and with lasagne, Spag bol, Shepherds pies, Chilli and even the odd mince and potatoes to boot, I am now perfecting my repartee of home cooked basics all fit for the freezer!
This time last week was another of my bountiful kitchen cooking sessions, with my operation planned for last Friday I knew that standing in a kitchen this week was going to be a miracle and I have to say I am so pleased I planned ahead, not only have we saved lots of money not buying greasy expensive takeaways we have all eaten home cooked meals with little preparation needed!
Next on my list I am thinking I might try these amazing recipes below:
Low Fat Fish & Leek Pie from The Great British Chefs
Meatballs from Nigella Bites
Chicken Chasseur from The Healthy Food Guide
Beef Goulash from Martha Stewart
Although I won’t be kidding myself that my cooking will turn out even half as nice .. Its worth a shot!
So for us batch cooking has worked and we have been fortunate enough to have the space to allow me to batch cook so many meals at once and it has allowed me to regain my control over cooking and fall in love with cooking again.
Do you batch cook and if so what meals do you tend to cook for the freezer?
I never used to batch cook when my boys were still living at home but since they have flown the nest I do tend to do more batch cooking.
I started to do it so that Hubby had healthier meals to take to work and for us to have meals more or less ready for our Orange Wednesdays.
I cook bolognese, casseroles, stews and curries in the slow cooker. If you’d like some recipes trot over to my blogs recipe tab. 🙂
I will take a look Sue i need all the ideas i can get! thanks 🙂
I don’t batch cook but I do often cook too much which ends up in the freezer….Spaghetti bolognese, curry and sausage casseroles especially…
argh . sausage casserole! .. we love that .. i might add that to our list Kim!
I don’t batch cook. Although if we’re doing mince, I’ll do double and then make a lasagne out of the second bit of it. We do have some leftovers. My problem would be the freezer. We have a chest freezer, but it’s full again (after I tried to remove everything last year to defrost it). Am going to have to empty it again this year. OH’s really fussy though, I’m not sure he’d be up for having freezer meals even if they were home cooked.
my OH is a fussy food person too .. although thankfully he will eat freezer meals if they were home cooked .. ready meals tend to be a no go
You need a High 5 for this! I love batch cooking and can’t imagine not cooking in huge quantities x
lol it has kind of become a bit of an obsession Donna .. eek .. i am sure there are worse obsessions right?
i really need to start doing this!x
it saves us lots of money and stress too so it was worth it for us
I go through stages of batch cooking, which when I have done it I feel proud and pleased that I have meals ready for when I get home from work etc and annoyed at myself when I haven’t
i am like that too .. i am fab at batch cooking for a few months then for a month i might not be a regular at it and then it annoys me lol
I used to batch cook when I was working. That was before motherhood found me spending more time in the kitchen than I ever had before.
Keep meaning to batch cook as would make life so much easier for myself.
i didn’t always love it but i do now
I don’t do batch cooking often only occasionally when I cook something Polish like stuffed cabbage or dumplings (you always end up with a lot of food and for just two of us it too much) so I freeze those. I remember my Mum doing batch cooking more often when I was at school away from home so I could take something with me 😉