Any ideas for BATCH COOKING?

[pumpkin2008]

I'm thinking of batch cooking at the weekend to save time and money! Anyone do this and ant ideas of things I could make?
I'm thinking;
carrot & lentil soup (G or EE)
cottage pie (EE)
Lasagne (EE) --anyone any recipes for this???

And I can't think of anything else! Any help would be greatly appreciated guys x

 

[Taz]

Chilli
Bolognese
Cottage pie
Lasagne

 

[Emz118]

Any veg soup using superfree veg... I make a batch each weekend and then it doesn't matter what day I'm on, I can have soup for lunch, and I don't have to decide what day I'm on til our evening meal.
Last week I made butternut squash and ginger soup, which was really nice.

 

[dehli]

You could freeze vegetable curry and potato and leek soup, both free on green. You can get those pour and stour freezer bags with a zip lock thing for soups. Don't forget to label them though, I've frozen bolognese sauce and chilli before, and it's hard to tell which has beans in through the plastic!

 

[muppetgirly]

Risotto, Paella, pasta bake, moussaka, stew, curry.........

 

[pumpkin2008]

Ooooo great ideas guys! Do you just make everything as normal, cook, cool and freeze?
Sorry for all th questions, I'm just a bit nervous about freezing stuff!
Is the rice fine to reheat after defrosting? Do you just pop it in the microwave?
thanks guys x

 

[dehli]

I don't freeze rice, it only takes 10 minutes to cook white rice anyway. I just freeze the sauces to go with the pasta/rice. Just cool them before freezing. I think you have to be careful reheating rice because of the starch content.

 

[Taz]

Oh no don't freeze the rice and pasta! Just the stuff to go with it, chilli, bolognese etc. Yes just cool and freeze then zap in the microwave

 

[pumpkin2008]

I didn't think it could be lol. Thanks guys!x

 

[BigV]

Hi, all

Nothing wrong with freezing rice. It freezes beautifully. Ive done it many a time. You can even get ready cooked rice in the freezer section of the supermarket.

Only thing you need to be careful of is not to reheat it more than once.

Other option is to get yourself a rice cooker. It takes only 15 min max and it comes out lovely and fluffy. I just got a cheap one for £9-99 at Lidl. Magic!!

 

[pumpkin2008]

Cool, thanks!

Anyone know a lasagne recipe thats freezable? i'm wreaking my brain trying to figure it out lol! Thanks x

 

[muppetgirly]

I freeze pasta and rice as I cook 4 portions at dinner and use the left over as lunches for work. The rice is always ok, but pasta does go a bit squishy!

I think that you can pretty much freeze anything, and if you heat it thoroughly enough then you shouldn't have any problems.

 

[gina]

lasagne

1 bag of quorn mince
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
Various veg you want
1 pot of cottage cheese
Pasta sheets (18p from tesco at the moment)
pasata
Bovril

1.Start by frying your mince in a small amount of bovril stock.
2. Finely chop your onion and garlic and add to the mince
3. Add the mince, onion and garlic to the bottom of a lasagne dish
4. mix your various vegetables (I use peppers, courgette, eggplant and potato) in with the pasata and fry just to warm up for about 5 minutes
5. Lay a lasagne sheet over the mince and add the pasata sauce
6. Add another lasagne sheet
7. Blend some cottage cheese with a hand blender. Pour on the top
8. bake on 180 for about 1 hour

add cheese if wanted as a healthy extra

 

[Taz]

Although you CAN freeze and reheat rice it is one of the dodgiest foods to do that with. Food poisoning bacteria grows on it at an alarming rate and should be chilled-frozen as quick as possible and reheated thoroughly to over 65oC

 

[Circes]

I seem to remember that cottage cheese doesn't freeze very well so this might not be the best recipe for batch cooking. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong. I know that some folk use a sachet of cheese sauce mix which will have syns but not too many if divided between several portions.

1 bag of quorn mince
1 large onion
2 cloves of garlic
Various veg you want
1 pot of cottage cheese
Pasta sheets (18p from tesco at the moment)
pasata
Bovril

1.Start by frying your mince in a small amount of bovril stock.
2. Finely chop your onion and garlic and add to the mince
3. Add the mince, onion and garlic to the bottom of a lasagne dish
4. mix your various vegetables (I use peppers, courgette, eggplant and potato) in with the pasata and fry just to warm up for about 5 minutes
5. Lay a lasagne sheet over the mince and add the pasata sauce
6. Add another lasagne sheet
7. Blend some cottage cheese with a hand blender. Pour on the top
8. bake on 180 for about 1 hour

add cheese if wanted as a healthy extra

 

[Laurie]

noooooooooooooooo you cant freeze rice! i went on a course when i started my job its a big no no in the food industry....
i make up tonnes of stuff and freeze it i dont think anything of cooking my rice and pasta to go with it simple

 

[Taz]

Yes rice is the biggest offender of food poisoning. More so than meat even!

 

[missgalaxy]

I have made a big batch of extralean mince with tomatoes, onion and celery in and put them in pots in the freezer.

I then take them out and use them for cottage pie, lasagne, chilli etc and add the other ingrediants as I need them eg chillis etc for chilli, garlic for bolognaise.

Saves me time making from scratch everytime!

xx

 

[Hels Bels]

If you want quick rice:

Tesco Microwaveable Long Grain Rice, ambient 250g pouch

1 Syns on Extra Easy Original 20 Syns Green 1 Syns

Really quick and easy!