Comments on: Batch Cooking: A Collection of Tips

By: Carolina

Carolina — Fri, 21 Jan 2011 18:49:58 +0000

I have spent the last week reading through your blog. I love it! Thank you!
OK, freezer cooking… I have an 8 week menu plan that contains vegetarian meals on Mondays, meat Tuesday, soup Wednesday, fish Thursday, Chicken Friday and mixed on weekend but fish at least once. I have a summer and a winter version of this menu. The way I planned it I can use leftovers a lot, for example pancakes mon ( it is a dinner food in Sweden where I live ), pasta bolognese on tue and crêpes instead of soup on wed. The nights I now I work late I have food that I can prepare in advance and put in the freezer. I batch cook meat a lot and freeze it in family portions. Then I just thaw it and put it in whatever dish I am cooking. I have all the recipes for the menus printed in a folder with corresponding shopping lists for every week. I always go grocery shopping early on Saturdays so the menu and the shopping list is sat-fri. It saves me so much time and money! I tweak the menus at least twice a year so we don’t get bored with the food. This way we can all get our favorites and no one have to eat something they don’t care for more often than every eight weeks!

By: Heather P.

Heather P. — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 02:17:05 +0000

My favorite easy beef crock pot recipe is also only two ingredients!
2 lb flank steak (ish)
1 bottle catalina salad dressing

I cook it on high for an hour then on low for 5 or so hours (it’ll fall apart when done). yum yum and yum!

I just found your site (Nov 2010) and am enjoying it thoroughly!

By: AmandaonMaui

AmandaonMaui — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:40:09 +0000

Stephanie O’Dea at Crockpot365.blogspot.com and author of “Make it Fast, Cook it Slow” makes her whole crockpot chickens by removing the skins first. She doesn’t like them cooking in all that fat all day. So, if you’re worried about fat in your diet simply removing the skin first!

By: Sara

Sara — Thu, 22 Apr 2010 02:42:22 +0000

Thanks for the tips! One of my friends and I were just talking yesterday about trying batch cooking out this summer. I can’t wait to share these tips with her. =)

By: Rachel

Rachel — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:11:28 +0000

Yes just the chicken. It won’t dry out if you keep the lid on the crock pot.

By: mer

mer — Mon, 11 Jan 2010 22:04:22 +0000

Put it in the crock pot breast side down, and let it cook on low for 6 hours.

no water?! or broth, just the chicken, right?!?!

By: Kim H

Kim H — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 15:05:45 +0000

I am new to blogging. I am anxious to learn more about simple living and time saving advice like batch cooking. I try to do this. Today, I am taking leftovers from yesterday and making brocolli cheese soup.

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 03:27:53 +0000

What a neat site, I know I will come back regularly. To get us started on a menu/shopping plan I just wrote on the calendar what ever we did have for dinner each night for a few weeks. I had a reasonable menu plan there on the wall within a month.

By: Shannon

Shannon — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 19:41:42 +0000

Batch cooking is a great way to save money and a ton of time. Unfortunately, I don’t always make the time to get it all done, so I tend to do it a little more informally. But what I do do is do my meat prep work and freeze that, so that when I’m ready to cook the meat is all trimmed and portioned and all I have to do is start cooking. I blogged about how I do that here:

http://workathomehomeschoolingmom.com/2009/06/saving-money-on-groceries-meat/

Also, when I can, I’ll make larger batches of food than what we’ll eat at one time and freeze the left overs in either family portion sizes or lunch portion sizes. The lunch portions are put on a shelf for my husband to take to work when he’s ready. So I don’t have any prep work for lunch, AND he has the variety he needs without feeling like he’s eating last night’s leftovers (which he hates).

Typically, I’ll freeze up Chili, Spaghetti, Taco meat, lasagna, rice, noodles (for my daughter), bread rolls, chicken pot pie filling, sloppy joe mix, and left over chicken meat (from a whole chicken, like you described).

I also like to freeze up the carcasses from whole chickens, and then make up chicken stock from them in the crock pot. Then I freeze the chicken stock into portion sizes (ice cube trays for 1 Tablespoon portions, and pint and quart canning jars for soups and chicken & dumplings type meals.

The whole cook enough all at once gets overwhleming for me, but by doing it incrementally helps me still save time and money, but not get overwhelmed with it all.
.-= Shannon´s last blog post ..Free Homeschool Curriculum: Three Free Curriculums with Lesson Plans/Schedules =-.

By: TheRoosterChick

TheRoosterChick — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 18:04:22 +0000

Freezer cooking is the best! I love being able to pull things out of the freezer and have dinner ready in a flash. @Jessica, your Southwestern Turkey Burgers sound yummm-E!
.-= TheRoosterChick´s last blog post ..Save Time In The Kitchen & Get Dinner On The Table In A Hurry! – Part 3 of 7 =-.