Tag Archives: Freezer cooking

Massive Freezer Cooking Session – Lessons Learned

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Today was finishing up the last few vestiges of freezer cooking.  There were 2 recipes to finish today, and getting more ginger from Wal-Mart.

I took Dad to donate blood this morning (I can’t for many reasons), and didn’t get started working on anything until about noon – then I wasn’t really focusing on cooking/prepping, so it took until 1:30ish to have everything done on the first recipe, and Dad and I finished the last recipe after Daughter Person went to bed.

I learned a lot these last 4 days:

  1. I bit off way more than I should have.  I probably should have limited myself to 4-5 recipes instead of the 11-12 I did.  I wanted to do more than dinners for Dad and Daughter Person though, so I went whole hog.  I really think we’ve got enough food for the next 3-4 months, not just 2.
  2. I need to have a better plan in place – like having freezer space to freeze things on cookie sheets so they freeze flat where needed.  I did the chicken fingers last, yet they really needed the space for a cookie sheet or two – I ended up just tossing them into the foil pan and hoping for the best. I also need to chop/dice *everything* beforehand, instead of doing it sort of haphazardly.  Yes, it means more space in the fridge to store the chopped stuff, but it’ll save time in the long run.
  3. I tried to plan everything on the computer (using www.plantoeat.com), but I think I might have done better with pen and paper.  I probably would have spent more time making up a grocery list, but I think that time would have doubled as a “oh, I need to do this first…” check.  However, I have a monthly plan to print out for Dad while I’m gone.
  4. Trying to figure out how many servings (tsp/tbsp) in a oz is a PITA.  And I mean oz as in weight, not fl oz as in volume.  Spices have a different specific gravity than water, so it’s not as simple as it sounds.  I found some great references for converting from weight to volume though: Durkee’s list, the produce converter, and about.com’s equivalent chart.

I’ve started figuring out the price per serving for each recipe and I’ll post that eventually.  I spent most of the afternoon setting up an excel spreadsheet with the numbers and calculations (and why I needed the weight to volume conversions).

Massive Freezer Cooking Session – day 2

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Today we got to use my new toy – a 20qt stock pot that arrived last week from Amazon. Here’s Dad holding it – next to it is a 2qt All-clad saucepan for size comparison.  It’s sitting on my induction burner.  We made two batches of garlic mashed potatoes.  Last time, we had to use the 12qt stock pot and our 7qt dutch oven to boil 10lbs of russet potatoes.  This time, it all went into the one pan.  We’re liking it.

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Dad bought me the induction burner for mother’s day.  I’m just biding my time until we can afford the full induction range (and hopefully by then, it comes in white to match the rest of the kitchen).  Until then, we have one very powerful burner which we use most of the time.  All of our cookware except the 12 qt stock pot are induction capable, and with the new stock pot, that won’t be an issue – we can also get an “induction disc”, which makes the induction burner basically a regular old electric burner.

Today involved a *lot* of cooking and putting together marinades.  I cooked the curry for the shrimp curry, and we cooked the potatoes for two batches (48 servings) of garlic mashed potatoes.  Otherwise, it was pretty much putting together marinades.  I put all of the fish dishes in the freezer, and all of the flank steak and pork tenderloin recipes.  I made the basic red sauce for the vegetable lasagna, but didn’t make the lasagna yet.  I also chopped about 10 cups (7 large) onions which are in the fridge waiting for tomorrow’s recipes.  Lighting a candle to help with the tearing really does help.

I had a psychiatrist appointment this morning which kinda broke up the day.  Then I had to fetch Daughter Person at about 3:30-4, so I didn’t get as much done as I would have liked since I can’t leave the stove running while I’m gone.  In the morning, I started trying to figure out the cost per serving for the recipes, but it’s not done yet, so nothing to publish.

Tomorrow requires scrambling eggs for breakfast burritos, and then putting together the rice pilaf, the chicken fingers, veggie lasagna, and tomato-basil soup.  Dad did the potatoes tonight, so he didn’t help with halving the chicken breasts, so I either get to do that tomorrow or wait until he comes home to do two of the recipes which require chicken breast halves.

Daughter Person liked the pumpkin muffins, so those are definitely a keeper.

Massive freezer cooking session – day 1

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Today was day 1 of my massive freezer cooking session. I’m making 2 months worth of freezer meals for Dad and Daughter Person while I’m traveling for work for 5 weeks.
On the menu:

Today’s task was to get all of the ingredients.  I made a trip to Costco ($512 even), Wal-Mart ($143.32) and Whole Foods ($173.43) – there was quite a bit of wine purchased at Whole Foods and Costco (about $150 between the two of them), as well as some stocking up because they had coupons (like garbage bags and tooth paste) – so the totals were not all the food.  I’d like to figure out the cost of each serving if I get the chance, so stay tuned for that information.

You can see below the back of my RAV4 after my trip to Costco:

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And the fridge after it was stuffed. This is a 26 ft^3 fridge, so it’s no small fridge. Every drawer is stuffed with costco purchases.

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This is the refried beans that will become part of the bean burritos (dried pinto beans are much cheaper than the canned variety and we didn’t fry them, so we removed a lot of fat from them; although given the work, we might opt for the canned next time)

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We also made pumpkin muffins for Daughter Person’s breakfast. She likes muffins, so we thought this would be good. I had to get out the hand mixer, which I’ve used once in the last four years (today) because the batter for the pumpkin muffins needed to use the *big* mixing bowl. Gave us 3 1/2 dozen muffins though.

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Finally, we made butternut squash lasagna – one large 9×13 dish (hard to make lasagna noodles smaller than they are).

During all of this, I made the chicken with tarragon vinegar sauce for dinner (and leftovers tomorrow and the next night).

Tomorrow, I need to take the burritos and put them in freezer bags, print the labels for everything we did today, and start on the next set of prep work. I hate halving chicken breasts, so Dad is going to do that part for me when he gets home tomorrow night. I’m going to put together the fish dishes, and probably the side dishes. Lots and lots of potatoes to peel and onions to chop tomorrow!