Batch cooking at it's best

[bumpkinpumpkin]

I'm currently a bit stetted and my lovely mum has offered to do me a lot of batch cooking to fill my spare freezer full of dinners.

We have a very large family of 6 dc permanently at home and sometimes up to 3 more plus dh and me. So batch being the operative word.

She's planning in doing casserole type dinners that I can bung in slow cooker before I go to work and come home to dinner ready. Which is good for Hungary boys and my soul!

So good plain traditional cooking suggestions wanted. One dinner has to do all so nothing too way out!

[bumpkinpumpkin]

She's used to cooking in batch as we all grew up on contents of a chest freezer!! Just want to give her some suggestions before I end up with carrot casserole all winter that I loathed as a child!

[BestestBrownies]

Tomato sauce is your friend. Not the ketchup kind, the one made from scratch with lots of onion, garlic, celery, tomato puree and tinned tomatoes (I also put plenty of carrot in mine), simmered for ages then whizzed up and frozen in portions. It also keeps in the fridge for weeks.

A tasty and healthy base for all sorts - bolognaise, chilli, shepherds pie, lasagne etc. or can be added to boiled pasta with bacon/prawns/whatever for a quick healthy dinner; or even added to soups/stews for extra flavour and thickening and can be used as pizza topping.

Love tomato sauce, me

[Inneedofbrandy]

Lasagna can be frozen in its dish and then cooked from frozen.
Spag Bol and chillie
Veg chilli casserole
curry
Stew

[bumpkinpumpkin]

Stews are my friend as my teenage boys are never full. It seems to be the only thing that fills them up properly. Was also thinking home made pies and wondered whether steak and kidney pudding freezes well?!

I know it's stodgy but then all ive got to do it put the veg on and dc will stay full all evening.

Pizza and pasta are great for quickness but I really want to take advantage of the freezer and my mothers offer. And also keep my dc full, so they don't feel the need to snack.

[Inneedofbrandy]

Make sure you rapid boil for at least 3 minutes anything that's going in the slow cooker. My mum made a beef stew put it in the slow cooker the next day, left it on all day and her and my db got food poisoning.

[Inneedofbrandy]

Oh you could get the pie fillings done have no clue about the pastry.
Home made fish cakes freeze lovely. What about fish pie?

[bumpkinpumpkin]

I think pastry does freeze as I've frozen quiches and sausage rolls before!!! Sausage rolls, now there's an idea!

[Inneedofbrandy]

Mmm homemade sausage rolls Mmm. Thinking might do loads of batch cooking The end of November to help myself out!

[Snog]

meat balls and tomato sauce
shepherds pie
oxtail stew

[bumpkinpumpkin]

Oxtail stew! How does that go? I've never tried that

[Snog]

Oxtail stew is one of my most fave dishes ever - you need to buy oxtail from a butcher though as supermarkets don't sell it. I will have a look for the recipe...

[Snog]

oxtail stew recipe

You need to use fresh oxtail not frozen if you want to freeze it afterwards obviously. It's a very easy dish, the only hard part is finding the oxtail - you may need to order this from the butcher as they don't always have it ime.

One of the most heavenly meals ever invented and very filling and satisfying imo.

[bumpkinpumpkin]

Oh snog! That's brill! Just the sort of thing I was after!

[Snog]

Hope your family love it as much as I do bumpkinpumpkin

I m trying this for the first time today as I had some chicken thighs left and didn't know what to do with them...it has very good reviews...will report back although my first observation is that if your chicken thighs are on the bone as opposed to thigh fillets it's not particularly quick to cube them!

[multitaskmama]

Chicken curry freezes really well as do lentils. I regularly do this for hubby when I go to my mums for a few days. Also lamb mince curry or mince for a bolognese freezes well, so you only need to boil the spaghetti.

This is the one I cook in a lage batche eg 1kg boneless kitchen:

www.healthyindianrecipes.co.uk/healthy-chicken-curry/