What food do you make weekly just to have to hand?

[GreyWasp]

I always make:

batch of soup for lunch (not in Summer)
a couple of loaves of bread in bread maker
sandwich filler for the kids - tuna mayo, coronation chicken etc
green juice for me (on a weight loss kick)
overnight oats for teen daughter
used to make breakfast muffins but fallen out it
Chinese style pickled cucumbers - we make a massive batch which my daughters have with almost every meal think it is a social media thing

Just has become part of my routine and does make life easier

Curious what others do

@OctopusSexArm Brilliant username. 🤣

Please can you give a little info about making kombucha? DH used to make it but it kept exploding! We'd manage a few dregs and eventually he gave up!

Home made Granola and bread.
I never thought of freezing pancakes though so will try that too.

Absolutely nothing!
We cook what we want to eat on the night, we aren’t planners 😂
Also the idea of eating food I cooked 3 days ago is so unappealing to me.
If I fancy cake I’ll make one and it’s there until it’s finished but it’s not a set decision on a weekend day to spend it cooking for a just in case moment.
All power to those who do, there are some
incredibly organised people on this thread!
we are lucky in that dh loves cooking and we are all home early enough to decide what we fancy eating and for dh to go to the shops if needed.

I also need tips! It's so expensive to buy

Yes! The canned ones aren't toooo bad, but so small and they taste more...just like a fizzy drink?! I love the murky ones in the glass bottles!

Well, I do!

Nothing really, I cook from scratch every night and make all our lunches at home. I do meal plan, but find it too tedious to commit to making stuff every weekend.

Sometimes I will make bread, but not always

Big tub of fruit salad (melon, pineapple, mango, blueberries, grapes, strawberries, pomegranate seeds)

Half a dozen chicken breasts seasoned and roasted for lunchtime salads

A dozen hard-boiled eggs for snacking

Something baked - usually either brownies, a cake, a traybake, or muffins

Waffles for Saturday breakfast

Every few weeks, a large feta and spinach frittata and a batch of pasta sauce for the freezer

Occasionally, ribollita for a couple of nights worth of dinner

Occasionally, a batch of red lentil hummus to go on salads and with crudités (more of a summer thing)

I don't think you need to know how to cook in order to make bread in a machine.
You just need to carefully weigh the ingredients, put them in the machine and it does the rest.
No, I can't think what secrets there could be. It really isn't mysterious and bread makers do make excellent bread.

I had no idea that people batch cooked boiled eggs! Are you eating them cold or reheating them?

Eating them cold. They are hard boiled eggs. Can be used in salads, sandwiches, egg mayo or just eaten as they are for a healthy snack. It's really not a strange concept.

Not a strange concept, no, your snarky attitude towards a genuine question is pretty strange though.

Yep, keep them in their shells and have them cold, usually just on their own or with a pinch of salt. All the family do martial arts classes 4 nights a week so a light, protein-filled snack is really useful to have available.

That said, if you make a slice of toast (especially rye), butter it, and top it with a sliced hard boiled egg and a good sprinkle of salt it is bloody gorgeous.

Farinata (chickpea-flour pancakes, I include spring onion and grated veg eg courgette)
Sausages (vegan) - useful for sandwiches, dinner, pasta, snack
Cooked roast (vegan) chicken
Steamed veg - eg green beans, spinach, broccoli
I also have on hand store-bought hummus, baba ganoush (aubergine dip), beetroot, tinned sweetcorn, artichoke hearts, Greek flatbreads

I always make snacks for the week on a Sunday for the kids

Taming Twins have a great granola bar recipe that always goes down well

Any sort of muffins (usually using up old bananas)

Tomato sauce which we use for all sorts but mainly pasta and homemade pizzas

Hummus

I know this is not technically a snack as such but I always cut up fruit to make a fruit salad; I find the kids eat more this way

Pancakes for the week too for an easy breakfast

Husband also usually batch cooks something for the freezer. Lots of chickpea and lentil Dahl in there at the moment!!

Nothing every week. But I do make big batches of soup quite often and freeze some of it. Or a big batch of spag bol sauce then add chilli, beans and smoky paprika to half of it to make chilli con carne for another night.

I bake a couple of loaves of wheaten bread a week. And then make big batches of bolognese/chilli/ chicken and veg pasta bake all very healthy and from scratch. Portion out the pasta bake and the bolognese and chilli I freeze half and then use the other half for dinners as I need it. Means I know I've veg loaded decent food ready to go for me and ds after work.

When doing the weekly roast, I tend to make double the veg/sides and that feeds us the day after. Can’t beat a quick, microwaved Monday dinner.

Syrup pancakes
Guac
Giant omelette cut into slices
fruit salad
Home made bread
sometimes overnight oats if I can be bothered

Nothing, but I do have staples in that we always get through on a weekly basis.

Other than that I just decide on 5 meals for the week and buy the ingredients in for that. At least one of those meals will always be something large for the slow cooker like curry or chilli that will do for one night and a second night of leftovers. If we don't have it on a second night for leftovers it goes into the freezer so there's always a supply of meals for when we're not prepared.

Then usually one night of the week we have something really simple for dinner like tuna pasta.

I don't do any serious batch cooking. We have porridge most mornings but I don't like overnight oats, we just cook them and have them hot. Same for eggs, we eat loads but like them with runny yolks, or fried or scrambled so definitely no batch boiling eggs.

I freeze peeled cut up parsnips and celeriac (not blanched) into one bag. Then pop them in cold water and bring to boil while peeling some potatoes for a quick roast veg meal.

I also chop onions and freeze in bags so I don’t have prep time of them in mon-fri recipes.

i always cook double of mince recipes, lasagne, cottage pie, spaghetti Bol, potatoes dauphinois and gratins.

I make a lot of recipes from Lucy’s Food (Lucy Cufflin) - minimum effort, maximum impact which she wrote after being inspired by cooking for ski chalet hosted holidays. It brought batch cooking to another level at a time when I needed to be very on the ball regarding cooking time management

I have a large clear tub which I put frozen fruit (mango, peach, raspberries etc) into and keep in the fridge for the base of a quick fruit salad which we have every night. I vary it by adding fresh grapes, kiwi, banana, strawberries etc.

whenever my mum makes quiche she makes me one, I cut it and freeze it, on WFH days I heat it up and have with baked beans for my lunch. (One day I should learn how to make her wonderful pastry bases).

@GreyWasp would you mind writing the cucumber recipe please? I'm not on tiktok so I couldn't watch the video

Start with 5-6 Persian cucumber and spiral cut them. Add about 1 1/2 tbsps of salt in between the slices and let set for about 15-20 minutes before rinsing with cold water. Pat dry with a paper towel and add 1 tbsp minced garlic, 1/3 cup sliced onions, 1/4 sliced green onions if you have it, 1 tbsp soy sauce, 2 tbsp rice vinegar, 2 tbsp gochugaru aka Korean pepper powder (add 1 tbsp if you want it less spicy) 1 tbsp brown sugar and 1 tbsp sesame seeds

in my experience you definitely don’t need the sugar. I don’t really see what it adds (I have done with and without).

Cut thicker slices and definitely do the step of adding salt to remove excess water. It makes the cucumber fresher for longer.