Batch cooking

[schroeder]

I would love to not to have to cook every night.

But I like to cook some fresh food, and not dole out fishy fingers etc too often.

Trouble is ds eschews all sauces, so I cannot, fall back on most batch cooking favourites (casseroles, curry, shepherd's pie and chili and the like).

Is it possible to freeze half cooked wedges for example? (I usually microwave then wedge)

What about homemade breaded fish or turkey? Is it ok to coat them and then freeze/ defrost and cook at my leisure?

I really wish he would get over it because it is soo limiting.

YOu can freeze homemade fish or turkey or chicken as long as the meat hasn't been defrosted (i.e previously frozen)

However, I would push the sauce thing with you ds. My eldest was being a fussy eater with sauces and in the end I resorted to still giving it to him as the only option - there wouldn't be a pudding unless it was eaten but he didn't have to eat it. If he didn't eat it, i kept it for when half an hour later he said he was hungry. It didn't last long before he was eating the whole lot. It does make life so much simpler now. I never force the kids to eat anything but they know that there isn't an alternative so if they are not hungry that is fine but there will be nothing else.

Good luck

I've frozen potato wedges/homemade chips. I part cook them in boiling water, then in the oven, and you can freeze at the "before oven" stage. It doesn't save masses of time as they take longer to cook from the freezer, but it does save faffing.

Home made fish cakes and potato cakes would freeze well too.

The rule of thumb is freeze once raw, once cooked. By that rule you could make your breaded stuff from fresh meat then freeze but not if you'd already frozen the turkey/fish. I make batches of chicken nuggets and if I've already frozen the chicken, I cook them before freezing. Works fine either way.

Thanks for that, I love cooking, but it does become pretty tiresome 5-6 days a week. (dh cooks on sunday)

I think ds will come to sauces eventually, but he eats quite well really and at nearly 13, I think I've come to the conclusion that as long as he doesn't eat too much junk and scoffs lots of fruit, he will be alright.