batch cookers...what are you making?

[woodwaj]

Looking for some easy meal suggestions for some fussy eaters!

Also pretty much all of my pregnancy i have gone off meat...for anyone else that went off any foods...did you enjoy it again afterwards?

Can't help with the batch-cooking as I'm simply not that organised, so hats off to you there! But I totally went off coffee. Couldn't even tolerate the smell of it-had me retching! But, I've just been to my favourite haunt... Starbucks. So yes, there is light at the end if the pregnancy tunnel. I also went off chocolate too! The craving for that soon returned

I have 6 weeks till my due date but using up holidays before maternity officially kicks in!

Glad to hear that!! I went off chocolate at first but that came back pretty quickly!!!

I often do batch cooking, though I am due in July so not batch cooking for that yet! I find that soup is great, and rice freezes well so risotto can work well (particularly mushroom risotto). Curries are good (my favourite's Thai green curry, made with curry paste or a jar of sauce) and you can freeze the rice to go with it too! Also muffins (the American variety) are brilliant to freeze - I used to cook 36 at a time and freeze them all - you can microwave them to defrost as needed for a satisfying snack! Also pasta sauce - I guess bolognese would work well, but I am vegetarian so do a lovely version with walnuts or lentils. Not sure what your fussy eaters like to eat, but hope this helps!

Chilli, lasagne, shepherds/cottage pies and tomato sauce for spag bol and pasta bakes are my main ones.

Brill thanks lizzi. You win most organised so far!!

I've found broth to be very soothing for my morning all day sickness. So I made a huge pot of that to last a few days, but otherwise I'm barely able to cook at all, despite usually being a real foodie.

I'm also not due until early July so won't batch cook for that just yet. When I do though I'll be making curries, soups, bolognese sauce, meatballs, stews etc. Basically anything that I'd cook normally that I can triple so we can eat one and put two in the freezer

Pulled pork with onion/Apple/parsnip in cider works well with stuffig mix on the top to soak up the fat if it is a joint and breaks into loads of portions.

Another vote here for chilli/bolognaise/curry/cottage pie middle.

If you want more veggie passed you could do vegetable pasta sauce for freezing easily. Vegetable soup in the slow cooker works too. Rice pudding is another one.

I have 2 slow cookers, a small one and a huge one for batch cooking. Potato/onion/cheese/whatever veg you have bake works in there too. Sushi rice can be frozen and portioned too. With risotto you can portion some into balls before freezing, breadcrumb them and deep fry as arancini. Hope this helps with some ideas. I cooked about 10 days worth of meals before I was due DS1 which was a huge help. You can cook little breakfast bundles in muffin tins, grease tin and put bacon on outside like a basket, pour omelette mix inside with whatever you fancy and bake, they freeze well too.

Ooh excellent keep them coming. How long would you say most things keep for frozen? 3 months...?

I seem to remember that everything in the freezer is pretty much safe to eat forever, but quality goes down hill. 3 months sounds reasonable. It does depend how you package things, particularly with bread type things - really sturdy zipped bags and properly airtight boxes seem to keep things good for longer.

I do have a rather lovely collection of tupperware!! I don't know where i pulled 3 months from!!

Sorry can I butt in and ask what you are using to store the food in? Zipper bags and plastic boxes? Do they have to be any special kind? What did you find works best?

Also, how do people freeze lasagne - do you just put the entire lasagne dish into the freezer? Otherwise you would ruin it if you took it out, no?

Lasagne. Yes in cooking dish even if we eat half
Soups
Pasta sauces
Bread dough
Pizza dough
Cake. Never makes it across the kitchen
Ratatouille
Stock
Stew
Casserole
Fish sauces

I use old takeaway boxes. I won't be doing specific batch cooking but plan to make extra and put it in the freezer -which I often do anyway.

I've just placed my tesco order for delivery on Sunday to do some cooking on Monday for the freezer! I'm starting with chilli, cottage pies and soup :-). I'm due in 19 days so thought I should crack on with it!

Is it ok to freeze ceramic dishes for pies/lasagna etc? I think ill buy some take away cartons as well. Always handy to have!

Another question (raises hand!!) Is it ok to make and freeze enchiladas? I don't know why im not sure on this one...!

And is it ok to freeze a home made toad in the hole?

Enchiladas wise we freeze the filling in one plastic tub, and the topping sauce in another, defrost night before use and make up cook on the day - I've never tried making them up in the wraps then freezing, so don't know if it would work.

Carrotpuff - I found some bags branded ziploc on Amazon - bought a big quantity for a fairly big amount of money, but they are air and liquid tight which means you can store soup in bags if you so desire! And baking keeps really well in them. For boxes, I got concerned about a thing in some types of plastic called BPA, so use boxes that don't contain that. The clippy boxes like lock n lock are good but pricey and don't store very easily. I don't know about freezing ceramic, but pyrex is great for freezing and I have some pyrex dishes with plastic lids that are perfect for the freezer. Can you tell that I have thought a lot about this?

If i made cookies/biscuits would i make them and defrost or freeze the dough?

Both work well - just depends if you would have time to do baking later, or would want something easy! Fresh baked cookies are nice, though.

Make cookie dough then shape into a log and stick in the fridge for a few hours. When it's cold & firm slice into cookies and freeze, then you can take as many or as little out at a time to bake.

We only have a fridge freezer (how sad that I daydream about a big utility room with a huge freezer!!!) so I usually just freeze pasta sauces eg bolognaise, meatballs, chorizo & peppers. No one except me likes curries :(

Sorry I'm no help. I haven't cooked a meal in weeks, cant stomach the smell and cant each much. We're all living off takeaways and frozen microwaveable meals. X

I use for some meals the metal take away boxes you get 10 for pound from poundland and write on the box and freeze food I want to heat up in the oven.
If I want to heat up via microwave use plastic boxes 8 for a pound in poundland.

I have frozen so far chilli, fish pie, tomato pasta bake, plan on doing cottage pies, meat pies, currys :)

I have frozen sweet potato enchiladas.
Recipe is from this site
www.budgetbytes.com/

I've used the site several times before. It's really good. American but a lot of good ideas, and the blogger does loads of batch cooking highlighting how it can be frozen.

Well worth a look