Post: #51

I'm not gonna post recipe(s). I usually make something that'll go 2-3 days, bc by day 3 I'm tired of it.

Stir fry. Rice, veggies, and meat (shrimp or chicken) ~ 20 min.

Chicken noodle soup or Chili. Fridge for eating 2-3 days, the rest put in zip locks to take out later. Under-cook the pasta for the soup.

I'm a minimalist, even with cooking, and usually other days I'm out n about with friends, so I just have a few go-to's. And seriously, using 'load' instead of 'meal' had to be intentional...funny tho.

Post: #52

Here's a great recipe for (grain-free) salmon cakes. They're tasty, cheap, healthy, and this recipe makes about a dozen patties, which can be refrigerated short-term or frozen for future use.

You basically just cook the sweet potato in the microwave, peel it, then combine all the ingredients in a bowl before forming patties, which are fried in coconut oil until brown and crispy. I like them best with sriracha.

Post: #53

I"ve been cooking ground beef with potatoes/sweet potatoes recently.

2 Lbs of ground beef, with a pound of potatoes, and white/brown rice on the side can easily last you for a few days.

I put in olive oil as the oil, then lots of onions, grinded black pepper, salt, a couple of green chillis, garlic, and ginger if I have some. I also add in some cardamon sometimes.

Its nice, spicy, and flavorful, just like I like it. Very hard to mess up ground beef, you can add whatever you like.

Post: #54

(07-03-2014 07:24 PM)scotian Wrote:  I've been using a crock pot for about a year now and the thing is great, but I've added a new weapon to my culinary arsenal which has made my life even easier, a Food Saver vacuum sealer: http://www.foodsavercanada.com/. I just bought it a few days ago and today is the first time I used it, so far, so good. I did a big Costco run yesterday and picked up eight chicken breasts which I marinated in jerk sauce the cooked in the oven, I also chopped up a bunch of coloured peppers and fried them on the stove, I put them into vac bags with the chicken and threw them in the freezer. I also have a huge beef roast in the slow cooker now which should last me about four days, I'll probably bake some asperagus and potatoes to put into vac bags with it. Buying meat in bulk and spending a full day cooking enough to last me 10-14 days makes my life a lot easier as I do this when working my 14 day shifts and the last thing I want to do after work each night is spend an hour or more cooking. I also bought a Magic Bullet blender to make smoothies each morning to bring to work, another good time saver.

A food-saver is a good idea. I prefer the "snorkel vac," in its place because it doesn't require special bags. I can seal meals in mylar and all sorts of bags. I just checked and they renamed the sealer. Here is a link to the sealer:
https://www.sorbentsystems.com/sinbosealer.html

and the various bags and other products they sell can be found here:

http://www.sorbentsystems.com/products.html

Bags for their sealer are here:

http://www.sorbentsystems.com/vacuum_bags.html

They sell 6" by 10" bags for $0.09 each. That's roughly equivalent to those 11" wide and 16' long food-saver rolls that come 3 to a pack for $27.99 Except with the .09 cent bags you are paying $9 for 41.6666 square feet, and with the food-saver brand you are paying $27.99 for 44 square feet.



and bags that can be used with the food saver are here:
http://www.sorbentsystems.com/channel_bags.html


If you have a food saver brand, these guys likely sell bags cheaper, and if you want to get a vacuum sealer, I would suggest getting the one I linked to above because it can use cheaper bags. The only problem I ever had was when I used it to seal mylar bags which were around 9mil thick, which is very thick. It sucked out the air fine, I just needed to have an iron ready to get the plastic hot enough.

Post: #55

Just bought mine!

Post: #56

Terrible thread title but at least I could find it right away.

What I've been doing more recently is making a large stew in a pressure cooker, broiling about five pounds of chicken breasts, and baking a few pounds of potatoes at the beginning of the week.

The stew is basically a medium to large sized ham, cooked and chopped up, with a few pounds of potatoes and about half a pound of carrots. Throw in a few extra cups of water and some seasonings and you're good to go.

That way to prepare meals all you really need during the week is a microwave.

Works great. I've been bringing lunches to work in these pyrex containers and going to the gym right afterwards. None of my coworkers "have time" for it but I made time at the beginning the week, more or less.

Post: #57

Bump this thread because it's the first thread on cooking that came up on my search.

Anyone use a mandoline (not the musical instrument) or food processor to slice and dice lotsa veggies fast? For me, prepping the ingredients is the longest part of cooking, and chopping several lbs of veggies is annoying.

Looking for recommendations on something affordable but durable that will save time, isn't a pain to use (such as a yuge learning curve or having to pre cut the veggies) and isn't a pain to clean.

Post: #58

(01-15-2019 03:14 PM)polar Wrote:  Bump this thread because it's the first thread on cooking that came up on my search.

Anyone use a mandoline (not the musical instrument) or food processor to slice and dice lotsa veggies fast? For me, prepping the ingredients is the longest part of cooking, and chopping several lbs of veggies is annoying.

Looking for recommendations on something affordable but durable that will save time, isn't a pain to use (such as a yuge learning curve or having to pre cut the veggies) and isn't a pain to clean.

I have a mandolin. It's great. The mrs and I use it to prep our meals and cut stuff quickly. Mine is an Oxo branded one.

The problem with cutting vegetables means that they may go mushy before you have a chance to eat them towards the weekend. I used to prep ingredients Sunday night before the week began and found that stuff would be borderline mushy by friday and saturday of the following week.

Even with messing the settings on the crisper and storing things in tupperware.

You may benefit from getting pre-cut stuff from the grocer. Though it's slightly more expensive.

Post: #59

My ingredients normally go into a stew, soup or a stir fry, so no problem with having them lying around.

My local grocery's pre cut stuff tends not to have the stuff I want, they just slice up whatever spoiling veggies are on hand - they don't even stock mirepoix.

Any opinions between a mandoline vs a cheaper food processor like a Hamilton Beach (I'm not dropping $300 on an appliance unless it'll fly me to the moon) are also appreciated.

Post: #60

I have a food processor but it tends to chop things too small.

It's a $30 Cuisinart

Carrots for soup it's good but it turns onions into almost a liquid. Much prefer results from hand chopped

Post: #61

(01-15-2019 03:57 PM)polar Wrote:  My ingredients normally go into a stew, soup or a stir fry, so no problem with having them lying around.

Frozen vegetables are not an option?

These days I only buy frozen broccoli and spinach, it's very convenient, same price or cheaper, can't go bad, same nutritional value, and you don't need to wash or cut it anymore.

At least for the stew and the soup this would work well, just throw it in there with the other ingredients and you're done.

Post: #62

Chili is another good thing to make, just brown the meat and let the grease run off first. I substitute mixed vegetables for half the beans

If you have leftover meat make a chef salad with some cheese and a boiled egg

Post: #63

I've got a pretty good pork & sauerkraut recipe that ends up being like a week of food.

Get some pork roast (whatever is cheap and looks fairly lean), salt, pepper, and then braise it in olive oil. Put the meat in the crock pot and then sautee some onion and garlic in the braising pan and finally deglaze all that porcine fond with some cheap white wine. Add all that stuff into the crock pot along with a couple bay leaves, sage, and rosemary. Let that go until the pork is falling apart tender.

For sauerkraut slice up half a cabbage and cook it down in a pot with a jar of sauerkraut, a sliced up apple, sliced onion, gnocchi, and caraway seeds for flavor.

Finally once the pork is done take the meat out and make gravy out of the liquid left in the crock pot. Sautee some flour and butter in a pan until you have a kind of light brown paste, then whisk it with the pork juice and reduce until it's the desired thickness. Don't oversalt the meat otherwise the gravy will end up too salty.

Post: #64

As a bachelor, I used to make a large tray of baked ziti. You could do the same with lasagna, although that is more work. This should be good for three days. More than that and the quality will suffer. You can get pre-washed salad and dress with olive oil and balsamic.