Post: #26

(03-29-2013 07:01 PM)Giovonny Wrote:  It's a bit of work to chop everything, but, once you get it all into the pot is very easy.

I can chop vegetables no problem, it's figuring out when shit is done and how much stuff to add that I have some trouble with. I'm really not a great cook but this sounds great.

Post: #27

(03-27-2013 10:26 PM)kosko Wrote:  Vegetables can be best in a lot of different formats.

Fresh isn't always best for everything. If its out of season and your City does not get good quality in the stores your better off using high grade frozen veggies.

Things like Tomatos are best when canned. You won't find any better quality in North America unless your living in Cali near some vines.

Green peas are best Frozen as they keep the flavour better, and I find Green beans also are better frozen. Fruits like cranberries and blueberries also do good frozen.

Stuff like bell peppers, carrots, asparagus, are way better fresh and the frozen stuff is a big step down.

Sorry to derail, but I wanted to elaborate on this. You're right, depending on what you're eating, frozen can be a better option. When I make smoothies I go the frozen route. It's actually more healthy as when they pick the fruits, they pick them at their peak ripeness and flash freeze them, which preserves the nutrients. When you get fresh fruits, a lot of times they aren't picked at full ripeness and by the time you eat it some of the nutrients has been lost. Plus, it keeps your smoothies cold. If I'm just eating straight fruit though I prefer it fresh, it just tastes better.

Post: #28

I really need to get into this habit. I spend so much money eating out. Just little $6, $7, $8 hits to the credit card for chipotle, subway etc all the time.

Post: #29

Some Sundays, I like to make a big pot of brown rice, this will last a few days.



Also, I will chop onions, garlic, and peppers to add to a ground meat, usually chicken or beef, sometimes lamb or buffalo.

Just put it an bowl with salt, pepper, chili powder and mix it up by hand:



This way, I know I can make a meat patty with rice in about 5 minutes:

Post: #30

I followed Giovanny's tips to make soup.

Here's what I added:

2 lbs beef chuck
Beef broth/water
Potatoes
Carrots
Green onions
Mushrooms
Celery

Various spices I had in my cabinet.

Post: #31

How did it turn out???

Looks pretty good!

It will get better each day as the flavors infuse more and more.

Be sure to store it in a good container!

Post: #32

I'm eating a big bowl right now it tastes great.

I don't cook often and forgot that vegetables shrink while cooking so next time I'm going to add more.

This is gonna last me the rest of the week which is very convenient. Thanks Gio.

Post: #33

I joined just to post on this thread! I'm female... hopefully you don't mind some cooking tips. I will try to avoid all controversial topics!

I do a lot of batch cooking so I can speak to this a bit. I have two "go to" batch breakfasts. The first is pancakes. Find any recipe online and "healthify" it as much as you'd like. Replace the white flour with whole wheat flour, or oat flour (you can make this by grinding down dry oats in a blender or food processor), or another healthier grain flour. Add protein powder. Replace all eggs with egg whites. Replace sugar and oil with mashed bananas. Add in slivered almonds or grated apple or berries, if you'd like. Give it some oomph- I'll add vanilla extract to a banana pancake, or cinnamon to an apple pancake. Grated orange zest is great in a pancake with raspberries. It's pretty hard to make an inedible pancake. Cook the whole batch and store half in the fridge and half in the freezer- a little torn square of wax paper between them will keep them from sticking in the freezer. To re-heat, microwave for about fifteen seconds on each side then pop in the toaster for a minute or so.

My other common batch breakfast is some kind of variation on a breakfast casserole. I roast up lots of vegetables and spread them in a casserole dish. I'll tear up some spinach (no need to cook it) and mix that in too. You could easily add in cooked meat too- shredded chicken breast, bacon, slices of sausage, etc. In a bowl I whisk together egg whites and whatever else I've got on hand- low-fat ricotta, cottage cheese, skim milk, maybe some pesto, etc. and then I pour it over the vegetables. If I feel like I'll also add a "crust" of whole-wheat breadcrumbs, or even cooked quinoa, maybe with some grated parmesan, then I cover with tinfoil and bake until the egg mix has set. At that point uncover it, turn on the broiler in the oven and stick it under the broiler for a minute or two to crisp up the top. Take it out, slice it up and store it in those reusable Ziplock containers in the fridge. If you cook it on Sunday afternoon it will be fine until Friday morning if well-sealed. If you end up with more than five servings this freezes well too (slice into individual servings first). To re-heat, just pop a slice into the microwave for a minute or so (it might help to poke it with a fork first to help the heat reach the middle).

I can also suggest some lunch and dinner ideas that are easy, cheap and safe to cook on the weekend to eat through the week if you'd like.

Post: #34

I like that the only kind of woman who'd attempt to join the forum would be the kind that only offers cooking tips.

Lentils. Cook a bunch, throw em' in the fridge and fry em up with some frozen spinach for slow-carb meals. Also great in quick salads.

Post: #35

Crock pots are fantastic. I also like to cook a shitload of brown rice on sunday, and cook some meats, and partition out meals into containers that I can easily grab at any point in the week. Just stick it in the microwave and you're good to go. Meetballs are especially good for this. I have some free time on the weekends but am very busy in the week so this works well. If I make everything grab-and-go, it's actually easier than eating takeout crap and a hell of a lot cheaper. Use your weekends to cook batch meals and you'll be golden, and saving a ton of money.

Post: #36

(06-01-2014 09:25 PM)runsonmagic Wrote:  Lentils. Cook a bunch, throw em' in the fridge and fry em up with some frozen spinach for slow-carb meals. Also great in quick salads.

+1 to this.

My local market has huge produce clearances each Saturday and this has led to cook in bulk for the week. The remaining vegetables get used for breakfast or lunch.

Start off with legumes -- chickpeas, lentils and splitpeas -- soaked overnight. I'll create a stew out of it in which I'll simmer vegetables and spices for about an hour. I may add couscous or quinoa to vary or potatoes. I find it a far healthier way to fill myself up than rice or pasta -- I'm trying to reduce my carb intake. Our climate and house temperature means I can safely leave it on the stovetop for a couple of days before I would have to pop it in the fridge.

It'll be enough to last 4 dinners and each time around, I'd garnish it with avocado, celery and canned fish. I haven't been serving it with fresh meat though.

Definitely a far healthier student diet than 2 minute noodles and vegemites sandwiches.

Post: #37

I've been make a big ass batch of chili every Sunday for the last 3 months and freezing it in pyrex containers - I get 10 meals out of one batch. It has been a game changer to always have healthy damn-good tasting food on-demand all the time. Being able to heat your food from frozen is key, I can't emphasize that enough.

More recently also been going 100% frozen route for vegetables to use in smoothies and that has helped a shitload as well. I used to buy a batch of kale or collard greens for smoothies and while it would last all week, by the end it was usually all slimey/soft. I don't know why I didn't start this earlier, but ever since I started freezing kale the problem was solved instantly as it freezes quite well. Since that worked so well, I started doing the same thing with with sliced-up celery, apples, bananas, and beets. I put it in gallon freezer-ziplock bags and have around 2 or 3 weeks worth at a time and take it out as I need it.

I don't like the smoothie to be ice cold, so I'll usually run the frozen veggies under hot water and pour more hot water into the blender itself - gets it to the chilled temperature I prefer and is easier on the blender.

I came home drunk and starving the other night, probably would have splurged and got shitty fast food in old days, but I had my chili ready to go.

Once you start living with a freezer-central food system you won't consider going back, it's too damn convenient.

Post: #38

bumping for some new stuff I've been doing.

Typical sunday routine, three "big loads":

1. Soup - approx $20 serves 10-12 bowls. ~$2 a serving

Generic Beef Soup

-couple pounds of beef cubes
-beef broth + water (somewhere around half-half mixture)
-potatoes - cubed
-carrots - small diced chunks
-mushrooms
-celery - small diced chunks
-spices - whatever I have on hand
-red peppers - cut into thin strips
-sometimes broccoli or other assorted veggies

mix everything together, bring to boil and then reduce to simmer. simmer for a couple hours. It's done when the beef cubes fall apart and the potatoes are cooked enough to easily split them with a fork.

2. Chicken and Rice - ~6 bucks. Yields about 4 meals. $1.5 a meal.

-1.5 lb of chiken tenders. Fry em up in a pan with a light coat of veggie oil to help prevent sticking.
-Broccoli - fill up a pot of lightly salted water. Bring to boil. Add broccoli. Bring back to boil and let boil for 7-8 minutes or until done.
-Rice - I use instant white rice for simplicity. Boil water, add rice (I go by package, whatever it calls for 6 servings). Wait 5 minutes, done.
-Baby carrots - straight out of the bag, no prep necessary.

3. Sushi (you may have to youtube how to specifically prepare stuff for sushi if your new to it). $8-10 total. Can yield 4-5 good meals. ~$2 a meal.

-half pound of whatever meat you want. Normally ranges from about 4-6 bucks depending on what you choose.
-one avocado ~$1. - cut into strips, youtube sushi avocado if you need an idea.
-One red bell pepper - not sure of cost, can't be more than a dollar. Cut into then sushi strips. Youtube is your friend.
-Carrots - normally just cut the baby carrots I have left over in half.
-cucumbers - use about half a cucumber, cut into thin strips.
-sushi rice - 2 1/2 cups.

Cook sushi rice first, as you have to let it cook for 25 minutes and then let it cool to room temperature for quite a while. Make sure your constantly stirring it AS IT IS COOLING (no need to stir while cooking), this lets the heat escape evenly so you don't have room temperature rice at the top of the pan and hot rice at the bottom.

Start preparing ingredients as rice is cooling, prepare avocado last (you don't want it to brown. Place it in the fridge or use lemon juice to prevent browning). Once rice is cool, lay some Nori (seaweed that is used to roll sushi) down and load up a roll.

Heres a good video that explains good techniques for rolling. I struggled with having very loose and messy rolls for a while, then I found this video. Actually, the guy has a whole channel that has very good sushi information.







there ya go. In total I have more than enough food for the whole week. Yields somewhere around 20 meals for about 30-35 bucks. You keep costs low by looking for the "manager special" meat. This is meat that is going to past it's "sell by" date normally withint 24-48 hours. Shop in the morning, and prepare throughout the day.

Everything keeps well as long as it refrigerated. You could probably freeze any of this, but I never do. Combine this with a decent breakfast of a few eggs, some oatmeal, and maybe some greek yogurt. You can feed yourself for less than $200 a month in groceries and maintain a healthy and low fat diet. Supplement with protein shakes and your in business.

Post: #39

I really thought the thread said "cocking" a big load for the week.

Was gonna say game section. But this is cool too.

Post: #40

I have never thought of sushi as a "bulk" meal, but it actually makes sense as it's filling, easy to transport and cheap (as long as you don't stuff it with smoked salmon or something like that). The only problem I have is that my rolls are always falling apart. I'll give it a second chance.

Post: #41

(06-29-2014 08:49 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  I have never thought of sushi as a "bulk" meal, but it actually makes sense as it's filling, easy to transport and cheap (as long as you don't stuff it with smoked salmon or something like that). The only problem I have is that my rolls are always falling apart. I'll give it a second chance.

Even if you stuff with it expensive fish it's still pretty cheap. I usually buy half a pound of fish and that is plenty. If you really want to stuff it you can go upwards of 3/4 pound, but that would be pushing it.

Your most expensive supermarket fresh fish is around $12 a pound. At 1/2 pound thats only $6, and $8 for 3/4 pound.

Your veggies, rice, and nori are under $3 total. So at 3/4 pound and $8 + $3 in veggies = $11 for 4-5 meals. Still super cheap and sure as hell beats an $8 lunch burrito or some type of fast food.

As far as your rolls being loose, try the square method in that video above. When cutting, make sure you place the overlapping edge of the nori down so it doesn't looses up as the knife moves back and forth. Use a really sharp knife and apply light downward pressure as you cut back and forth, don't try to force it. Also it helps to get some moisture on the blade before you cut. I usually just run the blade under water, give it a good flick to get rid of the big water droplets and go to town. If halfway through the roll the knife starts to stick, just clean the blade off and rinse and repeat.

I started spreading some spicy mustard in the roll. Adds a bit of flavor for when I'm out and don't have any soy sauce/wasabi.

Post: #42

I'm big on crock pot meals. You can either improvise and use ingredients and spices you like or there's plenty of receips online. It's relatively cheap, easy, super easy cleanup as you just toss the crockpot bowl in the fridge and eat out of it all week.

I think the key is to keep some spices and such around the house. Anytime I cook for a girl I wind up running out buying all these ingredients I don't normally have lying around and spices and such aren't cheap like $4 or $5 a spice so you pickup 3 spices you don't have an your already in for $15.

In the summer I grow a small garden on my patio. Nothing big just a few pots but got strawberries, cilantro, some butter lettuce and various peppers, that saves some money and is a nice little relaxing hobby.

If you do a google searchh on 25 aldi meals for under $150 you can get some ideas I been wworking with a lot of those lately.

One of the easiest things to do is just grab like a pack of chicken breast, marinate all differently so atleast you can mix it up a little throughout the week. You can have chicken various ways, throw into a salad, make some rice or a potatoe on the side, etc.

Post: #43

I'm now to the point where the past two Sundays (counting today) I have two crockpots cooking chili at the same time, a 6 quart and a 4 quart. I had to call in my 4 quart out of retirement because the 6 quart was overflowing with the amounts I'm making.

This sounds off the wall, but lately what I've brainstorming as a next step in this process- is about hiring someone to come over and prepare the meals for me on Sundays to save even more time. Just have them come over and get the food into the slow cooker and running, and then leave. I would still handle putting it into pyrex later. Maybe have them do my laundry too, a little cleaning, etc, depending on pricing.

The usually prep takes me about 1.5-2 hours all told. It's not the duration of time that has me thinking about hiring help as much as it is the interruption and me wanting to have a uninterrupted day of concentration for the things I'm working on - learning Spanish, side hustle stuff, read books (I find my comprehension/retention is much better when I binge-read books and knock them out in a couple days rather than reading a little bit at a time). I have a corporate job and a social life, so Sunday is the only full day I really have to focus 100%. I want to at least price it out and think hard about what those 2 extra hours are worth to me.

Post: #44

I regularly make a big pot of beef stew that usually lasts me about 2 weeks (I put them in tupperware containers and freeze them - defrost what I need the day before). Lately I've been having a big bowl of it daily.

I dice up carrots, potatoes, sweet potatoes and zucchini. Let that cook for about 2 hours or so. Then in a skillet I put in some onion, sweet pepper, jalapeno, celery and garlic. Let that cook for about 5 minutes, then add in the beef stew meat. I season it with various spices (cumin, garlic, paprika, salt, pepper, cloves, cayenne, chili powder). Let that brown for about 10 minutes, then dump the whole contents of that into my big stock pot.

Then I put some more onion, sweet pepper, jalapeno, celery and garlic in the skillet again, add in a few kg of ground beef, season with the same spices as above, brown the beef, then add to my big stock pot, along with a few bay leafs.

Lastly, I get a few pounds of spinach leafs, cook them in a skillet with some olive oil until they reduce down a ton, then dump those into the stock pot.

Then I just let that simmer for a few more hours and just keep adjusting my spices until I get the precise flavor I'm wanting. Finally, to thicken it up, I add some cornstarch and hot water in a bowl, then add to the stew until it's just the right thickness. I like to wait until the next day to eat it, because it tastes just so much better the next day.

This is definitely one of my go-to meals.

Post: #45

^^

Damn that sounds awesome, thanks for posting. I'm looking to switch up to stew soon, now that I've been doing chili for so long.

Post: #46

Forgot to mention that I boil the veggies in water in my stock pot. I never drain anything. It starts off as a veggie soup, but ends up as beef stew when finished. Delicious.

I'm using zucchini because it's currently in season down here. I usually just shop at the farmer's market for my fruits and veggies, thus buying what's in season. The rest grow year-round.

All in all, this is a nutritionally perfect meal. I designed the quantities of meat and vegetables to give me all the vitamins and minerals I need, without having to supplement anything. I think it's really delicious (it was also my favorite meal as a child), and I think I can eat it just about daily. Spicy meat, vegetables, full of nutrition, incredibly filling - what's not to love?

Everybody should cook with spinach daily. You only need such a small amount, and it cooks down next to nothing. Spinach is such a nutritional powerhouse, and it has a very mild flavor.

I have a few go-to meals that I make in bulk, and I rotate between them.

1. beef stew
2. chili
3. thai curry
4. chicken and rice in tomato sauce (latin dish called "pollo en salsa").

These are almost always in my freezer, as I cook them once a week.

Post: #47

Food for a week? I'm not sure most dishes will stay good for one week.

I always have some canned food such as kidney beans, canned tomatoes, chickpeas and some frozen food in house in case I don't want to spend much time cooking.

My favorite quick dish is making a salad with kidney beans, corn and fresh tomatoes and lettuce. Add some lime juice and olive oil and you are finished. Cook some meat, chicken or fish for on the side and you have a complete meal within 5-10 minutes. If you make enough you can eat it for three days.



Second favorite dish. Open a can of mushrooms, fry it in the pan with some chicken or meat, add some sour cream, add some spices and you have a complete dish within 15 minutes.



I can post some more if you want.

Post: #48

(06-30-2014 06:26 PM)turuk Wrote:  Food for a week? I'm not sure most dishes will stay good for one week.

I always have some canned food such as kidney beans, canned tomatoes, chickpeas and some frozen food in house in case I don't want to spend much time cooking.

My favorite quick dish is making a salad with kidney beans, corn and fresh tomatoes and lettuce. Add some lime juice and olive oil and you are finished. Cook some meat, chicken or fish for on the side and you have a complete meal within 5-10 minutes. If you make enough you can eat it for three days.



Second favorite dish. Open a can of mushrooms, fry it in the pan with some chicken or meat, add some sour cream, add some spices and you have a complete dish within 15 minutes.



I can post some more if you want.

Yes, stuff won't last an entire week, day 5 is starts to get dicey. This is why i started going to a next level of crockpot planning. Put half in the fridge, the other half in the freezer. You need to backfill with midweek groceries for about 3 weeks and then you can start rotating.

Day 1-3 - eat the crockpot meal that was cooked most recently
On Day 3 - remove a frozen portion from a previous week and begin thawing
Day 3-6 - eat newly thawed portion
Day 7- Cooking day, you're grocery shopping already so why not eat 1 non crock pot meal once a week.

This is lazy dining at its finest, and is pretty healthy.

Post: #49

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.

Post: #50

This thread title belongs in the hall of fame.