Between shuttling the kids to daycare (yes even though I work at home daycare is a necessity in my day job), shopping, doing errands, oh yeah and doing that thing called Full time work, I just could not find the time to cook batches of chicken or beef.
I could have done it on the weekends but let's face it. In our busy world are weekends are filled doing all the things that we could not get done during the week right? Or if you are like me, between the shopping and cleaning you are spending as MUCH time focused on your kids and family then you are on actually cooking.
TIP: If you are one of my super couponing friends then this method is PERFECT for you! After you have stocked up on your super meat sales at the grocery store, you don't even have to plan what to do with your meat! I generally like to cook HALF of my quantity of meat in the batch and leave the other half uncooked for my smoosh meals/4 meals in 4 minutes
So, WAHM Dinner Guide to the rescue!
As I had mentioned before in ______________ using your lunch hour or other scheduled breaks during your work day is a GREAT way to start the kitchen battle. I can think of no great time well spent then that of cooking up 6-8 lbs of chicken or 5 + lbs of beef! Think about it, if you were to cook that much meat in only one hour, that shaves off 30 minutes to an hour of prep time PER MEAL!
So if you wanted to make tacos the first step is the cooking of beef right? Well, if you are anything like me in my crazy life, I'm lucky that I had the foresight to serve the taco dinner shortly after buying the ground beef. That stuff spoils quickly! If you've ever taken a look at the best by date on the package it usually hits that date 1-2 days after you buy it! Which is why doing batch cooking is such a great thing!
No, I don't really add things up in my recipes for the month and just precisely determine how much ground beef I'm going to cook for given recipes. But I do know that on average a recipe calls for 1 lb of meat. If it calls for more or less my 1lb cooked is still just right. Just think of all the possiblities that can come from having cooked ground beef or chicken on hand! Even if you are not a planner like me, you can easily look in your freezer and come up with several menus with some simple pantry staples on hand.
Let's take a look:
Ground Beef:
- Tacos - need I say more? (make it with our Taco Soup mix and it is super yummy, just add in 2 T when you reheat the beef on the stovetop and bam, you've got tacos!)
- Shepherd's Pie
- Beef and Biscuit Hot Dish
- Sloppy Joe's
- Mix into spaghetti sauce (Homemade Gourmet of course!)
- Tater Tot Casserole
- Chicken Salad - try some of our chicken salad mixes to think outside the box! (Cilantro Lime Chicken Salad, Tropical Chicken Salad Mix)
- Poppy Seed Chicken Casserole (I like to make mine without the poppy seeds! Find a yummy recipe here: cooks.com)
- Chicken Quesadillas - just heat up and throw on some cheese and taco season and you're good to go!
- Broccoli and Garlic Lemon Chicken Casserole - when I make it with my batch cooked chicken I just add the garlic lemon at the time of preparation of the dish, still tastes delicious!
Use your imagination! The possibilities are endless! Any recipe that requires you to cook your chicken or beef before preparing the dish can be made this way. Just add the required seasonings at the time you are reheating the meat!
This has become a HUGE time saver for me. Okay, so now I've talked you into it, but HOW do I do it?
Well there are several ways:
Chicken:
You can slow cook as may chicken breasts as will fit in your slow cooker.
You can cut up into cubes or slices and saute in a pan until done
Poach
You can grill them all up TIP! Another way to slowly build up some easy meals is to throw in one or two extra breasts or steaks or whatever into your marinade and COOK them with the dinner you make that night. Then freeze the extras for another night! Cook once and serve twice!
My favorite method, is to BAKE the chicken. I just love the flavor of a roasted chicken versus any other method and it is VERY hands off! While at lunch I just preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Then when ready I put all my chickens on a baking sheet and place them all at once in my oven and let them go for 30-45 minutes. I like to do this with FROZEN chicken. I don't even have to thaw them out. I keep an eye on them about 10 minutes before hand to make sure I don't dry them out but then they just cool. After cooled I simply cut them up into cubes, throw into a freezer bag then into the freezer!
I usually store them in 2 cup portions since that is a typical amount called for in recipes.
EASY!
Beef:
Microwave - yes you can, I don't but you can
Fry in a pan - if you have a pan large enough or a few pans you can do this. Try not to crowd too many lbs into one pan as I find that the juice that is rendered tends to steam the beef rather than brown it. I like a nice brown and crisp beef.
I like to use my LARGE oval electric skillet for this task. It is wide and deep so it can fit alot of beef and cooks evenly around. This does require that you at least be in the kitchen making your lunch or on a conference call on MUTE on a portable phone!
I store mine in 1lb portions FLAT in a freezer bag.
I hope that this gives you confidence to do some mini batches in your small breaks during the day. The time savings is huge!
TIP: You will become so used to having pre-cooked meat on hand that you may sometimes forget that you have run out! Keep a little list on the fridge with the number of bags and just mark each tic mark off as you use it so you know when you are getting low!
No comments:
Post a Comment