Have any CORE Batch Cooking ideas???

[DreamWalker]

I posted the following in the Hardcore hotties thread. Do any of you batch cook and what are your food prep ideas that work for you???



Chantal, I agree with Eve about meal planning ahead. I tend to take Saturday afternoon and cook up large batches of food for the week even though there is just hubby and me. I have done this even before going on core because we both work, have busy schedules, and it is just plain easier. We cook up a storm, destroy the kitchen in one afternoon, and have great stuff. We also tend to eat healthier and snack less when things are prepped. Some things that batch up well for 3-6 days ahead are:

12 servings 1c each of regular cooking oatmeal, cook top with 1/2 cup frozen blueberries (I find them cheaper at Gordon's Food Service if you have one). We heat it up then top it with yogurt and eat it.

1 dozen crustless spinach quiche cups (recipe is in core recipe section). They freeze well or last 6 days in frig.

12 servings 1c each of diced strawberries and cantelope. Top with cottage cheese on the side, or better yet, mix plain nonfat yogurt with Jello ff sf cheesecake pudding and pour on top. It's dessert for me anytime! I also add a tablespoon of sliced almonds on top (using part of my 5 flex points).

1 huge pot of Tomato cabbage soup, or any broth soup will last for days.

With asparagus in season, we've been making a pot of asparagus soup weekly. Use about 2lbs of asparagus, some onion, garlic, large can chicken broth for your base. Doctor it from there. I set the 1 inch tips aside as I puree the whole pot of cooked asparagus in broth with an electric blender stick (or you can food process it). This makes it thick and then I add the tips back in for a garnish. It's fat free this way and thick. Last night's version had whole shrimp and lemon grass paste in it. Yummy.

1 huge pot of polenta with garlic and basil. Let it cool and put into a dozen or more (1/2 c) in ziplock sandwich bags, flatten em for freezing and especially for a quick microwave thaw. I also use empty crystal lite containers and freeze (cooled, cooked) polenta into tube shapes for slicing and throwing on the grill with grilled peppers, onions. (Recently found some baking tubes I can use.)

1 huge bowl of spicy bean salad easily made with rinsed canned beans, use 2 cans black, 1 can kidney, 1 can cannelini, 2 cans petite tomatoes, small can green chilis, diced celery, onion, peppers, cumin, garlic, curry powder, chili blend, salsa, cilantro, 1 splenda. Pack them in 1/2 cup size throw away clear plastic solo cups and eat during the week or freeze after 5 days. Spicy beans are great on romaine salads, great heated up and thrown on chicken.

Buy 4 quarts of Dannon Plain NON fat yogurt and four flavors of Jello sf ff instant pudding mix. Mix em when you're ready for a new flavor. Make up one in cheesecake flavor (great on strawberries), pistachio (great on cantelope), banana (add banana when serving it), even chocolate fudge is good. My hubby loves the stuff, we have no trouble getting our dairy in.

When you fire up the grill, batch cook. Season a dozen frozen chicken breasts with Tone's Southwest Chipotle Seasoning or your own favorite mix cook em up and you can eat them or dice and freeze them to throw on salads later, etc.

We always have something ready to grab in the frig or freezer. We also keep a lot of fresh veggies cut up, cukes, peppers, zuchinni, etc.

This was an insanely long response I know. But for me, batch cooking is something I have done for years. I'm finally learning to do it the core way and we love it. I hope this helps Chantal and any of you who are struggling with not having enough time or food ideas. Please post any of your batch cooking ideas that work for you. I'd love to hear about them.

[dmarkey]

Wow, DreamWalker, thanks for all those great suggestions. I've copied them.

A couple things I do:

Make a big pot of soup. Freeze 1 cup servings in individual containers. It's wonderful to grab at the last minute to take along with me to work to round out a meal or to have it with a light dinner.

Make big pot of couscous, bulgar or brown rice to have for the week.

If I have leftover rice or veggies that aren't eaten within a few days, I put them in a baggie in the freezer to add to my next batch of soup or casserole.

Thanks again for you great ideas. Can't wait to hear what other batch cookers come up with. I'm all for saving time and having healthy food available!

Diane

[promise2grace]

Great thread!

My favorite big batch thing is Taco Soup. I freeze it in 2 cup containers and eat it for lunch almost every day.

I keep cooked chicken breasts in the freezer. (I toss it in a pot with brown rice as it's cooking, add some green pepper, and cover it with Franks Hot Wing sauce when it's done. Yum!)

I also throw chicken breasts or lean beef in the crock pot with a can of stewed tomatoes, a can of tomato soup, worcestershire sauce, green pepper and whatever other veggies I have on hand. Carrots, usually. Then I make a few servings of brown rice, and freeze the rice with the meat, veggies & sauce. Great easy dinner!

I also make double batches of other soup recipes and baked oatmeal and freeze 'em.

Well begun is half done! (Mary Poppins, I believe!)

[DreamWalker]

What's your taco soup recipe??? I had one from WW a while back but it had so much sodium in it. I watch that closer now, especially near weigh in day because I retain so much water if I eat high sodium meals. Sometimes I gain as much as 3.5 lbs! Your recipes look good! Thanks for sharing.

[oystergirl]

i just posted my quick veggie soup recipe in the core recipes section--but GRACE--i want that taco soup recipe!!! if it rains this weekend, i am totally cooking! :)

[AdamandEve]

I haven't made the leap to batch cooking yet but I am very impressed with what has been posted so far.

I guess the only thing I batch cook is brown rice because it takes so long to cook after work that it is just nice to reheat and serve with dishes.

Eve

[WWCarol]

Wow! Impressive, Lauren! :) I'm in a hurry right now. Can't WAIT til I can come back and savor these posts... :D :bcbsalute

[WWCarol]

Here's a great batch cook recipe:

This is from DC Native on WW's website...it is off-the-charts amazingly GOOD! :D

Also a great candidate for Lauren's Batch Cooking!

One of my favorites. I’m making this tonight. It’s even better the next day and great warmed & poured over a salad for lunch:

Pumpkin Chili Mexicana by DC Native on WW website
Estimated Times:
Preparation - 10 min | Cooking - 40 min | Yields - 6 servings

Pumpkin lends color and nutrients to this creamy Chili Mexicana. Onion, chile peppers, ground turkey and kidney beans seasoned with cumin and chili powder make a zesty and flavorful dish.
Ingredients:
• 2 tablespoons Core oil
• 1/2 cup chopped onion
• 1 cup chopped red bell pepper
• 1 clove garlic, finely chopped
• 1 lb. ground turkey (can substitute Core meat substitute or other lean ground meat)
• 2 cans (14.5 oz each) diced tomatoes, undrained
• 1 can (15 oz.) LIBBY'S 100% Pure Pumpkin
• 1 can (15 oz.) tomato sauce
• 1 can (15.25 oz.) kidney beans, drained
• 1 can (4 oz.) ORTEGA Diced Green Chiles
• 1/2 cup whole kernel corn
• 1 tablespoon chili powder
• 1 teaspoon ground cumin
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
Directions:
HEAT vegetable oil in large saucepan over medium-high heat. Add onion, bell pepper and garlic; cook, stirring frequently, for 5 to 7 minutes or until tender. Add turkey; cook until browned. Drain.

ADD tomatoes with juice, pumpkin, tomato sauce, beans, chiles, corn, chili powder, cumin, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low. Cover; cook, stirring occasionally, for 30 minutes.

NOTES:

This page is from Very Best Baking's web site. For more great recipes, visit VeryBestBaking.com

Any time I homecook beans or whole grains or soup, I make too much and freeze portions. The garbanzos can easily be made into hummus or roasted chickpeas or thrown in a salad. I also put the beans on top of grains and add vegetables. These are very easy things to "throw together".

I make Charski's Chow Chow (a pickled vegetables recipe using green tomatoes, Splenda, vinegar, spices and many other vegetables)...it can make anything taste GREAT! It fills a 10 quart stockpot and makes enough to freeze for a year! :eek: And I always use it up! (See "Miscellanceous Recipes Forum").

I, too, make a VAT of Snowqualmie oats at a time, and then just toss in 20 g. of raisins, a dash of cinammon, and I eat mine with FF milk and sucanat.

GREAT ideas, Buddies! :bcbsalute

[DreamWalker]

oooh Carol! That sound so good. I am definitely going to make that one soon. I will also check out the recipe for the pickled vegies. I make something similar and we eat it all the time. Thanks Diane, Oyster, Carol and Eve for your comments and ideas. I hope we get even more in the weeks ahead.

[itsjustme]

I don't really batch cook because my finicky family isn't fond of defrosted meals (don't ask :ugh: ) but when we had a freezer eons ago, I used to cook parts of meals so I could throw it together when I was "cooking" the nightly meal. I'd boil 5 pounds of ground beef and bag it in 8oz baggies (found that 8oz of meat was really all we needed for most meals). I would also slice/dice some cooked bnls chicken breasts and leave a few whole ones. Onions and green peppers were also sliced and frozen in baggies - couldn't eat these raw, but they were fine to throw in soups, on pizza or in spanish rice. Anything that helped get the meal on the table a little quicker worked great for us.

[DreamWalker]

Onions and green peppers, that's a good idea. I wonder if grilling a batch and freezing them would be good for later? Thanks Pam.

[WWCarol]

I'd say, "Definitely!", Lauren. We grill lots of chicken breasts at a time and freeze them whole.

We also grill and freeze the Costco chicken sausages that are 2 points each (great with beans or other dishes~and I just count the 2 WAPs).

I also "poach" chicken breasts. Bring chicken to "simmer" in pre-boiled water and "simmer" for 10 minutes. I chop and freeze these to add to salads/dishes. The poaching leaves them very tender~

Pre-grilling imparts a wonderful flavor that carries through, even after freezing~ :bcbsalute

[itsjustme]

Are you talking about grilling the veggies or the chicken? The veggies would be soggy - the chicken would be great!

I haven't done this, but you coud easily make a bag of frozen soup veggies by dicing peppers, onion, carrots and celery and freezing those. They wouldn't have that same crunch in the soup, but the flavor would be good and it would save a lot of time.

[WWCarol]

My family and I would LIKE the soggy grilled vegetables! ;) :D

Carmelized onions are soggy, too, and we love them! :)

I got some great "fire-roasted corn" at Trader Joe's that is worth-every-penny for the great flavor it imparts (to whatever you add it to!) :bcbsalute

[DreamWalker]

I'll have to look for that fire roasted corn Carol. Sounds good. Thanks!

[DreamWalker]

Still looking for more ideas. Any one else??

[WWCarol]

Lauren~ I found BLACK BEAN SAUCE! Only it says, "Black Bean And Garlic Sauce"...! Normally I don't like garlic-flavor except for fresh! But I wanted to try this...You said just to add some to some stir-fry vegetables, right?

On batch cooking, anytime I make: homecooked garbanzos or pintos or black-eyed peas, I batch up 1/2 and 1 cup containers to freeze.

Anytime I pressure cook: wheat berries, oat groats, spelt, hulled barley (or a mix of grains), I batch up in 1/2 and 1 cup containers to freeze.

After a day of left-overs, I freeze (and label) the rest. It's always fun to find something wonderful to eat like that! :) I made and froze a Red Pepper Alfredo sauce over whole wheat spaghetti and a Tofu Alfredo sauce that BOTH seemed to get "better" with freezing! :confused:

I also freeze any left-over: anchovies, chipolte peppers in adobo sauce, tomato paste, lemon zest (from organic lemons), roasted garlic cloves, etc. in teeny-tiny little containers~ :)

[Sus E]

Tell me that you ladies have an extra FREEZER in your garage or something???? I don't batch cook, but it sounds awesome. My dh is also finicky about defrosted stuff, but sauces, soups and all would be great............but we don't have any room in the freezer. Right now it's full to the gill with the normal stuff. Maybe one of these days when I come home from the kosher market with my meat, I can think ahead and cook some stuff up before freezing it. The thought is good, but the reality is, it never happens. So are the woes of a mom of 2 young ones! But fun to hear how the rest of you do it!

[DreamWalker]

Hey Carol, tell me about the wheat berries. How are they? What do you do with them, a salad perhaps?? I must be having a brain fade moment. I can't remember about black bean garlic sauce, but it sounds darned good. Let us know!

Sus - we don't have a freezer, but we do have a second frig/freezer downstairs for overflow. It does help. A lot of what I batch up and make we eat within the week. i.e., I made a huge salad of fava beans, chick peas, cukes, onion, cherry tomatoes. It is great.

[judyjudyjudy]

I pretty much just cook for myself during the week, so my favorite thing to do is to make the "Deli Roasted Chicken" in my Crock Pot, and either make WW 1 Pt. Chili or the Garden Vegetable Soup and freeze it in 1 or 2 C. portions. That way I can use the chicken during the week to put over salads, make a chicken burrito with 98% FF Tortilla for 2 pts. (Add salsa, lettuce, FF cheese, etc.) Or a burrito out of chicken, FF Refried beans, and Brown Rice with salsa. Very yummy. Some nights, I just have chicken with salad and a vegetable, maybe a cup of garden vegetable soup. I've also got the 1 pt. Chili & Soup for lunch at work with a side salad. (Always keep bags of pre-made salad on hand too.)

[sodacracker]

On a whim tonight ( and that tells you something about how exciting my Saturday nights are :embarrass :)), I decided to make up some Core foods to get me through the next few days. I made:


crustless quiche (from Momma25),
Core granola (rye flakes, irish oatmeal, rolled oats, quick cook oats, 1 tbsp fructose and cinnamon and toasted until very toasty brown),
summer muesli,
1 container ff sour cream mixed with ff/sf pudding mix
1 large container ff yogurt mixed with ff/sf pudding mix.
a large pan of roasted vegetables ( started with frozen baby brussel sprouts, a package of baby carrots, asperagus, quartered endive, yellow zucchini, green zucchini, peppers, sweet potato and white potato and tossed all in some olive oil and salt and pepper). Delicious hot or cold.
oat scone ( from WWCarole) with added molasses and skim milk powder (the molasses adds 4 WPA's to the recipe).
I am going to try freezing some of the quiche in individual squares to thaw out for work and some of the oat scone.

Happy eating Core followers!

[WWCarol]

Gosh, Lauren...I probably got you mixed up with somebuddy else again...! :p ;)

The wheat berries can be used in a cold grain salad. I'll pull up a recipe in Bread And Grains forum that I posted once. I never pointed it, though, but it gives you an idea of how cold-grain salads work~

SusE~ I DO have a freezer in the garage, but since I just read "French Women Don't Get Fat" I've been buying small amounts of seasonal fruits/veggies and cooking them up same day~ The OPPOSITE of "batch cooking"... ;) It's really been fun~ :) I wonder how long this will last?... :kiss:

[Sus E]

Well, that's pretty much what I do, guess I should be a skinny french woman, huh? (haven't read the book, just taking from your comment) :)

Anyway, I'm realizing that I need to work on not only cooking a little more at a time, but also I need to work on doing stuff with the leftovers. A couple of weeks ago, I made my usual chicken soup with more chicken than usual, and took the chicken out once the soup was done, with the hopes of using it again later in the week. It sat all week till it got gross and I had to throw it out. awful. I'm getting lots of good ideas here though.

[sodacracker]

bumping up for all the new Core folk asking for ideas!

[MarilynP]

This would be a good "sticky", as we always seem to be looking for it. Admins?

[cgwoolf]

I've been batch cooking for a few years now - cook on the weekend for the following week as I have to make meals for my mom. Thank goodness we all love leftovers. I bounce back and forth between Core and Flex but do mostly Core. I fix the WW veggie soup or Taco Soup - one of them almost every week. I buy lots of lettuces, wash, spin them dry in my spinner and break them up in large plastic container to have easy salads on hand. Then I cut up onion, bell pepper, carrots, etc in another container and we can just throw them together before work and have a nice salad and cup of soup to take with us. I cook beans and brown rice, spaghetti, chili, polenta mexican casseroles, meatloaf, lots of veggies.

I plan my meals for the next week usually on Wed, grocery shop usually on Thurs and cook usually on Sat. Then we just microwave each nite. I also do chickens on grill and in crockpot. Make chicken salads and chicken and rice casseroles. Use shrimp with green salads. Grill shrimp and veggies. The list goes on an on. It's fun and easy thing to do on Sat.

[MarilynP]

I made a big pan of roasted winter veg yesterday (onions, turnip, butternut squash, carrots and parsnips) drizzled with a little oil, add salt and pepper, and roast in the oven. I put them in separate pans so I could take them out as they finish. If you are making less, just don't mix them up in the pan. That way you can fish them out easily as they cook. The squash finishes first, the turnip last.

I also made a huge batch of curried vegetables. Cut up the cauliflower and cooked until tender-crisp. Don't overcook. Then roasted cut up red peppers and onions in the oven (LOL same pans as the winter veg - less washing up with batch cooking!). Add tomato sauce which has been spiced up with curry powder and garam masala. (Last week I just used curry powder and it was good too.) Grated some garlic in to give it zip.

Then made a big pot of split pea soup, just using the recipe on the package.

I will take the curry to work and eat it with either canned salmon or butter beans. Soup also will go to work.

[Paris Madeleine]

Yum! That puumpkin chili sounds beyond fab! I am gonna have to try that one!

I am batch cooking for the week, some today and some tomorrow. So far I am roasting a 4lb chicken, making guac for raw veggies, triple batch of chipotle egg salad and a few quarts of sweet potato and black bean stew.

[plcm111195]

and a few quarts of sweet potato and black bean stew.

Is this a recipe from these boards that I missed?
Sounds yummy. Can you point me in the right direction?
:buddysmoo

[Medb48]

I cook up a large batch of Turkey sausage, onions and peppers and then add my 0 point tomato sauce. I freeze 1/2 for a quick meal over rice.

[Paris Madeleine]

Is this a recipe from these boards that I missed?
Sounds yummy. Can you point me in the right direction? :buddysmoo As soon as I try it out, I will post it. It's a combination of recipes that I've used before but you never know, LOL. :buddysmoo

[WWCarol]

Paris~ Let me know if you like the Pumpkin Chili.....The texture is fantastic and the definition of "comfort food"! :D :bcbsalute

I'm wondering if I posted it under Core recipes. I sure hope I did!

[ghouliegrrrl]

Hi everyone!

I can't find the crustless quiche recipe - and I *love* quiche. Can someone point me to it?

Thank you!
Nathan (the girl with a boy's name)

[plcm111195]

Hi everyone!

I can't find the crustless quiche recipe - and I *love* quiche. Can someone point me to it?

Thank you!
Nathan (the girl with a boy's name)

This one's in the Breakfast Foods forum:
http://www.healthdiscovery.net/forums/showthread.php?t=69739