Give it the freeze
It may have felt like it’s been forever, but it looks like there may be light at the end of the tunnel. With a national roadmap in place to return to a little normality, you may now be starting to look at making some tentative plans for 2021.
However, it’s the return of schools next month that many are focusing on. This means that many parents who have been at home could be returning to the workplace. And that means meal times changing for everyone in the house.
It’s not easy planning meals and cooking for the family at the best of times. When everything is up in the air, and you’re unsure when you can get a supermarket delivery, it makes it even harder. Combine that with the possibility of isolating and changes in everyday circumstances and what to serve up becomes a minefield.
It’s times like these where batch cooking comes into its own!
Batch cooking is a fantastic way to plan and prepare meals in advance so that, after a long day, you can have healthy, home-cooked meals that only need heating through. It’s great for people with busy lives and saves you time, money, and waste.
If batch cooking sounds like something you should be doing, then we recommend:
• clearing a space in your freezer so you can do as much planning as possible
• stocking up good, robust and reusable freezer bags for efficient portion storing
• investing in some good freezer-safe ovenproof dishes if you don’t own any.
If you have all this sorted, you are ready to go!
When it comes to what to cook, then the world is your oyster. Many dishes are freezable and can be defrosted and reheated without compromising on taste or quality. Some recipes require cooking through and then cooling before being frozen. Others, such as lasagne and shepherd’s pie, can be taken to the point before you put it in the oven and then cooled and frozen. These can then be removed from the freezer, thawed and baked when you’re ready.
Batch cooking shouldn’t stifle your creativity either. Some think of staple dishes like lasagne (as we mentioned earlier) and don’t deviate from these. Stews, curries, tagines and pasta bakes also make for fabulous batch meals though and can be frozen and reheated successfully. You can even add things like Yorkshire puddings, pasties and soups to your batch cooking list.
So, to get you started, here are a few useful tips for successful batch cooking:
• Freeze individual portions if you know your family don’t always eat together.
• Use strong, reusable freezer bags to store your meals as they use space in the freezer far more efficiently than storage containers.
• Expel as much air as possible in the food bags before sealing to create more space in your freezer.
• If you’re planning on cooking a few months ahead, it’s worth remembering that vegetarian dishes keep longer than those containing meat.
• If you are cooking for that day, double quantities to give you extra portions to freeze.
• Remove portions from the freezer before you go to work in the morning to allow enough time to thaw thoroughly (and check everything is defrosted before cooking).
• Invest in a good freezer pen to label everything clearly – it’s a fact that everything starts to look the same when frozen!
• If you have a big freezer and a freezer-to-oven dish, use them for pies to make it easier to reheat.
If you’ve read all of this and like the sound of batch cooking, but not the actual cooking part, fear not. Parties to Go have a fantastic drop and go delivery service offering a week’s worth of freshly cooked meals for whenever you need them. Enjoy fresh or pop them in the freezer for another day when you can take them out, leave them to defrost and then cook for the whole family to enjoy. Our menu includes family favourites such as shepherds pie and lasagne (both meat and vegetarian options) as well as dishes such as Thai green curry, beef goulash and sticky honey and ginger chicken. We even offer a range of desserts that can be frozen too, including our fabulous banoffee pie and brownies.
If you don’t live in and around Wimbledon, companies across the UK are also offering a similar service. There are plenty of sites online showcasing local food delivery and many other blogs that have featured some of the best. It’s a great way to feed your family whilst supporting a local business that may have been affected by the pandemic.
