Cookin again

[prabe]

One thing I do to avoid that onion issue is I often prep a bunch of them and freeze them. I’ve got at least a pound of plain yellows rolled up in a cylindrical “chub” in my freezer right now,

I do the same for other onions, garlic, and things like parsley, peppers and celery, too. Often, I’ll take a few hours and do a whole bunch of veg chopping to get it out of the way all at once.

Not only does it minimize your losses to spoilage, it also cuts the amount of cleaning you have to do, AND it can cut your meal prep time immensely,

Depending on your knife skills, you could possibly use a food processor to cut up onions in bulk this way. I bought two red bell peppers yesterday, and the second recipe is for early next week; I might cut up the second when I'm doing prep today and freeze it. Depends on how much room we have in our little freezer, of course. We've been meaning to buy a chest freezer since we moved into this house almost a year ago, but this is not a good time to try to find such a thing, let alone buy one. With just the two of us, we can get a lot of food into the freezer built into our fridge, though; I think we'll be fine.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I have a good food processor*, but I don’t use it as often as I should. As clumsy as I can seem with a knife, I prefer them. Gets me necessary practice time, if nothing else. I DID, however, just see some celebrity chef use one of the alternative blades on hers so do some shredded Brussels sprouts. I may have to try some of our other blades. Might not be using my mandolin as much...

For 2 people, a chest freezer is probably overkill...unless you cook big meals like roast suckling pig, or Thanksgiving for 30. Or you want to have an ice-cream stand’s worth of your favorite flavors on hand.




* 2 actually, but that’s another story

 

[prabe]

For 2 people, a chest freezer is probably overkill...unless you cook big meals like roast suckling pig, or Thanksgiving for 30. Or you want to have an ice-cream stand’s worth of your favorite flavors on hand.

We don't use our food processor as often as we should, either.

We were probably going to get about as small a chest freezer as we could find, and then try to run out less often for food. Among other things, there's a meat counter near here that has some large package deals available, and the only to make that worthwhile for the two of us is to freeze the meat.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

You don’t want to go too small, either- they’re just not as energy efficient.

We usually have a few steaks and rib roasts in our freezer, plus some hamburger, homemade hot sausage, a couple pounds of bacon, crab, oysters and shrimp for uncooked proteins stashed away. As mentioned, we also keep some prepped veggies.

Most of the rest is cooked foods, either leftovers, or stuff intentionally cooked in advance to have things on hand that could be quickly reheated or transported. So, for instance, I know I gave a few servings of gumbo, a few containers of red beans, and some cabbage, all ready to thaw & eat.

The trick is making sure you don’t lose things in there. Every once in a while, we find some forgotten slab of wooly mammoth that’s been in there just a tad to long to be palatable...

So if you DO get a freezer, make a plan!

One thing we do is keep most of the raw stuff in one area and the cooked in another, as much as possible. That minimizes the amount of digging around I have to do.

Another thing is we invested in food preservation systems. Ziplock freezer bags are great, but they’re not perfect and they are of limited reusability. So while we still use them, we’ve added 2 things to the kitchen.

1) a vacuum sealer. They really do an excellent job with things like raw steak or veggies you like to cook/eat in large amounts. That lets you take advantage of sales. And since they suck the air out of the container, freezer burn is MUCH less likely.

2) Rubbermaid Brilliance storage containers. Clear, stackable, dishwasher and microwave safe, I use these mostly for storing leftovers. The ONLY downside is I can’t label them like a freezer bag.

 

[abe ray]

Anyone ever try dungeons and dragons soup( it’s found on food.com if it helps)

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Never heard of it!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I did fancy grilled cheese sandwiches & tomato basil soup for lunch today. (Good Friday.)

Each person’s sandwich was a unique combo of 3 cheeses, each on a different kind of bread. Dad got American, Swiss and smoked Gouda on white. Mom was served Boursin, Swiss and smoked Gouda on roasted garlic. I had Boursin, American and smoked Gouda on oatnut.

The tomato soup was bought at Market Street yesterday, reheated. I personally added cracked pepper, parsley, chive and radish sprouts to mine. Definitely a winning combination of flavors, IMHO.

 

[Fenris-77]

Making some low key nachos and going to binge watch season 2 of Star Wars Rebels tonight with my kids. It doesn't always have to be fancy. That said, I've seen a staggering number of people with really bad nacho assembly skills. I thought that was a base level human competency, but apparently not.

 

[Vael]

Made risotto the other night ... I love making risotto in a pressure cooker, I dislike standing over a stovetop that long.

 

[CleverNickName]

My sourdough starter is coming along nicely.

Very nicely.