Massive Cook Up - wdyt?

[Danni]

fantastic idea!!

Just before DS was born, I went a bit crazy and stacked the freezer with dinners.
It was the best idea I've ever had and I didnt cook a thing for the first 3 weeks after getting home from hospital.

I cooked a million lasagnes, heaps of bolognese sauce, heaps of different kinds of stirfry (chicken, pork, beef etc), rice dishes, casseroles, sausage stew thingys, soups etc

have fun! And I reckon it will be so worth it

[Lulu]

AND the other thing -

are there any guidelines on freezing? Does rice freeze ok?

I was going to par boil lots of the vegies to freeze as well...

With having milk, bread and cheese delivered I was also hoping to avoid food shopping EVER again, well for a month or so anyway.

[Danni]

There was a segment on Sunrise last week with a lady and her book abuot freezing everything. There was a website but the name eludes me atm....sorry!

I personally do not like rice that is frozen just on its on. I only like it if the rice is coated in a sauce, or in a casserole iykwim? same with pasta

Potatoes shouldnt be frozen apparently, but the occasional few in a stew is ok.

Par boiling is great for vegies. If you over cook them, then freeze them, they turn to mush!

[Lulu]

Hmm, what about mashed potato?

I might check out the sunrise website.

[Danni]

im pretty sure she said thats the main one that goes yuck

[Bathsheba]

Is the cooler weather inspiring you Lulu?

I've just had (actually still having) my first Big Baking Day of the year. It was all because the morning was so cold and I'm too stingy to put on the central heating. So I decided to heat up the house with cooking!

Last night I had some nice home made bread that had gone hard and stale... was going to do a bread and butter pudding... but no jam or marmalade so had to think outside the square... I vaguely recalled a Delia Smith recipe for traditional Christmas pudding that called for a substantial amount of stale bread... so i dug that out and made it up substituting a few things; cooked pear instead of cooked apple... I don't mind experimenting... didn't have any stout but made up the liquid content in other ways... doubled the rum content for example hehe So that has to rest overnight and it was ready to go on this morning for it's 8 hour stint on the stove... yes, 8 hours with the gas burner on warming up our house... perfect.

I also cooked: spanikopita (Greek spinach dish with filo pastry) and a French leek and potato soup! Oh and pancakes (but that was using the cheats Pancake parlour mix)... so lots of stove top use today... and cosy house. It's been so much fun

My kitchen is old too but at least I have a double oven (two, on top of each other) this is my favourite thing and really helps make big baking days easier.... highly recommended if you decide to renovate Lulu! Much better use of space than those new wide ovens.... you can have two ovens on the go at two different settings.

[Roryrory]

Ooh Bath I love a great big cook up Bummer is our place has floorboards throughout so no amount of oven use gets it toasty.

Lulu, if you google "once a month cooking" you will find heaps of stuff on big batch cooking - problem is most sites are US-based so you need to convert from imperial to metric.

Better go - I hear his (little) master's voice....

[LimeSlice]

If you are going to freeze vegies, you are better off just buying frozen veg to begin with - they are usually cheaper and they certainly are better for you - the vitamin ad mineral content is usually a lot higher than fresh veg these days.

As for potatoes and rice, they are fine to freeze if they are cooked adn have a sauce on them to protect them. If you thaw out dry cooked rice, it generally goes crunchy as all the moisture (the thing its cooked in) is released in the thawing process. Same with potatoes and pasta, so they need to be sauced before freezing. iykwim

WRT to the veggies going off before you use them, I make a soup once a week with the left over veggies - potato, pumpkins, zuccinni, broc/cauli, corn, just about anything can be put in to the pot, except capsisums! Doesn't have to be huge, could only do the family for one meal, but it gets rid of the veggies and is really healthy and yummy alternative to throwing them lol!! lo This is what just about every restaurant that serves a soup does btw, helps to keep costs down and you can add anything to it, herbs, curry powder, pasta, rice, or barley, to beef it up....nothing better htan a big fat veggie soup!!

HTH Good luck!