Bulk Cooking Club

[MareMare]

Hey all! Does anyone do bulk cooking/once a month cooking or anything else to help you make easy meals in the future? Would you like to? I'm going to start doing some things on saturdays or sundays to help me during the week, including making freezer meals, crockpot meals, cooking large portions of meat, and prepping things like hard boiled eggs or cooking rice/cauliflower rice for the coming week. If anyone's interested in joining me, please post so we can share our meal plans and cooking tips!

--Today we bought 6.5 lbs of hamburger at Costco and I cooked 5 lbs with onion, green pepper, and garlic (seasoned with seasoned salt and granulated garlic). After draining and cooling, I portioned into approx. 1 lb bags and put in the freezer for future meals of tacos, burritos, taco salads, etc. I portioned the other 1.5 lbs out into hamburgers and packaged and froze those as well.

--I riced (finely shredded in a food processor) a head of cauliflower and cooked it up to use in meals this week.

--I hard boiled a dozen 7 eggs to make deviled eggs and to eat some on salads this week.

Other things I'm planning in future bulk cooking days:

Making up meatloaves and meatballs to freeze.
Lasagnas and other casseroles (enchiladas, enchilada casseroles)Typically I would make one of these to cook immediately and another 1 or 2 to put in the freezer.
Soups, chilis, and stews.
Roasting or boiling a couple chickens
Crockpot~shredded chicken or pork, swiss steak, mushroom pork
Cooking rice/pasta/potatoes/beans ahead of time to use in later meals (we're low carbing it, so not a lot of this for us)
Spaghetti Sauce


ETA~ I thought it might be nice to have a format that we could post each week. You can post (or not post, we're easy!) any or all of the following once a week or once a month or whenever you feel like. Honestly, I may use my weekly post to organize my meal plan and keep track of what I want to make

~1 Recipe a week that you would like to try or that you love and would like to share
~Meal plans (daily/weekly)
~Freezer meals or components you are freezing
~Your prep list
~Grocery shopping tips/lists
~These are just some ideas

[kaz814]

I'm in!  I made a big pot of soup for lunches this week, tomato chicken in the crockpot for dinners (should get me for 4 dinners or so, paired with rice) and lentil and rice tacos (again, 4 dinners). 

I didn't freeze anything today, but I might put the tacos in the freezer.  I don't know if the tomato chicken would freeze well, but the soup would, so extras might go in there, too.

[TroubleT]

Kaz, the tomato chicken should freeze just fine. I've found that you can freeze most all cooked meats but there are some veggies that don't survive freezing well, like potatoes.

We will cook a large item or two over the weekend and then, use leftovers in a different dish. For example, we will be putting a pot roast in the crock pot tomorrow with veggies and any left over meats will be used either in soft tacos or quesadillas later in the week.

Since I bought a pressure cooker, my husband has become very interested in canning all kinds of stuff. Last weekend, he made 3 different types of soups and canned most all of them. He calls them his experiment. If it turns out well, he wants to make this a regular thing here. 

[kaz814]

It has sour cream in it - will it get gross?  I guess there's only one way to find out.

And what kinds of soups did your hubby make, T?

[MareMare]

Nice planning, kaz! Do you take lunches to work? Another thing I need to work on is make lunches for my mom to take to work, she usually skips lunch.

Yay that your hubby's involved, T! I love that kind of thing where you cook one meat and then use it for a couple meals.

[kaz814]

Yep!  I buy a big bag of salad, a bottle of dressing, cut up some other veggies and my soup every day.  I have access to a fridge I can keep the salad and accoutrements in for the week, which is really nice.

I would think I'd get bored with it, but I haven't yet and am on year 3 of making it (I think?  Maybe it's year 2?  I don't even know.)    

[PixieVal]

This is fantastic. We have been talking more and more about doing this recently, but I really can never think of where to start.. this is where we are so far:
hubby grills steak and chicken over the weekend for the week
I make rice for the week on the weekend
I try to double up when I make casseroles and then freeze the other half
then we make the sides throughout the week

I will definately cook along with you guys so I can get ideas and help!

[MareMare]

Yay! I'm glad other people like the idea too!

kaz, you must make some great salads and soups to stick with that for so long!

Val, can your hubs grill me some chicken and steak too? Thanks!

[everkutz]

I did this years ago when my kids were younger and I was working.  It was SO WORTH the effort cooking ONE day and eating well for several days (and weeks) after that.   I recently thought about cooking up a few pounds of hamburger with chopped onions and freezing it in meal size portions.  Then when we want casseroles or tacos or even Hamburger Helper, the meat is cooked and the mess and odor are gone. 

Happy Cooking everyone!

[MareMare]

I did this years ago when my kids were younger and I was working.  It was SO WORTH the effort cooking ONE day and eating well for several days (and weeks) after that.   I recently thought about cooking up a few pounds of hamburger with chopped onions and freezing it in meal size portions.  Then when we want casseroles or tacos or even Hamburger Helper, the meat is cooked and the mess and odor are gone. 

Happy Cooking everyone!

Awesome, I bet you have some great tips to share with us!