How do you have time to cook it all? - Page 2

[velcromom]

Planning the menu is important, but most helpful to me is having written out the tasks required to make batches of things to freeze or store, so I don't have to do the entire process each time I want to serve something. I don't do each thing on the list every month. I have it saved as a chart with the item, frequency I should make it, and quantity I should make.

My task list:

bone broth once a month 1 gal
enchilada sauce once a month 6 pints
pizza sauce once a month 3 pints
soaked grain pilaf once a month 8 pints
soaked beans once a month 8 pints
crispy nuts once a month 1lb
baked oatmeal once a month
soaked grain blender batter waffles once a month
soaked grain muffins once a month
acv/olive oil salad dressing twice a month

ferments as needed -
pickles (dill, bread & butter)
carrots (like ginger carrots, only no ginger)
sauerkraut
yogurt/filmjolk

[Rasa]

My comment about freezing flour post-grinding (as a time/nutrient saver) was in line with this post:
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/880...#comment-70591

Enzyme activities slow WAY down with freezing...slowing down the activity of the enzymes which may oxidize oils/degrade nutrients AND the available oxygen (by carefully packing the flour before freezing) will, I believe, prolong freshly-ground flour's shelf-life. Not sure which specific enzymes may be responsible for degradation but I know that there are also enzymes worth preserving--for example, phytase. Phytase is highest in freshly ground flour--that's the enzyme which degrades phytic acid...so freezing freshly ground flour will also help preserve phytase activity (which is a good thing IMO).

[krankedyann]

Originally Posted by JMJ

krankedyann, can I just come eat at your house? It certainly would make things easier if I would get a little more organized. How long does it take you to put together a list like that for the week? I'd better get going. Tomorrow is shopping day.

LOL, you're welcome to come join me for dinner anytime!

It takes me several hours to write a full mailer plus I take the time to test the recipes and make sure everything is right. I'd say it's between 5-8 hours a week total. 2-3 of that is actual writing, maybe an hour choosing what to fix and deciding on the final recipe to test and the rest in the kitchen. I cluster test the recipes a week or two before they're published, in small batches- I normally cut the recipe into quarters for testing. Those small batches get consumed for lunch, go into the 'leftovers' pile for weekend consumption, gets packaged up and frozen for quick meals later or sent to my parent's house for them to eat.

Depending on how many times I get interrupted, I can usually do a personal menu plan for my family in under 20 minutes now that I have all possible meals written out by season for B, L and D on a separate sheet in my personal binder and all of my favorite recipes in my head, more or less. When I first started it took me around an hour.

[openpollination]

Originally Posted by velcromom

Planning the menu is important, but most helpful to me is having written out the tasks required to make batches of things to freeze or store, so I don't have to do the entire process each time I want to serve something. I don't do each thing on the list every month. I have it saved as a chart with the item, frequency I should make it, and quantity I should make.

My task list:

bone broth once a month 1 gal
enchilada sauce once a month 6 pints
pizza sauce once a month 3 pints
soaked grain pilaf once a month 8 pints
soaked beans once a month 8 pints
crispy nuts once a month 1lb
baked oatmeal once a month
soaked grain blender batter waffles once a month
soaked grain muffins once a month
acv/olive oil salad dressing twice a month

ferments as needed -
pickles (dill, bread & butter)
carrots (like ginger carrots, only no ginger)
sauerkraut
yogurt/filmjolk

This makes so much sense to me! I've been trying to eat about 80% TF for over 7 months now, and at the beginning it was so overwhelming. I had to soak everything for long periods of time, and think ahead about what I might want the next night, or face the consequences. I eat a lot of breakfasts of just raw milk smoothies (with lots of protein in them) because I forget to soak my oatmeal, or I don't want to clean the blender to make brown rice pancakes.

If I meal plan, I inevitably fail because I won't be hungry for something one night, and then I feel bad shifting it to another day of the week, and it just goes down in flames from there. I try to do what velcromom does, and have a list of things to have on hand constantly. Veggie stock or bone broth are my big ones, so I can make some brown rice quickly using them and eat it with roasted root veggies (my typical quick meal). Or making soaked granola and having a large jar of it ready for snacks. Having the freezer stocked (10lbs of good butter! soaked pizza crust! frozen chicken stock!) has also been really helpful, and having a rhythm for refreshing my cultures (water kefir, buttermilk) has worked out great. Like any new habit, it has taken time to develop, but now that the foundation is there I feel much more confident and less stressed out about the seemingly daunting amount of prep needed to eat this way.

[krankedyann]

Originally Posted by momofmine

We do a lot of crock pot roasts, but my family seems to eat it all in one sitting. But when we do have leftovers, it always seems hard and chewy later, and just not as good as fresh from the crock pot. How do you use the leftover roast that you freeze?

Thanks!

One of the biggest keys of batch cooking is to remove what you want to keep from the crock-pot and hide it or put it away before announcing that dinner is ready. I get by with this because I turn on PBS and let them watch Between the Lions while I'm wrapping up dinner in the kitchen, so I don't get interrupted. I usually pull it out of the crock-pot and hide it in the oven in a bowl before calling everyone and starting to fix plates- we fix plates at the stove instead of at the table, because little people are prone to spill cups into the serving bowls on the table. When you have company for dinner.

If it's hard and chewy, I'd guess you've got a newer crockpot or one that runs hotter and it's overcooked OR you're cooking it on High which tends to dry the meat out more. Depending on the size, always cook on low and start checking the temp with a probe thermometer after 6-8 hours, remembering that every time you lift the lid, you're adding 30 minutes to the cooking time. Also, grass-fed will cook totally different than grain fed and needs much less cooking time. If I'm using a grass-fed roast, sometime I'll pull the meat I'm freezing before it's totally done so it won't be overcooked once it gets reheated

Leftover roast gets turned into hash, taco filling, enchilada filling, even spaghetti. We eat a lot of ethnic dishes, so I lean that way with the leftover meats. I will sub shredded roast just about anywhere you could use already cooked ground beef.

[bluets]

I got lazy with TF so I went primal. No grains (well, rarely - then, only rice). No beans (again, rarely - once a month?). Meat and veggies in some form (grilled meat and steamed veggies or salad in the summer; roasts, stews, soups, etc. in the winter). Some fruits in their most natural state - dh and ds love their fruits just as fruits. Eggs, eggs, eggs!

On the rare occasion that I bake, I use blanched almond flour or coconut flour.