Once-a-month cooking
saves cash |
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Plan ahead
Plan your once-a-month cooking around what is
on sale. Let's say you're going to make several chicken recipes
with boneless chicken breast, it helps to buy those 100 breasts
on sale at $1.99 a pound instead of $4.99 a pound.
Slagle chooses her recipes on Monday according to
what sales come out in the weekend supermarket circulars, then she
shops on Wednesday. Before a marathon cooking session on Friday
or Saturday with Wohlenhaus, she does as much preparation work as
possible. This includes chopping and grating vegetables, and browning
ground beef.
"What you don't want to do is make 30 (different]
meals because it takes way too long and you'll go crazy," she stresses.
But if you're just starting out, the idea of cooking a month's worth
of food can be overwhelming. Taylor-Hough suggests beginning with
a mini-session to prepare food for the next week or two. Instead
of making one tray of lasagna, make three, and freeze two. When
you take your cooking to the monthly level, try taking 15 recipes
and doubling them so you'll only be eating the same meal twice.
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| Preparing for the marathon cooking day: |
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Wear supportive walking shoes. |
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Wear comfortable clothes. |
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Go to bed early the night before. |
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Eat a good breakfast. |
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Stop and sit down for lunch. |
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Take frequent mini breaks. |
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Do preparation sitting at the kitchen table. |
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Sit at counter whenever you can. |
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From oven to freezer
Freezing can be tricky if you don't properly
prepare your food or package it well. Taylor-Hough says you should
freeze a single-serving-sized item to test how well it keeps.
Items such as cream-based sauces, potatoes and fried
foods don't freeze well. Taylor-Hough says they need to be mixed
with a liquid, slightly undercooked and frozen quickly. Reheating
the potato will complete the cooking. Slagle prepares mashed potatoes
with cream cheese or eggs to pull it together for the freezer. She
says sour cream and cheese freeze well if they're mixed with other
things.
You probably won't need to buy a separate freezer
for your food stock if you use freezer bags, which are flexible
and save space. Don't cut corners on the quality of the freezer
containers you use because the food will only taste as good as the
thing it was frozen in. Taylor-Hough recommends wrapping items well
in quality heavy-duty foil and bags.
"It's important to cool things quickly. You don't
want to put warm things in the freezer because they take longer
to freeze and quality suffers and large ice crystals form," Taylor-Hough
says.
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