Large Quantity Cooking

bella

Sun, Jun 14 2009, 10:42 am

I often read about people who cook double or triple quantities of food so that they can have meals in the freezer available. I was wondering if anyone had advice/suggestions for how to do that when you're already making a meal for 9 people on a regular night. I cook fairly large quantities as it is, so I'm wondering how those of you who cook once for two or three meals does it.

For example, I usually use 2 boxes of pasta for a typical meal. I wouldn't be able to double the amount of pasta in the pot, so I would basically be doing two separate batches, meaning boiling the water, cooking and draining the pasta, making whatever dish I'm making (baked ziti, mac and cheese, etc.) and then just repeating the process.

I don't see how that's a saving of time. I know if I wanted to spend extra time to prepare meals in advance, I could do that, like I do for two or three day Yomim Tovim, but that's not what I'm talking about.

Maybe someone out there has suggestions for meals that more easily lend themselves to making in larger quantities. I'm just not very imaginative when it comes to this, I guess.

alpidarkomama

Mon, Jun 15 2009, 2:30 am

Some things are easy, like presoaking chick peas and freezing those to have on hand for making up quick felafel. Today I soaked about 3 gallons of pinto beans, and will cook those over the next day for vast quantities of refried beans. Those are really filling too. 1/2-3/4 cup is a good amount per person, so about 6 cups would easily feed a large family for one meal (bean dip, tostadas, tacos). You could leave some of the beans plain boiled and use them in cholent, salads, etc. Baked goods are very easy to do in large quantities, assuming you have the freezer space. I have a medium-sized mixer (10 cups), so I do 3 recipes in a row, let it all rise, then bake and freeze the loaves.

With a lasagna, you should be able to at least do a double-normal batch. If you have a 9x13 pan, plus veggie sides, salad, and bread, will that feed your family of 9? Or do you have bigger eaters? Smile

I usually only use 6 noodles per lasagna to make it a little lower-carb, so cooking 12 noodles is no problem.

Soup can be done in larger quantities. Chili is great. VERY filling, so you need a smaller amount for a meal. I make mine pareve so I can go dairy or meat with it later. Having one giant stockpot is really helpful.

If I fill my giant dairy pot with macaroni, then make the tofu-cheese sauce I usually make, it's a LOT of servings. I'm sure it's at least 20-30 servings. I use 2 of those extra-large bags of macaroni... I'm not sure of the weight. I bag it in gallon-size freezer bags. For pizza crusts, I'll usually make about 20 ten-inch crusts at once.

Once you build up a repertoire in your freezer, it really starts to save time! I cook new meals on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Fridays. Mondays and Wednesdays and often shabbos lunch we eat "freezer food." Thursday night is breakfast night. Nice to keep it simple right before shabbos.

Also, every Wednesday or so I prepare all of our salad greens and dressing for a week, then we can just pull from the bag when we want a salad. Really fast.

Besides a large stockpot, another big help is metal spoons. I've broken several wooden and plastic spoons from making extra-large batches of things!