Try It Tuesday: Batch Cooking

Taking advice from my friend Brit and one of my fav bloggers, the Money Saving Mom, I decided to try out batch cooking. I found that just planning a weeks worth of meals was not enough. After a long day at work, I hate having to think about cooking dinner. This past Sunday, I tried out batch cooking and completed four meals.

From Observations from the Second Floor...

From Observations from the Second Floor...

Monday night - Crock-pot Pot Roast with Potatoes and Carrots
Tuesday Night - Sour Cream Noodle Bake (extra large batch)
Wednesday Night - Sweet and Sour Tofu
Thursday Night - Dinner out to help support the UNT Asian Student Association at Applebee's. Yay Asians!
Friday Night - Veggie Lasagna
Saturday Night - Stuffed Peppers

From start to finish, it took me 2.5 to 3 hours to complete the cooking. The pot roast was the easiest since all I had to do was throw the ingredients into the crock-pot and it cooked itself for 8 hours. I threw in 4 cups of rice into the rice cooker and used 1/4 of it in the Stuffed Peppers and saved the other 3/4 for the Sweet and Sour Tofu. I browned 3 pounds of ground beef with diced onions and divided it between the Sour Cream Noodle Bake and Stuffed Peppers. The lasagna only required me to slice and saute squash, zucchini, red peppers, and spinach. I used no-cook lasagna noodles and left out the ricotta to make it healthier. The Stuffed Peppers and Lasagna went into the freezer and we simply will take it out the night before we plan to eat it. I didn't cook the Sweet and Sour Tofu Stirfry ahead of time because I thought it might taste better fresh off the stove, but really I could have done it ahead of time with no problem.

All in all, I'd say batch cooking was a success. The clean up afterward was not bad. So far this week, we've had dinner by 6:30 every night and finished by 7 pm meaning I have several hours in the evening to do whatever I want. What a wonderful change from maybe eating dinner at 7 pm and finishing by 8 pm, if we're lucky. The most I have to do when I come home is steam some vegetables and/or bake some rolls - Easy and takes all of 6 minutes to complete! The best thing is we've had almost no leftovers. We hate leftovers (unless it's chili) and I hate seeing food go to waste. A gold star week, I'd say!