throw out food because I don’t know when I made it.
write small sharpie day of week on all the rubbermaid lids
having two measuring cups, one for dry and one for wet so stuff doesn’t stick, large mouth so no spillage and cleanup, and dishwasher safe
Minute Rice is so much easier to cook. since I switched away from parboiled back to regular rice I wasn’t having much luck, but Minute Rice no burning on the bottom, more like cuscus or quinoa.
co-op has frozen cauliflower, probably a good thing to put in the rotation.
this meal was
put in 6 cups water into stock pot, add a bunch of frozen cauliflower and broccoli, add 2 cups bring to a boil, add 6 cups rice, cover, wait 5 mins.
minute rice works really well simultaneously with the frozen veggies in a way that the other rice doesn’t.
long-term goal might be to get a higher wattage induction cooktop.
having food in the freezer at work is wonderful.
tried this out
i think part of my problem is I’m not capturing the feedback, the results. I make a lot of variations but I’m not recording whether I preferred a certain variation or not.
My mouth has broken out without any clearly novel. I thought it was mint gum, but
- Tomato sauce
- oatmeal?
why did the noodles taste so good? can I copy a spice mix from something I really like to eat?
tried 12 cups in the stock pot. Used instant rice, 12:12 ratio, bunch of frozen broc and cauliflour, ran out of instant rice. added some parboiled, which didn’t get cooked (as you might expect). Added a bunch of tumeric.
key about this stock pot paradigm is you add all the ingredients to the water, rather than microwaving the cauliflower, opening the lentils, then laboriously mixing them all together “dry” (what I was doing before). this saves a surprising amount of time.
but big quantities is definitely a good trend.
the plan-to-eat app paradigm seems flipped from what my brain needs. instead of “build up shopping list for the upcoming meals”, want “keep all these items in stock for when you have time to cook, with enough spare that it’s not an emergency when you run out.”. maybe better for perishables where you only want to buy “just enough”.
don’t even start cooking when you don’t have the time, all the necessary ingredients! I made a bunch of egg, didn’t have any wraps to complete the egg sandwiches, so I’ve just wasted a whole flat of eggs!
potato & bacon perogies are pretty cheap at co-op - $4 for a whole bag’s worth, very solid and reliable meal
Need to drown everything in excess sauce to make it taste more platable. had a nice sauce pork
Cooked three flats of ground turkey in the big wok - worked well, didn’t take too long.
bought sesame and .
seasoning salt
this is a good alternative protein
12 cups water
brought to a boil
500g frozen cauliflower (8 cups)
8 cups frozen broc
3 cups frozen corn
2 cans lentils ( think I only did 2 cans not three)
6 cups parboiled rice
2 tbsp of salted butter
bunch of seasoning salt
measured water content volumetrically to get the right rice ratio
9 cm by 26.5 cm
21 L
added 8 cups Safeway parboiled rice
took more than 20 minutes to bring to a boil!
simmered at 700 watts for 16 minute
pretty good! rice came out a little wet
drew three samples of this. in one, italian seasoning and lemon juice: the other, a great excess of General Tao sauce; the other, sesame oil and seasoning salt.
italian seasoning and Lemon - turned out great! downed it fast.
general tao - also very good! needs to be absolutely drenched.
sesame oil and seasoning salt - nah. clashes. sesame isn’t the right taste.
seasoning needs to be added before the rice cooks, because it’s impossible to stir such a large volume properly.
results:
this worked superbly well. making such a large batch (this lasted the whole week - bringing an 8 cup container filled to the brim for lunch was were filling enough that I still felt nourished at dinner, and the large amount of general tao meant I actually enjoyed eating this) has turned the corner from homecooking being a burden to actively saving me time.
the modest water content meant when I froze it it defrosted nicely in the microwave, taking about 6 minutes to defrost.
pickled gherkin might be better than cucumber for egg sandwches
the sweet ones have a ton of sugar though.
dry-erase marker on top what day of the week it was made. works great.
perogies are great, but they don’t really reheat well - stick together into a big blob, at least with them fairly plain as I’m doing now
Trying the same extra-large-batch trick
12 cups water
8 cups frozen broc
500g frozen cauliflower (apparently this is 5 cups)
2 cans bean medley.
3/4 teaspoon seasoning salt
two heaping tablespoons italian seasoning
added hearty amount of olive oil
10 cups quinoa.
put the lid on,
Simmering at 700 w for 12 minutes - no, too much, had to drop it down to 300w half way
a little dry, could have used some butter. too much quinoa.
once again, I’ve managed to unwittingly spend over $600/mo on groceries two months in a row. wtf! where is this money going? Ran the numbers on the quinoa meal I just made, should be $5/meal. maybe it’s been the waste from meals that didn’t work out? weird. or what non-food items am I buying at the grocery store
may have to do something radical like buy none of the items I’ve been buying, totally change up the recipes.
made some mashed potatoes. they were probably a little undercooked again (still only set to 20 minutes, forgot to change) and got very gluey and lumpy.
it’s said to not work, but I pre-boiled some water - maybe 6 cups - and mixed it in while hot, and that really got rid of the glueyness and made it edible. very nice.
potato salad! doesn’t have dairy, can be eaten cold. bought some off the shelf from Co-op to see how it works.