No time to cook every day? Or maybe it's a pity to waste time spent at the stove, when you can spend it on communication with friends and family? Or another situation: having come home after a long day at work, it is not at all before cooking and all that remains is to boil purchased dumplings? Are there many such situations when semi-finished products for fast food replace us with a full-fledged homemade dinner...
I want to conduct an experiment, the essence of which is to cook several servings of different dishes and freeze them for future use. Then at hour X we just put the container with food in the microwave or oven and heat it up in a matter of minutes. I am wondering if I will spend a lot of time at the stove and is it worth it? Will the food be frozen and less tasty than freshly cooked food?
Many popular bloggers and chefs already use this life hack in their daily life. For example, Rachel Rae cooks 5 dishes at once in one day, so that later during the working week she only warms up dinner in the evening. Ree Drummond sets aside an entire day to fill the freezer with ready-to-eat meals, sandwiches and desserts in reserve. Let's take a look at the freezers of our supermarkets, where you can also find a lot of frozen foods: pizza, lasagna, pancakes, cutlets, etc.
I time it out and start cooking.
On the menu:
1. Fragrant butter with herbs and spices for heating dishes - 730 kcal / 100 g.
2. Merchant buckwheat with pork and mushrooms (4 servings) - 288 kcal / 100 g.
3. Boiled rice with tilapia fillet baked with vegetables in a parchment envelope (2 servings) - 238 kcal / 100 g.
4. Spiral pasta with fried chicken fillet (2 servings) - 366 kcal / 100 g.
I prepared each dish based on the taste preferences of my family, so something can and should be changed to taste: portion size, side dish to meat ratio, types of spices and herbs, fish and meat. In this experiment, the idea itself is important - to free yourself from everyday stay at the stove, but not at the expense of homemade food.
Ingredients:
Herbal butter:
Butter - 200 g
Spicy herbs (fresh) - to taste
Salt to taste
Spices (ground) - to taste
Boiled rice with tilapia fillet baked in parchment with vegetables:
Parboiled rice - 120 g
Tilapia (fillet) - 2 pcs.
Bulb onions - 1 pc.
Champignons (large) - 1 pc.
Corn (mini) - 2 pcs.
Salt to taste
Ground black pepper - to taste
Parsley (fresh) - to taste
Vegetable oil - 1 tbsp.
Spiral pasta with fried chicken fillet:
Pasta (spirals) - 200 g
Chicken fillet (breast) - 1 pc.
Salt to taste
Spices to taste
Vegetable oil - 2 tbsp.
Merchant-style buckwheat with pork and mushrooms:
Buckwheat - 200 g
Pork (pulp b / c) - 400 g
Champignons (large) - 3 pcs.
Bulb onions - 1 pc.
Carrots - 1 pc.
Salt to taste
Spices to taste
Greens to taste
Vegetable oil - 4 tablespoons
Cooking steps:
Since all three dishes will be cooked in parallel, we will immediately measure out all the ingredients so as not to be distracted.
Put on the fire two pots with water and a pinch of salt (for rice and spirals), bring to a boil. Turn on the oven to heat up to 200-205 ℃.
Take the meat / fish / poultry and butter out of the refrigerator in advance so that the butter becomes soft, and the meat / fish / poultry warms up to room temperature.
Let's start by making herbal oil. This will take about 10 minutes.
Put soft butter in a deep bowl, add finely chopped herbs, salt and spices. Everything is to your taste here.
I used herbs: parsley, dill, green onions, marjoram. From spices: salt, black pepper, hops-suneli, paprika, dry garlic.
Mix the ingredients with a spoon to get a homogeneous mass.
Next, put the resulting mass on a piece of cling film and form a sausage, tightly wrapping it with plastic. Put the aromatic oil in the freezer.
Let's move on to cooking rice with tilapia. The water in the pan had already boiled by this time. Pour the groats into it and cook for about 20-25 minutes or until fully cooked.
For fish we cut onions, mushrooms and mini-corn. We are not small.
You can skip corn or use other vegetables to taste, but they should have time to cook while the fish is baking.
Divide the chopped vegetables and mushrooms into two parts.
We spread a large piece of baking parchment on the work surface and visually divide it in half. On one half of the paper, lay out a fragrant pillow for fish from half onions and mushrooms. Season to taste with salt and pepper.
Put one fish fillet on top. We also season to taste. Spread half of the chopped corn (or other vegetables) around. Put a couple of whole sprigs of parsley on top of the fillet. Water the fish with a small amount of vegetable oil (1/2 tablespoon).
We cover everything with parchment (its free half), twisting the edges of the paper. We do the same with the second portion of fish.
We bake tilapia in a preheated oven for 20-25 minutes.
By this time, the rice was cooked. We put it on a sieve.
We leave the rice and fish to cool, but for now we turn to the pasta with chicken.
Pour the spirals into boiled water and cook until tender (8-10 minutes).
At the chicken breast, cut off a small fillet to even out the surface of the meat, and cut a large piece horizontally in half to make two thin layers. Season large and small pieces on both sides to taste. I used salt, dry garlic, paprika and black pepper.
On a fire above average, heat the pan well, pour 2 tbsp. vegetable oil and fry the chicken fillet on both sides until golden brown.
Then add a little water (1-2 tablespoons). Immediately cover the pan with a lid. We reduce the heat to a minimum. There will be a lot of steam under the lid, which will help bring the chicken to readiness without overdrying it.
Simmer the meat for about 10 minutes or until the fillet is fully cooked and tender.
Put the finished chicken on a plate. We put the pasta on a sieve.
And this dish should cool completely.
For buckwheat, we prepare the ingredients in a merchant manner: cut the pork into cubes, finely chop the onion and mushrooms, and grate the carrots on a coarse grater.
In a deep saucepan, heat up vegetable oil (2 tablespoons) and save the onions and carrots until soft and light blush. Stir vegetables sometimes. Then add the mushrooms and fry for another 2-3 minutes, at the end add a little salt.
Transfer the resulting frying to a plate.
Add the heat under the saucepan and add another 2 tablespoons. vegetable oil. When it warms up, put the prepared pork and fry over high heat until golden brown. Then turn down the heat, season the meat generously to taste and simmer a little under the lid (about 10 minutes). It should be almost ready. It will come to full readiness together with buckwheat.
While the pork is stewing, boil water in a kettle.
Return the frying to the pan to the meat.
Add washed buckwheat.
Pour in freshly boiled water at the rate of 1 part of cereal: 2 parts of water. It should cover the rump. Salt, bring everything to a boil and reduce heat to minimum. Cover the pan with a lid and leave the dish to cook. A few minutes before cooking, taste it and, if necessary, season it further.
In the finished buckwheat, as a merchant, there should be no water left, the cereal will turn out to be crumbly, and the meat will be soft.
This dish must also be completely chilled before freezing.
When all dishes have cooled down, you can pack them in containers for further storage in the freezer. I packed some of them in disposable foil dishes to reheat food in the oven. The second part is placed in plastic dishes so that the dish can be heated in the microwave.
Put a generous piece of fragrant oil in each container (on a dish). We seal the dishes and put them in the freezer. As we reheat the food, the butter will melt and saturate the dish with the extra creamy flavor and aroma of fresh herbs.
By the way, if you defrost this butter and spread it on black bread, it will turn out very tasty!
As a result, I spent 3 hours - this is the active time of cooking and preparation of the ingredients (wash, cut). But I had a clear plan, after all, time management, which is much talked about, works wonders. And I share some of his points with you:
- If meat / poultry / fish are frozen, in the evening you need to transfer them from the freezer to the refrigerator, and 1 hour before cooking, put them in a suitable container or on a board so that the food becomes at room temperature. So they cook evenly without losing their juiciness.
- Remove the butter from the refrigerator 2 hours before cooking to soften.
- I cooked pasta and rice at the same time (in different pots).
- The first step is to make fragrant oil so that it has time to freeze in the freezer.
- After the oil, do the fish: it is cooked in the oven, which means that it does not require stirring or other actions, it is enough just to time the time.
In the freezer, oil and cooked food can be stored for up to 3 months at -18 ℃.
In this way, you can store various ready-made meals or their components that need to be cooked for a long time. For example, meat with gravy can be frozen, and garnish or salad cook while it warms up. The main thing is that you have enough space in the freezer.
Bon Appetit!
Author: Oksana Chayun
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Your friend and helper, Vilkin!