investmentcooking.com

After years of freezing foods these are some things that I have learned.

Foods that don’t freeze well:

• Raw salad vegetables

• Raw eggs in their shells or hard-boiled eggs (You can freeze egg whites separately.)

• Raw potatoes or boiled white potatoes (they turn black)

• Cottage Cheese

• Instant Rice

• Custard, cream or meringue pies

• Mayonnaise – It separates. It can be used limitedly mixed in with other ingredients in a sauce or casserole

• Sour cream – It becomes watery but can be used the same way as mayonnaise

• Deep Fried Foods become soggy

Foods That Change in the freezer:

• Gravies and sauces separate and will need to be recombined during reheating.

• Heavy Cream can be frozen but won’t whip.

• Milk can be frozen for drinking but will separate. Shake to recombine.

• Vegetables, pastas and grains are softer following freezing. Make sure to undercook them before freezing to help compensate.

• Cheeses often change texture. Hard cheeses become crumbly. They freeze best if grated before freezing and can be used in recipes but not for slicing

The method I’ve adapted in cooking is also known as once a month cooking but I found this terminology very limiting. I like to think of it as investment cooking instead. When I cook this way I am investing in my health, my time, and my family’s lives. There are three different methods of investment cooking that you can use to provide great meals for your family. Let’s look at each one today.

You can cook a month’s worth of food in one day to stock up your freezer. In reality this takes three days of effort but one day of cooking. The first day you do your planning including what meals you want to prepare, create your shopping list and plan the best order to cook the items. On the second day you would do your grocery shopping. Finally on the third day you cook and assemble your meals. At the end of 6-8 hours you will able to put away 30-60 meals for your family’s consumption depending on your abilities and meal choices.

Another very efficient way of investment cooking is to do a mini-session based on one meat or base. This is a great method to use when chicken (or another staple) goes on sale. You stock up on that ingredient and cook as many meals as you can out of what you got. For example, if you bought chickens on sale you could make roasted chickens (use the cooked meat in other recipes), chicken soup, casseroles using chicken, and freeze chicken with marinade to grill later. You could also do a baking day making muffins, pancakes, waffles, cookies, etc. to stick in the freezer.

Finally, one of the easiest ways to start incorporating investment cooking into your life is by simply doubling or tripling a recipe as you make it and stick the extras in the freezer. When you are making French toast for breakfast, go ahead and make up a whole loaf of bread’s worth. Flash freeze and you’ll have a yummy breakfast another day that only needs to be warmed up in the toaster or microwave. If you are making spaghetti sauce, double it and freeze the extra for another night. It takes so little extra effort and the returns are tremendous.

I use all three of these methods throughout the year. When I’m making meals that are easy to double I take advantage of it and put some away for another meal. When I get meat on a good sale I will cook up a whole bunch for the freezer. Every so often I plan a cooking day and really fill up my freezer.

Recipe:

Here’s a great recipe I like to make when I get ground beef on sale.

Make-Ahead Meatballs

4 pounds lean ground beef — or pork or turkey or a combo

2 cups bread crumbs

1 cup onion – diced

1 tablespoon kosher salt

pepper to taste

1 1/2 teaspoons garlic powder

4 eggs

2 cups tomato sauce

Mix all ingredients very well with your hands in a large bowl.

For Meatballs: Form approx. 180 meatballs (large walnut size). Place meatballs on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 400 for 10-15 minutes until lightly browned and no longer pink in the center. Cool. Flash Freeze then bag in freezer bags.

To serve: thaw meatballs and bake at 350 for 10-20 minutes or heat in a sauce. (Spaghetti Sauce, Sweet & Sour, Stroganoff, BBQ, etc . . .)

For Meatloaf: Form into a loaf in a baking dish. Brush with favorite sauce. Bake at 350 for an hour or until no longer pink. Cool and chill. Slice meatloaf if desired.

Or freeze mixture raw, flattened out in a freezer bag, thaw and cook when desired.

NOTES:

To make meatballs of equal size:

1. Lightly pat mixture into a 1 inch thick rectangle (on wax paper).

2. Cut the rectangle into the same number of squares as meatballs in the recipe.

3. Gently roll each square into a ball.

(Be careful not to handle the meat too much.)

In this economic climate everyone is looking to see how they can cut their expenses and trying to eat healthy and save money at the same time takes some extra effort. Organic products are more expensive than regular grocery items especially if you buy them at the grocery store. There are no coupons to save you money and sometimes finding the items requires a trip to stores like Whole Foods or other natural food sources that aren’t known for their cheap prices. You are going to have to make choices. Your family only has so much to spend so what are the wisest choices you can make to eat the best?

First of all, pray that God will give you wisdom and the vision to see what your choices are. He will honor that request. We can not make eating healthy an idol in our lives. We should pursue good health so that we can better serve our God not so that we can have the perfect body and live without illness.

Eat seasonally. By eating seasonally you are gaining the best nutrient dense foods plus those foods are usually cheaper because they are bountiful. If you have a garden it is even easier to do this. Watch for new sources for great food. Food Co-ops like Bountiful Baskets or CSAs can offer you wonderful food for much lower prices.
Buy in bulk. I stock up on our main foods at Costco and from Azure Standard. Buying in larger quantities can save you lots of money. For example, I can buy 25 pounds of dried organic black beans for $1.00/pound, which makes about 100 cups of cooked beans. To buy one can of organic black beans it costs $1.43 for 1 ¾ cups of beans. For the cost of 1 can of prepared beans I can make over 6 cups of beans. Cooking beans is one of the easiest foods to prepare and one that my crock pot takes care of for me so it requires very little effort on my part. (See below for my recipe for cooking beans easily.) I usually fix a whole crock pot full and then freeze the extras in 2 cup portions for future meals.

Put your freezer to good use. When you are able to get a good deal on produce, preserve as much as you can for the future. I also like to buy big bags of frozen veggies from Costco for quick meals. They have more and more organic choices and for feeding the family it is much more efficient to buy the large bags for several meals then to buy the small bags at the grocery store.

Be creative in using your leftovers. I like to make soup with some of the bits and pieces left over from other meals. It is like making a meal for free when you can use the leftovers.

Make sure your meals include whole grains and beans. Not only will you get wonderful nutrients from these foods but tummies will fill up and not require so much of the more expensive foods. Make sure to soak your grains with whey or lemon juice whenever possible to make them more digestible.
Find a farmer’s market or participate in community supported agriculture. A great source to find the ones in your area is www.localharvest.org.

Be a good steward of the budget you have for food and be creative in finding ways to obtain your food and you will be able to eat healthier for a lot less. May God bless your efforts!

Recipes:

Beans:
5 cups of black beans (or most other beans: kidney, navy, or pinto)
3 quarts Warm filtered water
4 tablespoons of whey (the clear liquid that separates from plain yogurt or raw milk) or lemon juice

Rinse the beans and put them in a bowl. Cover with warm water & add whey or lemon juice. Cover the bowl and leave overnight. Drain and rinse. Place in the crock-pot on low for 8-10 hours or high for 4-5 hours until desired consistency.

Cool and bag for the freezer.

This recipe is from Sue Gregg’s Soups and Muffins Cookbook.

Black Bean Chowder

From Soups & Muffins p. 82

Serves 8 to 10 About 14 Cups
1. Bring water to a boil with rice and potatoes; lower heat to a very gentle boil, uncovered for 30 minutes:
2 1/2 quarts water
1/4 cup brown rice, uncooked
2 medium potatoes, unpeeled or peeled, cubed

2. In a separate pan sauté vegetables in oil:
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion, chopped
1 red pepper, chopped
1 green pepper, chopped or1/4 cup dried green pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced

3. After potatoes and rice have cooked a full 30 minutes, add remaining ingredients and continue a very gentle boil about 1 hour until chowder is slightly thickened:
sautéed vegetables
15 oz. can black beans, undrained (I use my cooked beans from the freezer)
15 1/4 oz. can kidney beans, undrained
16 oz can Vegetarian Beans in Tomato Sauce
1 1/2 cups frozen corn
1 teaspoon ground cumin seed
1 1/2 teaspoons chili powder
3 tablespoons Sue’s Kitchen Magic Seasoning

4. Remove bay leaf. Top each bowl of soup, as desired, with:
grated cheddar cheese,
chopped fresh parsley or cilantro

Investment Cooking is a way of preparing meals by organizing your shopping, preparations and cooking in the most efficient way. You can simply double or triple the meal you are preparing for dinner tonight and put the other meal(s) in the freezer for another night. You can organize a cooking session based on a protein that you found on sale such as making several meals featuring chicken. Finally, you can devote an entire day to cooking resulting in a month or more of food ready and waiting in your freezer. Other names for investment cooking are bulk cooking, cooking for the freezer, or once a month cooking.
What are Whole Foods?

Whole foods are foods that are found as close to nature as possible. They include but are not limited to: freshly ground whole grains, purified water, beans, organic fruits and vegetables, “clean animals” as commanded in Leviticus 11 such as chicken, fish, beef, and venison, honey, unrefined oils such as olive oil and virgin coconut oil, butter, eggs, dairy products (preferably raw and certified), yogurt, kefir and other cultured dairy products, whole grains such as wheat, corn, spelt, barley, brown rice and many others.