Bulk Cooking

Since there are only 2 of us to cook for, I do not prepare huge quantities of food but it is nice to have a few meals planned and prepared. The other factor that influences my decision is that I prefer to use the oven efficiently when it is turned on.

Yesterday I sorted out what was lurking in the freezer and decided that this week we would eat what I could make using freezer and pantry ingredients. I should really only need to buy some fresh fruit and vegetables.

I started by making gluten-free pizza bases. I par-cook these in the oven then freeze them for later use.

Here they are ready to freeze. I have some old cereal packets which I use to separate the bases when they go in the freezer.

It is simply a matter of adding the toppings and cooking in the bench-top pizza-maker.

Next, I decided to make some gluten-free muffins which turned out to quite acceptable using a standard recipe and simply substituting gluten-free flour. I made 2 batches – orange, walnut and sultanas in one and the other were banana, walnut and mixed spice. The catalyst for these were the sad looking banana that I rescued from the fridge at work on Friday and some orange pulp I found in my freezer.

At the same time I made some gluten-free wraps for lunches.

These are cooked in a hot, dry frying pan and can be stored in the fridge for a few days.

A pack of sausages which had been left in the freezer by our house-sitters were grilled and sliced then made into a sausage casserole which made 4 serves.

I usually cook a bulk amount of dried red kidney beans in the slowcooker and freeze them in portions ready to use. I found a pack in the freezer as well as a pack of diced beef so I put them in the slowcooker with frozen cherry tomatoes from last season, frozen diced onion and some spices to make 4 serves of chilli beef. That bubbled along all day while I was doing the other cooking.