Modular cooking and eating; Fast, Cheap and Easy!

[calmloki]

hardy har har, there, Brau!
I swear, I need to have one of you just come to my house and do all this for me. I have become the laziest of cooks. I could totally do this pre-cooking business and freeze stuff to have later, but never do it.
Keep talking, maybe it will penetrate to my lazy core eventually!

Thee and me Sarah. Why, back in the single days a one pan and one or two utensils sufficed for all cooking and dining - figured the frequent trips to the stove kept everything germ free, or killed off enough of the germ population anyway. These effete and civilized days we still make up mass quantities of brown rice and the covered pan goes in the frig with scoops pulled from it over the ensuing days. Having the forethought to actually mess up extra cooking gear and take things in and out and replace in the freezer would call for more planning than goes on here-abouts. We'd end up with freezer burned unpackaged foody bits and a missing muffin tin.

 

[braumeister]

my mom cooks bacon a pound at a time and then just puts what she doesn't need to use right then in a zip loc bag and then microwaves it briefly as she needs it to heat it up.

I've been doing this for many years. You can never have too much bacon around.

 

[Lisa99]

Katsmeow, you can do almost anything as a puck. Mashed potatoes, meatloaf (cook directly in the muffin tin, let cool then freeze. Pop out frozen individual meat loaves, put in freeze bags and you're done). Mac and cheese...basically anything that you'd put in Tupperware can be frozen as an individual puck.

 

[Meadbh]

Great idea Lisa, I never would have thought of muffin tins. I'm definitely going to try this.

 

[tmm99]

Muffin modular cooking is an interesting idea. As Katsmeow, I have tried something similar to once a month cooking method (in my case, I cook more than what we eat that day and freeze the rest - some still in the raw form, some already cooked.), but it does take some work when we eat in some of the things I do, unlike the modular cooking you mention here.

One book I would like to recommend here is Cook & Freeze - 150 Delicious Dishes to Server Now and Later by Dana Jacobi.
http://http://www.amazon.com/Cook-F...1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1314554319&sr=1-1

I have tried several recipes so far from this book and all of them (except for one, which was just OK) was very very good (which is IMO, rather rare, having so many recipes you like coming from just one cookbook.) She uses cream cheese instead of cream (probably because cream tends to separate when recooked/reheated from frozen state) and also uses rice flour where it calls for some thickness in sauces (probably because cornstarch base sauce tends to disintegrate when frozen/recooked?)

I have so far tried:

all american pimento cheese dip
spanakopita with mixed greens and feta (I didn't do the phyllo dough part)
roasted rosemary almonds
sizzling hot wings
zucchini vichyssoise (creamy soup with cream cheese - excellent!)
mississippi pepper pot (tomato based soup with red/green peppers and chard)
turkish ground beef kebobs (I make it with beef)
pulled jerk pork with carolina BBQ sauce (the sauce is apple cider vinegar vinegar based)
frankie's meatballs
creamy twice-baked potatoes with parmesan
ricotta panckes (these were OK, but I am not much of pancake eaters anyway.)
butter pecan meltaways (cookies)

Her method is to use ziploc bags flat and stack them like books, but I think many recipes in this book would work very well with modular cooking also. The book tells you how to defrost, etc, but I don't see why you woudn't be able to just nuke it instead.

tmm

 

[haha]

hardy har har, there, Brau!
I swear, I need to have one of you just come to my house and do all this for me. I have become the laziest of cooks. I could totally do this pre-cooking business and freeze stuff to have later, but never do it.
Keep talking, maybe it will penetrate to my lazy core eventually!

Not likely. It never affects me, no matter how much sense I thik it may make.

Ha

 

[Lisa99]

We used to freeze portions in zip lock bags as well but washing the bag for reuse was a hassle.

We're both on weight watchers so we measure everything in order to calculate points. When we discovered that a muffin cup is a 1/2 cup portion we switched to frozen pucks since it is easier to make a decision on what to eat if the portions are already known and calculated.

Since starting this thread you guys have given me some great ideas on what can be pre-cooked or prepared and turned into a puck!

 

[FUEGO]

pulled jerk pork with carolina BBQ sauce (the sauce is apple cider vinegar vinegar based)

We also make huge amounts of eastern Carolina style bbq, and then freeze batches of it in ziplock bags. Our usual recipe is 2 pork shoulders or boston butts or picnic shoulders. Maybe 7-10 pounds each, so you start with 15-20 pounds of meat. Trim off excess fat and skin (if applicable to your cut of meat). Cut meat into 1-2 lb chunks and place in large turkey pan. Cover in red pepper flakes, cracked black pepper, brown sugar, salt, and apple cider vinegar. Put in oven for 6-8 hours until meat is falling apart. During cooking, flip meat hunks over every 1-2 hrs. Remove from oven and pull meat apart. Season with more of the aforementioned spices and seasonings. Maybe add a little Liquid Smoke. Yields about 10-14 lbs of bbq.

I think the high fat content keeps the meat moist when you thaw it out.

The downside is that I can never order eastern style bbq at a restaurant because our home cooked is so so good!

 

[Lisa99]

The downside is that I can never order eastern style bbq at a restaurant because our home cooked is so so good!

We have the exact same problem with BBQ. There is no good BBQ in Vegas that isn't hoity toity and costs <$40 per plate, so I make my own...although ours is Texas BBQ...we won't debate which is better

I have a Big Green Egg so when I fire it up, it is filled to the brim with pork shoulder, ribs and brisket. Once it's all cooked and portioned out in either pucks or zip locks, we have BBQ available for months!

And the best part is we only buy the meat on sale, so a plate of lip-smacking BBQ is usually <$1.00 per plate.

 

[ziggy29]

...although ours is Texas BBQ...we won't debate which is better

That's because there *is* no debate. One thing we will miss a lot if we flee Texas weather is Texas BBQ. DW has mandated that if we leave TX, I will have to learn to do proper Texas BBQ myself.

 

[Lisa99]

That's because there *is* no debate. One thing we will miss a lot if we flee Texas weather is Texas BBQ. DW has mandated that if we leave TX, I will have to learn to do proper Texas BBQ myself.

Agree wholeheartedly with your assessment of which is best The key to any good BBQ is to cook it low and slow and use a good rub. For example, brisket is cooked at 225 degrees and depending on the size of the hunk o' meat can cook for 24 hours or longer! If done right, it will melt in your mouth.....mmmm....I think BBQ is in order for lunch!

I've been cooking BBQ since I was little bitty, so no issues there...now if I could just figure out how to make good TexMex we might be able to stay in this god-forsaken land of no good Texas-style food!

 

[FUEGO]

As long as that brisket is made out of pork shoulders and smothered in vinegar and pepper based sauce, I don't care what you call it!

 

[flyfishnevada]

Great idea! I'm going to think about doing this for my boys. Sometimes I don't have time to cook and we have what we call, "on your own nights". DW and I will usually whip something up, but the boys tend to eat Top Ramen or Cup O Noodles. They know what to cook and we have ingredients to make sandwiches, omelets, soup, etc., etc. This might be a good way to get them to have something more nutritious and a little more variety.

 

[Sarah in SC]

As long as that brisket is made out of pork shoulders and smothered in vinegar and pepper based sauce, I don't care what you call it!

Ditto that. We don't play about BBQ.

 

[Lisa99]

Ditto that. We don't play about BBQ.

Hey now, are we gonna have to have a BBQ Throw-Down, Bobby Flay style?

There's a whole lotta Texuns on this site who would disagree on your definition of BBQ

 

[grasshopper]

And that's when your 11 year old states, "I don't want to eat dead animals".

 

[Moemg]

I am using up the contents of freezer now since it's hurricane season but come November I am going to try this . I like the idea of having the items in the correct sizes .I wonder if those rubber muffins pans would work better ?

 

[Sarah in SC]

Hey now, are we gonna have to have a BBQ Throw-Down, Bobby Flay style?

There's a whole lotta Texuns on this site who would disagree on your definition of BBQ

Hey now, you Texas folk, we aren't interested in your weird ideas about using beef for BBQ. We are pork people and that is what barbecue is made from! And if you'd ever seen Fuego and I, you'd be able to guess we are pretty good BBQ judges!

My grandfather was one of those full dug pit with a whole hog kind of guys. They'd keep a barrel of wood burning all night, shoveling the coals out from underneath it to spread around under the hog. When he was a younger man, he'd stay up with the hog all night, with usually just my Dad (his son in law) to keep him company. Once he decided to leave the watch-standing to the younger generation, the other son-in-laws came out of the woodwork to help, because with him in the house, they could safely bring out the brown liquor to keep them all warm.

His basting sauce was black pepper, red pepper, vinegar, and a little brown sugar. And he'd chop, not pull. I have the table he used for years to cut the pork, it is an old kitchen table that is pretty rusty, but I wouldn't trade it for anything.

And that is how a thread hijack is DONE!

 

[bizlady]

Muffin modular cooking is an interesting idea. As Katsmeow, I have tried something similar to once a month cooking method (in my case, I cook more than what we eat that day and freeze the rest - some still in the raw form, some already cooked.), but it does take some work when we eat in some of the things I do, unlike the modular cooking you mention here.

One book I would like to recommend here is Cook & Freeze - 150 Delicious Dishes to Server Now and Later by Dana Jacobi.
http://http://www.amazon.com/Cook-Freeze-Delicious-Dishes-Serve/dp/1605294691/ref=sr_1_1?s=home-garden&ie=UTF8&qid=1314554319&sr=1-1

I have tried several recipes so far from this book and all of them (except for one, which was just OK) was very very good (which is IMO, rather rare, having so many recipes you like coming from just one cookbook.) She uses cream cheese instead of cream (probably because cream tends to separate when recooked/reheated from frozen state) and also uses rice flour where it calls for some thickness in sauces (probably because cornstarch base sauce tends to disintegrate when frozen/recooked?)

I have so far tried:

all american pimento cheese dip
spanakopita with mixed greens and feta (I didn't do the phyllo dough part)
roasted rosemary almonds
sizzling hot wings
zucchini vichyssoise (creamy soup with cream cheese - excellent!)
mississippi pepper pot (tomato based soup with red/green peppers and chard)
turkish ground beef kebobs (I make it with beef)
pulled jerk pork with carolina BBQ sauce (the sauce is apple cider vinegar vinegar based)
frankie's meatballs
creamy twice-baked potatoes with parmesan
ricotta panckes (these were OK, but I am not much of pancake eaters anyway.)
butter pecan meltaways (cookies)

Her method is to use ziploc bags flat and stack them like books, but I think many recipes in this book would work very well with modular cooking also. The book tells you how to defrost, etc, but I don't see why you woudn't be able to just nuke it instead.

tmm

Oh. Could you share the recipe for the roasted rosemary almonds!

 

[chris2008]

And for me the pulled jerk pork with sauce, please....

 

[Lisa99]

I am using up the contents of freezer now since it's hurricane season but come November I am going to try this . I like the idea of having the items in the correct sizes .I wonder if those rubber muffins pans would work better ?

That would be a great idea. Would be easier to pop the frozen pucks out. The only issue you might have is that you'll need to set the muffin pan on a cookie sheet for stability if what you're freezing has some liquid in it (like beans or spaghetti sauce). Otherwise it would be hard to move the muffin pan into the freezer without spilling the contents.

 

[FUEGO]

Hey now, you Texas folk, we aren't interested in your weird ideas about using beef for BBQ. We are pork people and that is what barbecue is made from! And if you'd ever seen Fuego and I, you'd be able to guess we are pretty good BBQ judges!

Guys, we need to tone the rhetoric down. Nobody wants Porky making a premature appearance. Unless he's well seasoned and dripping in bbq sauce!

 

[Lisa99]

 

[FIREd]

Guys, we need to tone the rhetoric down. Nobody wants Porky making a premature appearance. Unless he's well seasoned and dripping in bbq sauce!

Vinegar-based bbq sauce of course! Nothing else will do...

 

[freebird5825]

Interesting idea. I'll have to try this.

Another convenience idea: my mom cooks bacon a pound at a time and then just puts what she doesn't need to use right then in a zip loc bag and then microwaves it briefly as she needs it to heat it up. That way the mess of cooking bacon is less frequent and it is readily available for breakfast sandwiches, BLTs, etc.

I do same with bacon (1 lb), and sausage and hamburger and chicken and pork and....I cook up a 2-3 lb portion in the crockpot with only salt and pepper as seasoning. I will add a packet of taco seasoning to the burger (we love nachos).
I use ziploc bags to store the precooked meat in the upper freezer of a refrig/freezer combo. To conserve quart bags, I fill a quart size ziploc with two 2 person portions, flatten all the air out, and close it up. I use my fingers to separate the contents in half, inside the sealed bag. I fold the bag in half along the separation I made and place the bag in the freezer still folded. Nice little stacks of Ziplocs instead of bulky containers to wash and rewash.
There are only 2 of us in the household. It is so convenient to open the freezer, pull out some meat and create a dish du jour. I never microwave defrost the frozen meat in the ziploc, instead I transfer it to a ceramic plate or bowl.
The puck idea sounds interesting. I just may have to experiment with that.
I think I will use cleaned out individiual portion yogurt containers (have to save some up) or 8 oz plastic drink cups (on hand) instead of muffin tins to make the pucks.