Spin-off - Weekend food prep tips and tricks

[Anonymous]

Here are my tips and tricks.

Don't have to do every thing at once because is very overwhelming. I have been doing it for 30+ years and even I do only one or two things at a time depending on what is coming down the pike. Adapt what fits your busy lifestyle and preference. Also, without a menu and a clear idea of what you need to prep for, you will be lost. Has happened with me quite a bit. I get reverse sticker shock for some vegetable and end up buying huge amounts and then I am just a poor tortured person.


1) Start small. Make a list of few meals and dishes you would want to make during the week. Make the servings small too. You do not want to fill your fridge and freezer with food you will get bored of and then it will end up taking precious space. Observe what you use and what you don't use. Else you will be throwing away loads of food that no one wants to touch at your home. Also, if you eat out a lot, remember that your family is not going to be willing to give that up completely. Do not prep for more than 4 days worth of food at first. Smaller quantities are manageable.

2) Don't put away any food that you buy in the fridge without doing some prep work first. Wash, dry, trim, chop...everything that will last without degrading quality. For example - I will often peel 2 heads of garlic and store in a jar. I will peel 3 - 4 onions and store it in a big 2 gallon ziplock bag in the fridge. It allows me to chop onions without tears and without all that papery peel mess on the counter or floors when I have to use the onions. Same for fresh ginger. Always have some ginger grated that you can use within a few days. If you are getting fresh okra, wash it and spread it on a towel to air dry, before putting it in the fridge. You will save yourself some slimy situations because raw cut okra and any moisture do not mix well.

3) Prep the veggies. Even if you do not process or prep it further, it is a great time saver to have washed, dried, trimmed veggies in different containers in the fridge. Especially your leafy veggies and herbs. Further, wash, pat dry, cut the heads of cauliflowers and broccoli into flowerets. Much more economical, fresher, and delicious than commercially bought ones.

4) Saute veggies - sauté (or grill if you are so inclined) and keep some veggies in seperate containers. You can add it to your sandwiches, curries, soup, omelets, pasta, fried rice, crepes, noodles, lasagna, burgers, pizza, salads, burritos etc. My favorites sautéed veggies - onions, green peppers, carrots, zucchini, snow peas, cabbage. broccoli, asparagus. I even add these veggies to soak up the extra sauce in the dishes that I get from my local Asian takeout and it tastes delicious. It not only stretches the food quantity but you are sneaking in veggies too. Win-win.

5) Boil 8-9 potatoes. They keep well in fridge. Use to make sandwiches, mashed potatoes, topping for pot pies, raita, latkes, stuffed bread (parantha), chaat, samosas, hash brown, loaded potatoes with chilli, green onions, sour cream. Mix some chopped boiled potato, chopped apples, fried tortilla chips, canned chickpeas, chopped onions, salted yogurt, some readymade tamarind chutney and green chutney, sprinkle coriander leaves...you have a chaat that can be used for snack or for appetizer.

6) Boiled eggs - Invest in a dash egg cooker if you do not want to boil eggs on a cook top or the instapot. Use it as snack, in salads, sandwiches, devilled eggs, egg salad, scotch eggs, egg curry (slice boiled eggs in half, simmer with onion based masala). Sky's the limit with boiled eggs.

7) Make masalas - I make several kinds of curry base.

- For most of the milder tasting curries (butter chicken, butter paneer), I take quartered onions and basically pressure cooker it until it starts to smell like french onion soup. (BTW - If you do want to make french onion soup in a hurry, slice the onions before pressure cooking it and then brown in the pot). Use a blender to puree it. You have the most amazing tasting base for a mild flavored curry like butter chicken, butter paneer, or malai koftas. Keeps very well in fridge or freezer. Can be repurposed in anything that needs a curry base. This is shortcut for the grated onions that we used to cook for hours once upon a time.

- I use a big bag of onions from costco, peel and chop in large pieces (the annoying part), mix with olive oil and cook in the oven in several large pans. Once in 5-6 weeks supplies me for my regular meal rotation. I make more if I know I am throwing a party in a month or so. Stir occasionally as it starts caramelizing. Keep giving it a good stir, adjust salt in it. I prefer to not add too much spices as it gives me options to customize it (my fish curry has mustard paste in it, one of my spinach dishes has poppy seeds and fennel in it etc) . Keep an eye on it, cover with foil to trap the moisture if it is cooking too fast. It will turn into a deep brown mush. Your masala is ready and can be frozen for months in the freezer. Portion it out before freezing.

I often add ginger, garlic, tomato in the same masala while cooking also to make a more traditional north indian curry base, so it depends on what do you think you will use the paste for. The masala with ginger, garlic, tomatos allows you to make most non-veg dishes with ease. All you have to do is throw in some chopped meat, chicken or fish or beans - and adjust spices and herbs. Simmer and you are done when everything is cooked and blended.

- Eggplants - If I can get eggplants at a good price (sale, sale, sale) at the Asian store, I buy around 8-10 large American eggplants (the large round kind). Oil it and line it on the outdoors grill. Use a tong and rotate it so that they char evenly. Put it on a cookie sheet and let it cool. Peel the charred skin and clean the surface. Chop and store it in ziplock bags in freezer. You can convert it into Eggplant bharta (mash) for an indian entree or better still - delicous baba ghanoush for appetizer on game nights.

- I set my own yogurt every night because I really want to make sure that I get active probiotics. Warm milk to tepid temperature, stir in starter (tap your Indian neighbors for some started yogurt), cover the pot with a blanket, shawl etc. Place in a warm place (I put it in the oven). You can make mango lassi, spiced buttermilk, eat it plain, make curd rice, make yogurt and granola parfait for breakfast etc. One easy recipe that my kids used to like was fresh yogurt, chopped bananas, chopped dates and crushed almond cookies. There are tons of recipes with yogurt in Indian cooking. When it becomes a bit more tangy and I have not been able to use it for a couple weeks, I will convert it into kadhi. Or cook down the sour yogurt in ghee and cardamom to make a north indian curry base that you can add canned beans to.

- Pizza base - mix pizza dough with yeast and all purpose flour. Make pizza for game night, as appetizer, for get together.

Make extra dough and convert it into bhaturey by adding some caraway seeds in it. Serve with cholley (chickpeas curry or "Stew"). Cholley-bhaturey with chutney and onion salad is complete menu for friends hanging around.

- Frying - When you fry stuff, you are better off frying a large quantity of stuff at once. It is usually messy and you have to have great ventilation at home to remove all the smell of Indian cooking from home. I usually make fritters (and freeze some to put into kadhi later), fry strips of store bought tortilla to use as a chaat base, fry triangles of store bought tortillas to make my nachos (cause WF sells a small package for $$$$), fry koftas and badas and freeze in ziplocks. Lastly, fry onions in leftover oil. Use fresh oil and pans to cook salty and sweet stuff.

- Meatballs, kebabs. I usually buy large quantities of ground meat to make meatballs and kebabs. Different techniques and different spices but these are food that freeze so well. Make spaghetti and meatballs, use for appetizers, serve with gravy and mashed potatoes (the copycat ikea meatballs). Kebabs can be chopped up and converted into curry with any curry base, rolled in tortillas or rotis for kathi kebab roll, chopped and added with tzatziki sauce and salad in a pita bread. Heat, chop, sprinkle indian chaat masala, twist of lemon, stick toothpick and it is a crazy delicious appetizer that you can serve in the most formal occasion.

- Lasagna. Need I say more? Never make one lasagna. Easiest meal to put together. Make one for the freezer, once for your BFF's freezer, one for a ladies lunch, one for your teen.

- Chili and keema - I will start chili (use several kinds of meats) in my crock pot. Use it with hotdogs, chili and corn bread, chili on nachos, on top of loaded potatoes etc, freezes so beautifully. Some of the ground meat, you can use to make keema (a dryish curry) and then you can also make with it stuffed paranthas/naan, gorgeous khachapuris with beet salad, keema on pizza. Just switch up the spices. The time consuming part is cooking the meat. If that is done, then you can assemble everything very quickly.

- Tomatoes If you get good quality tomatoes for cheap in bulk, stew the tomatoes. I used to use my crockpot but now I am using instapot/pressure cooker . There are some lovely recipes for Italian sauces that you can use for all kinds of pastas, lasagnas, dips etc. Also, make homemade tomato soups that can be served with grilled cheese sandwich, but also be converted into butter chicken, butter paneer base easily. I am also a proponent of using the jumbo cans of stewed tomatoes from Costco in a pinch.

That's all I can think of right now.

Also, advice to children of my family (because yes, I know you read DCUM) - since you all are young, tired, don't have too much cash, alone, disillusioned with the world, overwhelmed (small kids, plant parents, pet parents, fish parents) - invite people, share food, stretch food and exchange food!!
If you make more than you can eat or store? Pack leftovers and give to friends. Call neighbors and co-workers over. Eating together and feeding people will make you happy. . If they want to help, please let them. Yes, they can load the dishwasher, yes, they can get the ice, yes, they can set the table, yes, they can sweep the floor. And, without a plan, you think food will just appear on your table? You do realize you are often just hangry?

[Anonymous]

I love your last paragraph, OP. Really kind of you to share.

[Anonymous]

OP, I . . . think I love you?

[Anonymous]

Beautiful. Thank you, OP. This is one a few really thoughtful and detailed posts that will help so many people. There was one earlier this year where someone outlined in similar levels details all the steps (products, strategies, etc.) they use to clean their entire house. That one truly changed my relationship to my house.

[Anonymous]

OP, I'm saving/printing this one. Thank you!

[Anonymous]

Great ideas, OP.

Do you freeze your lasagna in those disposable pans? Or in pyrex dishes? Do you put them in the oven from frozen?

And what type of onions do you use for your masalas? Red or yellow?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Great ideas, OP.

Do you freeze your lasagna in those disposable pans? Or in pyrex dishes? Do you put them in the oven from frozen?

And what type of onions do you use for your masalas? Red or yellow?

I have moved away from freezing food in disposable aluminum foil pans for my use.. For several reasons - 1) if you have any tomato based sauce, the food reacts with the foil, 2) the weight of the food can buckle or tear the pan, 3) It is hard to stack it in my freezer as it does not have the structure to withstand other things being loaded on it and 4) Pyrex containers allow me to use microwave if I need to.

However, I do use clingwrap over the Pyrex before putting the lid on because I don't like any freezer smell in food. Also look into ziplock 2 gallon freezer bags, as it is handy for sealing the pans and large quantities of food. I buy from Amazon. And I reuse these ziplock bags over and over again because I mark it for what I am using so it does not get messy or contaminated.

I either defrost the lasagna a day before (24 hours) in the fridge or directly in the oven from frozen. My preference is to defrost in the fridge.

For the masalas - for milder tasting creamy curries I generally use the white, yellow skinned onions. For north indian masala with ginger, garlic etc - I use red onions or any thing else that is available.

For using raw in salads? I prefer white onions. DH prefers red onions. If I use red onions, I soak the cut onion in water for sometime to remove the bitterness. I guess it is your preference.

[Anonymous]

Oh, another related tip. Those who have cleaning service, cook the day before cleaning day. Else, cook on a Saturday, so you have Sunday to clean.

[Anonymous]

OP you are amazing

[Anonymous]

Thanks op. Great ideas on potatoes and eggs. And I’m going to make the amounts I like (I cook big but my family dwindles on leftover duty) and share with my neighbor who hosts a student who runs cross country. Love this.

[Anonymous]

OP you are such a wonderful person to take the time typing this up for us. I’ll admit I still want to be your adopted daughter but this will hopefully inspire me to do more prep work in the kitchen!

[Anonymous]

How do you use potatoes for sandwiches? That was the one place i got lost.

Also, anyone have the link for the cleaning house? I vaguely remember it but forgot to save it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How do you use potatoes for sandwiches? That was the one place i got lost.

Also, anyone have the link for the cleaning house? I vaguely remember it but forgot to save it.

Do you have one of these electric sandwich presses? It crisps and seals sandwiches to make it tastier to eat and easier to carry in lunch boxes and picnic baskets. You can basically make these kinds of sealed sandwiches with any leftovers, including thanksgiving leftovers.

Smash potatoes,
optional - add any veggies of choice (sauted onions, green peppers, sun dried tomatoes)
Add seasoning of choice and salt-pepper
Optional - add some grated cheese or mayo
Mix well, and put between two slices of bed, apply a touch of butter/oil on the bread slices so that it crisps up well.
Put it in the sandwich press. Eat with ketchup when it is cooked.

This is a game changer small kitchen appliance for school lunches. Let the sandwich cool down on a wire rack if you are packing it in a lunch box.



- OP

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP you are such a wonderful person to take the time typing this up for us. I’ll admit I still want to be your adopted daughter but this will hopefully inspire me to do more prep work in the kitchen!

Me too. My gosh, what an amazing post. You clearly express your love through food.

[Anonymous]

Aww...thank you for all your kind words. Yes, I think my love language is food. I would happily adopt all of you youngsters as my daughters and sons and cook for you and your kids. I know how hard it was when kids were young, and we were juggling work, home etc. What I would have given to come home to a hot meal on the table!

I feel if someone eats a good meal or delicious snack, they feel loved and cared for and then they just want to take a nap. Hangry people on the other hand? Omg - never calm!