Since it’s now truly autumn, I’m beginning to get serious about a number of things around Hectic Manor. One of them is reducing the amount of time I take to prepare meals on a daily basis. I’ve been planning to transition towards a single day of prep that will allow me to do less work on every other night of the week. I know the math, I can spend a few hours in the kitchen on one day and then cut my time to mere minutes each night. The twofold problem is (1) trusting that it’s really true and (2) actually doing the single-day prep.
On my quest I’ve been pulling books from my cookbook collection to see what they can offer in terms of prep-once, eat many solutions. To be honest, I have so many cookbooks that sometimes I forget about a particular book. Food Made Fast Make Ahead is one of those books that I’ve perused a few times, but haven’t really dug into very deeply. But when it rose to the top of my stack, I figured I’d give it a look. Frankly, I was pleasantly surprised.
This book is comprised of three main sections, Foundation Recipes, Weeknight Meals, and Freeze It.
The Foundation Recipes are interesting because they combine the preparation of a specific meal with the components for other meals. So the very first recipe is for Ziti with Arugula Pesto & Chicken. This is immediately followed by Grilled Halibut with Arugula Pestoand then Fontina, Ham, and Pesto Panini. While the pesto takes a little bit of time to prepare, it’s really not that bad. Plus, you can use it three times in some very distinctive dishes. The best part is that the cookbook includes information on storing the pesto in the refrigerator or freezer. So it’s not like you have to eat the pesto three days in a row. In fact, it’ll keep in the freezer for up to a month, so you can stretch out the time between meals and it’ll seem totally new and fresh quite a while later.
Each of the recipes are part of a set in the same manner, so you can get several nights worth of meals from one primary preparation session.
Prior to reading this cookbook, I had intended that every week I would have one big prep day followed by several light-work days. Everything was based on a weekly cycle. But if I’m honest with myself, that’s kind of hard. My weeks are a mess with school and sports activities, and we’ve always got odd things popping up here and there. Other weeks are a bit more relaxed and I feel like I have a smidgen more time. This book got me to thinking about working on a longer cycle. That is, if I prepared four or five of the foundation recipes during one week, I could stockpile the remaining sauce or other components for use when I was crazy busy. So instead of working on a weekly cycle, I’m starting to think about a monthly cycle. One week (or part of the first two weeks) would be used to produce the foundation recipes. Then the rest of the month I would coast along using the stockpiled ingredients for smooth sailing. It’s a really intriguing idea that I’m just starting to implement, so I’ll have to update you later.
The second section of the book focuses on Weeknight Meals. Many of these recipes refer back to the Foundation Recipes, making them ideal for quick prep. In fact, I’m starting to think that each of the foundation recipes out to be prepared with three or four times that quantity of the foundational component so they can be used numerous times in my new month-at-a-glance methodology.
The recipes all look really delicious, although some of them are a bit out there. The Hectic Family tends towards basic meat & potatoes meals, and I struggle getting them to move out of that model. Sure, Hectic Mom likes fish…but she’s not big on trying things that have come around recently. Polenta and couscous simply don’t make it to her plate very often, no matter how many times I make them. I have had some success with the recipes from Food Made Fast Make Ahead though, somewhat to my surprise. I’m not sure why these recipes have caught her attention, but they’ve gone over fairly well every time I’ve made them. It sure makes life easier when the family eats what I prepare!
The third section of the book, Freeze It, included recipes that are great to eat the night they are prepared and then lend themselves to freezing and reheating at a later date. Unlike the Foundation Recipes, they are designed to be eaten as complete meals at a later date. A while back, I ordered two different sizes of foil containers from Amazon so that I can package individual meals as well as family meals. I use my Brother Labeler to label the container lids so that I know what’s inside. There is nothing worse that freezing a bunch of food, not labeling it, and then trying to guess what it use when you open the container while the food is frozen. You can easily just write on the container lids, but I like the consistency and clarity of the labels.
The recipes in the Weeknight Meals section feed four to six, so I’ve taken to quadrupling the recipes. It’s only taking a couple minutes more to make a quadruple recipe than a single, and when we’re done I’ve got enough food for three more meals. I package them up, label the containers, and then freeze them for later. I even make out a meal plan that takes into account what meals I’ve made and what goes well the day before and day after. It’s fit quite well with my one week of prep and several weeks of coasting model. The various recipes in Food Made Fast Make Ahead really lend themselves to mixing and matching, so the coasting weeks still are quite varied. We don’t have the same meal plan week in and week out. Best of all, the Hectic Family seems to like most everything I’ve made.
The section titled The Smarter Cook near the end of the cookbook is a great resource too. There are tons of tips and tricks to make the meals even faster to prepare. There is also a really flexible meal plan. And the tips on shopping smarter and making the most of your time are invaluable. I keep dipping back into this section for more tips on how to get better at meal planning and preparation.
While Food Made Fast Make Ahead isn’t a long cookbook, at just over 100 pages, it’s got a treasure trove of ideas and some very practical recipes that can help you convert to a do-it-all-tonight style cook to someone who’s able to batch process some of your meals. It’s been a huge time-saver for me.
If you’re looking for some creative recipes that are a bit off the beaten path and you’re looking to ease into batch cooking, this is a great resource! I know that Food Made Fast Make Ahead has definitely helped me make it a great day in the kitchen!
