A favourite hobby-horse…

.

Take-aways. Hmmm. How many take-away meals do you eat in a week? Generally, take-aways are heavy on the fats and starches and the portion sizes are out of balance - bad for general healthy and the waistline. And bad for the wallet.

I'll admit that it's very nice, occasionally, to be relieved of kitchen duty. You don't have to prepare, cook or clean up afterwards. Occasionally. But you can easily prepare and freeze home-made ready meals in bulk. Hamburgers, chicken burgers and bolognaise sauce are all simple to prepare in bulk. Then you can serve those burgers on whole grain rolls, with a healthy serving of salad. And boiling up a pot of pasta takes very little time or effort.

Many recipes can be doubled up; while you're preparing one meal for immediate consumption you're getting the health benefits of a second meal with minimal extra effort. Just make sure you label your extra meal, stuff can become unrecognizable once it's frozen. And put the date on, too.

Invest in some of those rectangular foil boxes, they stack well in the freezer. If you're careful, you can re-use them three or four times.

I have had great success with freezing home-made lasagna (mince, chicken and vegetarian), soups, pizzas, stews and casseroles. I try to keep my freezers organized - one shelf/basket for home-made ready meals, one for breads and muffins, one for vegetables, etc. Even if you only have an 'ice box' at the top of your fridge, you'll be surprised at what you can fit in.

Now all you have to remember is to take something out to thaw in the morning.

.

Baby foods

There are many commercially produced baby foods available these days. I used to, occasionally, buy the fruit purees for my children when they were babies, but having tasted the bottled ‘dinners’ once, I never bought them again. Cereals are the exception to my ‘home-cooked only’ rule; they are the correct consistency and texture (according to age) and are usually fortified with various vitamins and minerals.

Babies often prefer bland tasting foods and it is really easy to prepare fruit and vegetables for them at home. By cooking at home you have complete control over the amount of salt and/or sugar added, plus the added bonus of the food containing no preservatives, flavourants or colourants.

To begin with, a baby will probably take no more than 2 to 3 teaspoons of ‘solids’ at one time. Obviously, you won’t want to cook that quantity fresh every day, but you can successfully freeze tiny portions in an ice-cube tray. One vegetable I don’t like to freeze is potato. To me, it develops an unpalatable flavour when it is frozen or refrigerated, but you can overcome this by mixing half potato with half sweet potato.

When first introducing ‘solids’, it is probably best to start with root vegetables, although some people do introduce fruit initially, apples and pears often being the favourites. Breast milk and formulas are both sweet, so babies will readily accept fruit, but there are long-term advantages to getting them accustomed to savoury flavours first. Carrots and butternut are both naturally sweet, and most babies will enjoy them.
Broccoli and cauliflower are strong flavours perhaps best kept for bigger babies.

If you feel you must use commercial baby food, then try to buy ‘organic’, and always check the nutrition label and contents. The contents of all food products is always listed from most to least, so if you are buying strained carrot, then carrot should be the first item on the list. And hopefully salt, sugar and fillers will not be included at all.

Essential equipment – Storage

Many years ago I was, for a short while, a Tupperware agent. I never made any money out of the job because all my commission was spent on the product! I’m sure we all have entire cupboards devoted to storing plastic storage containers. This is the cupboard you are afraid to open in case the contents falls on your head – as has happened to me on more than one occasion.

We need various plastic boxes to house left-overs in the fridge or freezer. And perhaps to keep small fresh vegetables and fruit in. For cereal, for rice, for pasta, for biscuits and as lunch boxes. One of the Tupperware products I really like (and still use) is the sheet of sticky labels to identify contents. What often happens in my kitchen is that plastic containers get lost under other plastic containers, and without some sort of identification I would be hard pressed to visually distinguish between caster sugar and salt, or couscous and polenta. You can, of course, use a felt tip marker pen. I use a pen for stuff going in the freezer which I mark with contents and date. Otherwise, you can pull things out of the freezer that are totally unidentifiable and of unknown provenance. Plastic boxes in the fridge need to be kept to the front – use within a few days or throw out!

So we do need plastic boxes. But a whole cupboard full? Not really. Have a clear out – does every box have a lid? Does every lid have a box? Think what you could do with the freed-up space.

Zip-lock bags work well for short and long term storage – they are inexpensive and take up next-to-no space.

Take-aways

Take-aways. Hmmm. How many take-away meals do you eat in a week? Generally, take-aways are heavy on the fats and starches and the portion sizes are out of balance - bad for general healthy and the waistline. And bad for the wallet.

I'll admit that it's very nice to occassionally be relieved of kitchen duty. You don't have to prepare, cook or clean up afterwards. Occassionally. But you can easily prepare and freeze home-made ready meals in bulk. Hamburgers, chicken burgers and bolognaise sauce are all simple to prepare in bulk. Then you can serve those burgers on whole grain rolls, with a healthy serving of salad. And boiling up a pot of pasta takes very little time or effort.

Many recipes can be doubled up, while you're preparing one meal for immediate consumption you're getting the health benefits of a second meal with minimal extra effort. Just make sure you label your extra meal, stuff can become unrecognisable once it's frozen. And put the date on, too.

Invest in some of those rectangular foil boxes, they stack well in the freezer. If you're careful, you can re-use them three or four times.

I have had great success with frozen home-made lazagne (mince, chicken and vegetarian), soups, pizzas, stews and casseroles. I try to keep my freezers organised - one shelf/basket for ready meals, one for breads and muffins, one for vegetables, etc. Even if you only have an 'ice box' at the top of your freezer, you'll be surprised at what you can fit in.

Now all you have to remember is to take something out to thaw in the morning.