I’ve been investment cooking for over two months now and I’m hooked.

I borrowed every library book on the subject I could get my hands on to find the best recipes.  Now, since hubby and I are empty nesters, I focused on quality and not quantity, so my book selections might not be the same as a homemaker cooking for a family.

My criteria was that it couldn’t be full of recipes that used canned soups or Velveta cheese. Most freezer books are full of these kinds of recipes.  I’m not knocking people who use them, heck, if I was still feeding a big family I might take that shortcut, but again, I’m looking for quality so I wanted recipes that were mostly made from scratch so that I could control the ingredients.

I also looked for recipes that were easily converted to vegetarian recipes without fussing too much. I found three books that fit all of my criteria and ones that I went back to over and over.

The books that made my list were:

• *The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet: A Month of Meals Made Easy – companion website and book.  This is not as flashy as the others.  No photos and on plain paper, but it’s got some great basic recipes.  The batch white sauce is a staple and used for so many of the dishes.  This one does go to the prepared stuff at times, but the majority are quality recipes.  I chose to get the book instead of subscribing to their online service.  The cost to purchase was just over $10.
• Fix, Freeze, Feast: More than 125 recipes to prepare in bulk and by the serving – I loved this book and purchased it from Amazon.com for just over $10.  My husband especially loves the Chicken-Broccoli Bake (made vegetarian by substituting fake chicken and vegetable stock), the Baked Potato Soup (easily made vegetarian by using vegetable stock and fake bacon),  Asparagus & Potato Frittata, Salisbury Meatballs, Garlic Mashed Potatoes and so many more.  It’s easy to start the recipe and split it in the middle to make one regular and one vegetarian.  The instructions are easy to read and understand and the writers are aware of how bulk meat and condiments are packaged so recipes are designed around this.  This book doesn’t have pictures, but I didn’t even notice.  The descriptions and summaries are enough.
• Don’t Panic – Dinner’s in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead – I love this one and purchased it also through Amazon.com for just over $10.  I had to take the library copy back because there was a huge waiting list and mine hasn’t arrived yet, so I can’t share the best recipes.  There were many. There’s a new  book coming out April 1 called Don’t Panic–More Dinner’s in the Freezer: A Second Helping of Tasty Meals You Can Make Ahead and I’ll be sure to pick that one up as well.

The books I passed on:

• Dream Dinners: Turn Dinnertime into Family Time with 100 Assemble-and-Freeze Meals – This is a companion book to the DreamDinners neighborhood stores.  Unfortunately, there are 45 pages of corrections for the book on their website.  One of the corrections even had an obvious error in it.  I emailed for clarification and was promptly answered; however, the recipe has yet to be corrected on their website.
• Holly Clegg’s Trim & Terrific Freezer Friendly Meals – This appears to be more of a bulk-cooking book.  I found very few appetizing recipes and too many that used premade soups.  This was sent back to the library.

My freezer is stuffed with fabulous food now.  I try to cook every three days or so – I’m not a once-a-month cook.  I cook for dinner and package the rest.  This vegetarian then only has to deal with meat every few days.  A plus for me :)  I also do several breakfasts that are easy to microwave and take on the run.  I use vegetarian patty sausage and my husband loves them.  Today I made breakfast burritos with vegetarian link sausages for a change of pace.

I’m enjoying investment cooking and find handling 10 pounds of chicken and 10 pounds of hamburger all at one time isn’t so awful thanks to the disposable gloves purchased at Sam’s Club – I go through about 20 pairs per cooking session :).

My most used items besides meat?  Red Wine Vinegar, Honey, Soy Sauce, and Butter – lots and lots of butter!

Questions?  Ask, I’d love to chat about Investment Cooking!

Enjoy!

Related articles by Zemanta

• The “Simple Suppers” Cookbook Helps You Host Vegetarians (aldenteblog.com)
• Recipe for Cannellini Bean and Sausage Stew with Tomatoes and Basil (kalynskitchen.blogspot.com)
• It’s National Soup Month! (vegcooking.com)
• 101 Recipes From the Herb Lady (herbsspices.suite101.com)
• Find Out if Your Kids Have the Correct Nutrition They Need (articlesbase.com)
• Good Question: Menu for Meat-Lovers and Vegetarians Too (thekitchn.com)
• Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes (101cookbooks.com)
• Go Vegetarian One Day Each Week! (dietriffic.com)
• How I Learned to Cook Secret Restaurant Recipe’s (articlesbase.com)
• Recipe for Curried Lentil Soup with Cilantro (kalynskitchen.blogspot.com)
• pre-Thanksgiving and lots of other food! (cathweber.blogspot.com)
• Italian Sausage – Mashed Potato Pie (lisacooking.com)
• Slow and full of flavour (canada.com)
• Easy Chicken Stew Recipe (quickandeasycooking.importantposts.com)
• Pub Grub Reader Recipe: Bangers and Mash (aldenteblog.com)
• Low-Carb Mmm Mmm Mock Mashed Potatoes Recipe (livinlavidalowcarb.com)
• Slow Cooking Cheap Cuts: Beer Brisket [Food] (silverknife.co.uk)
• Cornish hens & mashed potatoes (nihaargupta.com)
• Side Dish Stagnation? Spicy Tomato Rice to the Rescue! (foodwishes.blogspot.com)
• Osso Buco with Tomato Sauce (winter-recipes.suite101.com)

Popularity: 26% [?]

Related posts:

1. Our Latest Freezer Cooking Episode – Eh, Could Have Been Better So I usually ban any freezer recipe that has condensed...
2. Potatoes Two Ways; Two Dinners – Freezer Cooking for Two I brought home the sweetest bag of organic Yukon...
3. Day 3 – Three Freezer Cooking Recipes Complete, Flu and All So I figured if the hub’s could go to the...
4. Fabulessly Frugal: FabuLESS Freezer Cooking Fabulessly Frugal is a great site for learning more about...
5. REVIEW: Cooking with all things Trader Joe’s Use Trader Joe’s as your “prep kitchen” to make...

Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.