does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

Lifestyle Parenting, Household Affairs and Cuisine corner
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Does anybody here cook for the entire week on the weekends and then freeze? Any tips how this is done? Is there any specific game plan?

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

Twinkle , i dont do it anymore but some years back I was forced to due to lack of time ...

I used to intionally cook a larger portion of any dish so that I could freeze the rest of it in dabbas to use later ...

Similarly, every month, I used to bhoon tonns of onions and add ginger garlic and tomatoes and the spices ... bhoon it all really well .. and then divide into dabbas , in amounts that would be enough to cook a salan .. so on days that I didnt have the time to cook extentisively, I would just take out a frozen cube of this masala , add in chicken, and would be done in 20 minutes .. salan ready !

Also if you want all the monthly salan cooked in one go .. then the easiest thing to do is , fry the masala all in one pot and then divide it in different pots and add sabzi or chicken in the pots and you should be done ...

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

If you freeze masala, does the salan still have the same taste as 'fresh' masala?

Or if you freeze saalan and then heat it to eat it. Does it still taste how it tastes when freshly cooked?

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

^I really doubt it. But I think sometimes it can become a must to do..

You can also just chop onions and make a ginger-garlic paste for a weeks base and put it in tight container in fridge. That is very time saving, plus food will be tasting as fresh as possible.

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

Cb when you bhoono masala and freez it and when you are cooking do you add chicken and bhoono again or what.??

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

@kinz:, I pour about 3-4 tablespoons oil , bhoono the chicken in it till it turns brownish and then add in the frozen masala … then over and let it cook on low heat until the chicken gets fully cooked and absorbs the spices from the masala …

@Le_Pakistan: personally, I havnt ever had issues with using frozen masala taste … the vegie/meat tasted fine to me and family ..

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I have been convincing myself that I have to start doing this more often. For example cooking like 5 to 6 pounds of keema and freezing it. I used to do ginger garlic paste but I heard on desi cooking shows that it loses some flavor and it's nutritive value by doing that. So that gave my lazy self an excuse not to make ginger garlic paste. My mom always does a months worth and freeze. Definitely a huge time saver. I used to blend hare dhaniya, pudina, and green chilies and freeze it's cubes. I would just put a couple of cubes in Salan. That would ensure that the haters dhaniya didn't go bad.

Here's a list of stuff that freezes well

Haleem
Nihari
Egg/spring rolls
Samosas
Goat korma
Shami kababs
Any type of kababs
Chicken stock
Lasagna
Homemade pizza
Pizza dough

Please continue to add to the list. I have wanted to mass cook and keep in the freezer for so long but plan had never materialized. Would be great if we had a group that all together. Some days i am so tired that I have to rely on takeout or frozen pizza for dinner. I really hate that but I am so drained from the days running around that there is no choice. I have read about people planning monthly menus and I just dream about doing it one day.

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Re: does anybody here do weekly or monthly cooking

Qeema! freezes well!
Chicken Karahi!