Monday, March 22, 2010

Foray into batch cooking.

Because I'm at work late every single night this week due to my fabulous career choice (please note the sarcasm dripping off that statement), and I didn't want both of us eating Boca patties and rice every single night (2 or 3 nights? Fine. 5 nights? No bueno.), we went shopping yesterday with the intention of cooking up everything and making little containers for ourselves throughout the week. We bought a ton of fresh veggiesto roast, a few packages of chicken, a couple packets of rice, and a bag of mixed veggies to round everything out.

For the roasted veggies, we chopped 3 sweet potatos, an onion, 4 bell peppers, some garlic, a head of cauliflower, and a few hot peppers. Everything got tossed in olive oil with some salt and pepper and then thrown in a baking dish and baked at 350 for about an hour. It came out delicious!

While that was baking, we did a pound of chicken in the skillet (breaded and fried in a bit of olive oil) and a pound in the oven (baked with cilantro & lime juice), and a bunch of rice on the stove.

When everything was done, we were able to seperate everything into single servings and made little containers of chicken, veggies, and rice - now we've each got dinner for every night this week (and it's not crap) to pop in the microwave. Well, I'll be able to reheat in the microwave because I'll be at work. Did you know we totally don't have a microwave in our house?

Yup, we haven't had one since January 2009 when we moved to our new place. The new house has a limited amount of counter space, and our old microwave was really big. I got rid of it, figuring we'd just buy a smaller one, but we just never did. We looked for one every time we went out those first few weeks, but they were either too expensive or just not small enough (and I would rather have my KitchenAid stand mixer out than look at a microwave, anyway). So we just never bought one. 14 months later, we still don't have one and I don't have any immediate plans to buy one.... we made it this long, right? I feel like we eat better (less "ready to eat" meals) and the stuff that we do reheat has to go on the stove or in the over - so it just tastes better, less soggy and more like it did the first time it was made.

Anyone else living without a microwave, or am I the only one?

2 comments:

Molly said...

What a great idea! My mom is totally anti microwave and we never had one when I was growing up. She has a warming drawer that she uses to heat things up and it does taste so much better.

Anonymous said...

WOW...talk about organization..I'm impressed! As far as a microwave..oh yeah...got one

Your Southern Aunt