Review 2016: Gousto Recipe Delivery

This isn’t a paid review (none of the reviews on NHM are!). I spent the money on this service knowing that I would be feeding my family and sharing my views on the service with you.

Sometimes you just have to bite the bullet and take the hit for your blog :-D.

Review 2016: Gousto Recipe Delivery

Gousto Recipe Delivery

I keep seeing details about lots of Recipe Delivery companies and have been meaning to try a few of them out for a couple of years.

Mr NHM is quite fussy with his food so it’s always a challenge to find something healthy that he will eat. Miss NHM has also started being quite fussy, so I’ve been finding it quite frustrating finding something that we will all eat.

I finally got around to getting things sorted over the Easter holidays. We all had a week off work and school and had loads of fun activities planned.

Gousto worked out really well, because it meant I didn’t have to think about what meals we were eating in the evening, so I could really enjoy our time off and days out.

I’d been keeping an eye out for leaflets with discount codes that you can cash in on your first and second shop.

Starting the Service

I logged onto the website and signed up using the gift code that I had. You can choose which day you want your meals delivered to you. We chose ours to be delivered on a Wednesday, so that I didn’t have to worry too much about our meals towards the end of the week.

There are 12 recipes that you can choose from for each box, so I had a look through and it was a tough choice what to pick! I chose three meals for four people. The website also shows you which are the quickest recipes to cook, which has the lowest calories and which is the most popular.

You can choose to have portions for two or four people and can also choose to have a vegetarian box. The website shows you the price for each portion as it’s cheaper if you choose a box for four people.

You can also choose to have your boxes weekly, fortnightly or monthly and you can choose to have either two meals, three meals or four meals in each box. It is cheaper the more meals and the more portions that you have in your box.

On our delivery day a lovely big box arrived on our doorstep! It was SOOO exciting! Just like Christmas :-D.

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I took everything out of the box. I cannot tell you how excited I was. I clearly need to get out more! lol.

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All of the meat and chilled products were packaged very carefully in an ice bag:

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Ice bag for the meat and fish
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Reusable Ice Packs
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Herbs, stock and extras

I loved that the condiments came in their own little pots:

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The Meals

The first thing I cooked was Tamarind-Glazed cod & coconut noodles. It sounds really fancy but it was actually pretty straightforward. However, it took me a while to work out that all of the ingredients had to be doubled because I was cooking for 4 and the recipe cards are written for two! 271

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The finished product even looked like the pictures on the instruction card! 😀

I wanted to include a fish dish as we don’t eat enough fish in our house and I was a bit concerned that this wouldn’t go down very well. But everyone loved it so that was a huge relief. It’s quite a sweet dish, despite not having any sugar in, which I wasn’t expecting.

The Second Meal I cooked was Herby Cumberland Sausage Cassoulet.

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This was hugely popular and really easy to make.

I realised at this point that at the bottom of the recipe card, it includes how long it will take to cook each meal, how many of your 5 a day are included and the calorie, fat and protein per person of each portion. I thought that was pretty cool.

The third meal I cooked was Barbecue Pork Steaks with mixed salad.

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The sauce for the pork chops was really yummy and I was really impressed that this also looked like the pictures of the cooked meal on the recipe cards.

I was actually surprised at how much of a hit each of these meals were, despite Mr NHM telling me off for including salad with his pork and for putting in the corriander in the cod soup!

Everyone ate everything and they both commented on how similar the finished products were to the recipe card pictures.

Tips

You get to keep the recipe cards so you can recreate the meals again. I’ve already cooked the sausage cassoulet again with vegetarian sausages and it was a huge hit again.

You get to keep all of the packaging so Miss NHM used the box (as it suggested!) to make a house and we kept the ice packaging for use in our ice box.

It’s quite easy to stop and start the service. You just change the options on the website at any time you like.

Final Thoughts

If I was made of money I would ALWAYS use Gousto. It was a fantastic service and I loved that it was all organic and I didn’t have to think about any preparation as all ingredients come in the box and the recipe cards tell you exactly what to do.

It was a huge weight off my mind, especially during the holiday, not having to worry about our meals for a couple of days and I found the recipes really easy to cook.

I’m definitely going to see if my budget stretches to me using the service when I know we have a frantically busy week and my mind will be on other things that won’t include what is for dinner that evening. I also plan to use the service during the next school holidays that we have off but are staying at home as it was such a luxury not having to worry about meal planning or preparation.

If you would like to try out the Gousto recipe delivery and receive a £25 discount, you can enter code “LOUIS118348” in the promotion box at checkout.

If you do use this service, let me know what you think!

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Google+,Facebook PageFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Top Tip: Slow Cooker Lasagna

Someone told me a couple of years ago (Hi Laura!) that you could do lasagna in your slow cooker .

I was bit sceptical but have been wanting to try it for ages and finally got around to it a few weeks ago.

We loved it so much, that we have had it twice in the past month! Which possibly explains why I’m not losing any weight at the moment! lol.

Top Tip: Slow Cooker Lasagna

I used my slow cooker to batch cook a basic bolognese sauce. I use:

  • chopped tomatoes
  • chopped onion
  • finely chopped carrots,  peppers and apple (lots of hidden veg and you can’t taste them)
  • loads of garlic
  • minced beef
  • beef stock
  • tomato puree
  • oregano
  • and sometimes passata if it’s in the cupboard.

I chuck it all in the slow cooker and let it cook for 8 hours.

I make a huge batch and then freeze it and use it as a base for pasta and sauce, chilli (chuck in some mild chilli and red kidney beans for 30 mins when reheating) and now for lasagna.

This sauce is very versatile!

Steps

Layer your stuff. For my first layer I put in the bolognese sauce.

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Then I break up the lasagna sheets to cover the sauce.

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Then I add the cheese sauce (Make a rue, with butter and flour, add milk very slowly and keep stirring constantly and then boil so the sauce thickens. Add some grated cheese once sauce has thickened. You don’t need to use much cheese).

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Then I add another layer of bolognese sauce.

You can add a layer of spinach here too if you want to add some more veg.

Depending on how much “stuff” I have available, I will keep doing the layers until I’ve run out!

However, the last two layers on the top are always the lasagna sheets topped with the cheese sauce and some grated cheese.

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Then wack your slow cooker on low for 4 hours.

I actually switched mine off after 3.5 hours last time because I could smell that it was cooked (it smells YUMMY!).

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Then serve!

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We have ours with salad. (when I say “we”, I obviously mean me and Miss NHM as Mr NHM’s is still northern and refuses to eat salads :-D).

I often end up storing what’s left in the fridge and ensure that when I re-heat the lasagna it’s boiling hot, so no risk of food poisoning.

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Google+,Facebook PageFacebook Profile, LinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Stocking Fillers Ideas and 14 things you don’t want to forget for Christmas!

Today’s “Sunday re-post” is just for you if you are struggling with ideas of what to put in your little ones stockings:

Stocking Filler Ideas! (It seems that this post isn’t working, so I’ve updated this post with the original post below. Hope it helps!

and if you can’t think of all of those things you need to remember for Christmas, this is the post for you!:

14 things you don’t want to forget for Christmas

Stocking Filler Ideas 2014

I’ve mentioned before that I do my VERY best to avoid things that are going to end up in landfill.

  • Bubbles
  • Satsuma
  • crayons
  • modeling clay or play dough
  • a Slinky
  • miniature Lego kits
  • travel games
  • decks of cards
  • mini jigsaw puzzles
  • wind-up toys
  • squirt guns
  • balloons
  • beach balls
  • high bounce balls
  • small stuffed animals
  • toy cars
  • fancy shoelaces.
  • Gift vouchers (clothing, restaurants, groceries, music download cards, new experiences).
  • Pocket or desktop calendars.
  • Pens
  • pencils
  • erasers
  • highlighters
  • color pens
  • notepads
  • Wristwatches or small alarm clocks
  • Torch
  • kitchen utensils
  • Try a favorite candy, jam, mustard, or ice cream sauce
  • Orange
  • Candy canes
  • toothbrush
  • toothpaste (travel sized)
  • Pretty stones or minerals
  • Music CDs.
  • New hairbrush
  • jewellry
  • hair clips, hair bands, hair toggles
  • hot chocolate
  • bar of chocolate
  • Christmas chocolate
  • Novelty chocolate
  • key rings
  • fun showergels
  • Bubble Bath
  • Colouring or Activity Books/Pencils
  • Post It Notes
  • Bubble Wands
  • Socks
  • Large Chocolate Coin
  • Travel Bag
  • Cookies in Christmas shapes, such as Santa or Reindeer.
  • Mince pies
  • Toy cars
  • Silly putty
  • Army Men or small action figures or dolls
  • Clothing for Barbie dolls or other dolls
  • School supplies
  • Books
  • Art supplies
  • a note promising a special activity that day
  • permission to download a new app to their ipads

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum on TwitterGoogle+Facebook PageFacebook Profile, LinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there!

The technology I use: Todoist

I have a new addiction: Todoist

I’ve been using Remember the Milk for a number of years and been fairly happy with it but it’s not as intuitive as I would like and there are a few things that always felt a bit “clunky”.

Todoist does everything Remember the Milk does and MORE!

It is absolutely AWESOME! (I don’t use those words lightly in this context!)

If you like making lists, I TOTALLY recommend using it. I love the reminders and pop up alerts that it sends me and I’m already feeling more productive as a result of using this app for a week!

I’m using it as reminders for House Stuff, Family Stuff, NHM Stuff, my part time job and LOADS more. I’m also using it as a place to store my lists that I don’t need reminding off, so I have them to hand all in one place.

You basically create projects and then you can add tasks into projects, create repeats and there are four different types of priority you can use which are a lot more flexible than on Remember the Milk.

If you pay to upgrade, £18 on your PC, £21 on your ipad (so sign up on your PC if you choose to do this!) you can also add Labels which allow you to group tasks and Filters which I haven’t quite worked out what to do with yet. You can also choose pretty colours for your projects.

You can even sync it with your email, again something that I’ve yet to investigate.

It sync’s it to all your technology, you just need to download the free app and you can link up with other people and get Todoist to email them at a specific time. AWESOME! (Mr NHM hasn’t started shouting at me about this quite yet 😀.)

Let me know if you use Todoist and whether you love it just as much as me!

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Google+,Facebook PageFacebook Profile, LinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

Some of my parenting “shortcuts”!

If you’ve been following NorthHantsMum for a while you will know that I’m big on keeping my life as stress free and simple as possible.

One of the ways I do this is by getting things delivered directly to our house.

I work from home so this is fairly straight forward, however, there are ways to get around this if you aren’t at home very much.

I’ve mentioned before that I use online shopping but I also have food delivered by local producers and independent companies.

1. Food Delivery – Fish

We have a fish delivery every 8 weeks. We use Regal Fish. They deliver the fish that was caught that morning.

We get a call from Regal Fish, place our order and they make the delivery a week later.

The quality of the fish has been excellent and we are eating a lot more fish as a result.

2. Food Delivery – Organic Vegetables

I have a bag of fresh, locally grown, organic vegetables delivered every week.

I’ve wrote a review about NorthDown Orchard when we first started using them. I was looking for a local alternative to Able and Cole and Riverford.

Two years later and we are still getting our weekly bags.

I love them! I love that we are using a local producer and it’s all organic and incredibly reasonably priced for organic vegetables.

3. Birthday Present Box

There is nothing worse (first world issues!) than realising that you have a children’s party the following day and you’ve not got a present sorted.

I sort of cheat with this.

I’ve set up a number of alerts in camelcamelcamel for gifts which I know children will like and then when they are reduced in price, I buy them in bulk and store them in the Birthday Present Box.

This has saved my skin (and wallet) on a number of occasions.

What are your parenting “shortcuts”?

Top tip: Six weeks before Christmas!

(I know, I know, you don’t want to be reminded, but I was a Brownie and Guide so the motto “be prepared” is drummed in to me :-D.) 

In an effort to try to get organised for Christmas early this year, I thought I would put together a quick post about what to prepare roughly 6 weeks in advance of Christmas.

I have a Trello Christmas Reference board which I use every year and this really helps ease the pain.

I spent some time two years ago putting it together and now I don’t need to think about what needs to be done, I just refer to this board!

6 weeks before Christmas!

Do you know who you are buying for?

If not, time to make a list.

Once you know who you are buying for you can then start to think about what to buy them.

Look out for my Top Tip about CamelCamelCamel for saving money via Amazon.

I also keep a record against each person as to what I bought them in previous years.

This is especially important if you have friends with two or more children, so you don’t get a sibling the same gift.

Cheat: if you have to buy presents for several children of roughly the same age, buy them all the same thing! Then you don’t have to think about it! lol.

Are you doing stockings for people?

If yes, check out my 2012 post on stocking filler ideas that don’t end up as landfill. (This post also has a link to the post office with a list of mailing dates).

Are you hosting Christmas dinner?

If yes, what food do you need to buy?

I have a Trello list for food for Christmas day and then a Trello list entertaining food for when people come to visit.

I start buying the long lasting items off this list from the middle of November.

It helps spread the cost of Christmas. I think! lol.

What traditions are you planning to hold for your family?

There are key people that we always catch up with over Christmas and it’s important to us that this happens.

I think at Christmas time you have to be intentional about the things that you do and the people that you see.

One of our traditions is to hand deliver Christmas cards to our friends who live in Reading.

This isn’t particularly environmentally friendly but it gives Miss NHM a great opportunity to go “oooh, ahhhh” at all of the Christmas lights near where I friends live.

We also have another tradition where we go for afternoon tea at a hotel in the New Forest, with friends who live in Dorset.

Do you have a December bucket list?

I can’t remember where I first saw this, but it’s a great idea.

Are there certain things that are important for you all to do as a family during Christmas?

Write them down and add them into the December schedule to ensure they happen!

This year I am going to try to add several of our December bucket list things into our advent calendar.

Do you want to give out handmade gifts?

Time to start cracking on these, if you haven’t already!

This year I am toying with making handmade Christmas crackers, but you can guarantee it won’t happen, even if I do buy all the kits from Baker Ross!!! lol.

Are you doing a personalised advent calendar?

If yes, time to get cracking now! You can get some ideas about advent calendars via a post I wrote in 2014.

Are you posting parcels abroad?

Time to start thinking about the parcels you need to put together and the delivery times as they are sooner than for cards abroad.

Are you posting cards abroad?

Also check out the delivery times for cards abroad to ensure they arrive in time.

Are you putting together a Christmas Eve parcel?

If yes, time to start buying those Christmas Eve pyjamas!

Are you making Christmas cookies in a jar?

I’m probably going to regret sharing this post, but we made Cookies in a jar  last year and it went down a storm.

They took MUCH longer to make than expected though, so schedule at least 3 hours to make 12 jars!!!

Please, to all my friends who read NHM, don’t give us all “Cookies in a jar” as I’m trying to watch my waist line! haha.

Are you putting together a Christmas newsletter for your Christmas cards?

I’ve never done this but I’m toying with it this year.

So much has happened to our little family this year and I know our extended families that we don’t see very often would probably like to know what is actually happening, rather than the version that my Mum and my in-laws tell them! lol.

I probably won’t get round to it though!

Things to check

Do you have enough:

  • Sellotape
  • Christmas wrapping paper
  • Christmas tags
  • Christmas cards
  • Christmas table decorations
  • Christmas movies
  • Booze 😉

and check this post out for 14 things you don’t want to forget for Christmas!

In a perfect world, I would do all of the above.

I never do though! lol.

What have I missed?

Don’t miss out on future posts like this – you can receive updates directly to your inbox by email by adding your email address to the box on the top right of this page and hitting subscribe. You can also follow NorthHantsMum onTwitter,Facebook PageFacebook ProfileLinkedIn and Feedly. I hope to see you there! 

The technology that I use: Evernote

I can’t believe that I haven’t posted this post up yet!

This is part of my series on the technology that I use  in my life.

I’ve used Evernote for the past four and a half years and I LOVE it!

It is literally, as I’ve said before,  my portable brain. I’ve just checked and I have other 5168 notes (EEK!) and 14 main notebooks with over 127 sub folders. Wow, that is SOOO geeky! lol.

I use Evernote for NHM, for my career, for my job, for my part time job, for studying, for travel, and for us as a family. I also have a folder called “Louise” which has all the stuff that’s related to me.

I’ve mentioned before that I use Feedly to read blogs and I have worked out that you can email a blog post directly into Evernote, using your Evernote email. Hence why I have over 5,000 notes. I squirrel away all of the great ideas that I find and save them for later in Evernote.

I also use the Web clipper functionality. This means you can take a picture of any website and store it in Evernote for future reference. The text in this picture is also searchable in Evernote.

In the latest version of Evernote you can also create shortcuts so I have my favourite folders, the ones I use the most, at the top of Evernote so I can access them quickly.

photo

Below is just a short explanation of the folders that I use:

Family

  • Working On – these are the posts that have my most focus at the moment
  • Miss NHM – these are the notes that are relevant to Miss NHM,e.g. whatever she says by month, that I’ve remembered and made a note off!
  • Teaching Miss NHM – this are all the very cool posts that I’ve seen with great ideas of activities to educate and entertain Miss NHM
  • 2014 – notes that are relevant for 2014
  • Bucket list ideas – All those things I want to achieve in my life!
  • Reading list ideas – Along the way I pick up great idea for books that I really should read, so I put them in this folder.

Folders by theme

  • Money
  • Holidays for us
  • Walks
  • Travel – places I’d like to go with Mr NHM when Miss NHM leaves home
  • Goal Setting
  • Status Update 2014 – Every Thursday I write my status update of what I’ve achieved at work and at home. It’s great for keeping me focused and ensuring that I’ve added value to my life each week.
  • Food recipies – ever get to that point where you have a bunch of ingredients but you don’t know what to do with them? Evernote helps me nearly every time!
  • Paleo Recipes – I’m still dabbling in paleo and this is where I save my recipes.
  • MBA Learnings – some of the notes I used when I finished my MBA. I wish Evernote had been around when I was studying for my Masters as it would have really made my life easier!

NHM

  • Blog weeks are by theme
  • Blog months have a list of notes with subjects
  • Floating post folder with a note for each post or idea
  • Reviews
  • Meet ups
  • Networking
  • Guest posts

I also have historical folders for posts published and historical things to do published.

I have the same folder structure in my NHM emails too. I had to do this at the beginning of 2014 as it was so busy and I couldn’t keep track.

Part Time Business

  • Team
  • Actions
  • Inspiration
  • Contacts

Career

  • Folders for each part of my job with notes
  • Brag folder – any emails that I get that are non confidential and are someone praising me, I mark them as my brag folder and save a copy to Evernote. Perfect for appraisal time 😉
  • Networking folder
  • Appraisal notes – Every quarter I try to update my appraisal goals to show progress. It’s the only way I can keep track.
  • Feedback from others for me
  • Feedback from me for others
  • CV
  • Women in Industry – great articles I’ve read about successful women who inspire me

Book

  • Folders for each idea with notes for plots, themes and chapters

This is just a brain dump of some of the structure in my Evernote.

This isn’t the complete list of notebooks that I use, but it gives you an idea of how flexible Evernote is.

I use it on my computer, iPhone and iPad but I know it also works on Android as Mr NHM uses it.

If you want to know more about how I use Evernote, just ask me when you see me next!

Be warned though, I may bore you to tears :-D.

Related Posts

The technology behind NHM

The technology that I use: Trello

The technology that I use: Remember the Milk

iPads and toddlers

How I write NorthHantsMum in 2013

The technology that I use: Trello

I became addicted to Trello about a year ago because of this post HERE.

I found that it’s best to initially set up on a computer and then make changes via iPad or mobile.

Now I know you will all judge me massively after this post and I wouldn’t blame you at all! Lol.

You could say it’s the perk of not having a TV and having a husband who works on shift, what else can I do in the evenings when Miss NHM is asleep! Lol.

Organisations

Family

  • Family 2014
  • House Maintenance – Spring, Summer, Winter, Autumn, Regular house tasks, Regular things to do
  • Miss NHM – To do, Doing, Goals (next 5 years ), Vision (next 10 – 15 years)
  • Money
  • Family goals
  • Mr NHM
  • Us

Me

  • My goals for 2014
  • Fun and inspiration
  • My life goals
  • Career
  • My bucket list
  • My Things to do list – I manage this better in remember the milk, but I like the way it can be viewed on a list all at the same time in Trello
  • Achievements
  • Things to do daily

Reference Boards

  • Holidays – this has a list of places we would like to visit for a weekend, a week, a month and a year (we want to travel for a year with Miss NHM before she gets to 10 years old)
  • Birthdays – list for each month and a list for presents at the beginning of this board
  • Christmas
  • Date Night
  • Days at home alone with Miss NHM (Ideas of things to do together)
  • Family Days out
  • Dinner out
  • Entertaining 2014
  • Friends – friends, aquaintances and people I need to stay in touch with.
  • Food – lists of types of food by fruit, vegetable, meat, grain and fish (to ensure we get lots of diversity in our diet)
  • Packing (holidays) – has lists for camping packing, weekend packing, week packing, hot holidays and work packing.

Future

  • 2015 by month
  • 2016 to 2018
  • 2018 to 2022
  • 2022 to 2030

Related Posts

The technology behind NHM

The technology that I use: Remember the Milk

How I write NorthHantsMum in 2013

The technology behind NHM

There are several online tools that I use to manage NHM and other aspects of my life. All of these tools sync between my phone, my ipad and my computer.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to do an individual post for each of these applications, so you can see in detail how, and why, I use them.

As a very busy Mum they are essential for keeping me on track and making sure I don’t waste my life! lol.

Hopefully they will also be useful for you too!

The Applications that I use

Google Calendar

Evernote

Remember the Milk

Trello

Feedly

A day of freezer cooking

I’ve read a lot recently about Batch Cooking. We are very lucky that we have a large upright freezer and it has really been an amazing help over the past two years. When I was pregnant, before I was unable to walk, I spent a few weekends making extra meals ready for when my little one arrived. Having these meals on stand by were absolutely essential to those first few frantic months. Now that I’m working and a lot more experienced in my parenting, I try to spend one afternoon every couple of months making extra meals to freeze.

I’ve mentioned before that I mealplan because it’s cheaper and less wasteful. Having a large freezer really helps us to do this. I try to ensure that, as much as possible, my family eat homecooked meals. Most of my extended family and my friends will tell you that I’m a crap cook, but I’ve managed to pull together a few staple meals which keep us going.

Some of my easiest favourite meals to batch cook are:

  • Vietnamese Beef Soup
  • Cottage Pie
  • Casserole
  • Basic spag bol which can also be converted into Chilli
  • Goulash (so easy in the slow cooker)
  • Sausage rolls (may sound a bit strange, but my husband is from up north and it keeps him happy :-D)

Another way that I also batch cook is when we have a slow cooker meal. I try to ensure that at least one evening meal a week is a slow cooker meal, as I’ve mentioned HERE before. I’ve got the biggest slow cooker I could get, I think it’s about 6 pints, maybe even bigger! This means that when I’m cooking a meal, I nearly always cater so that there is enough for two meals. I either stick what’s left in a box or a plastic bag and it goes straight into the freezer. I do write on it the date of when it was cooker, so I know when to use it by.

I’m also a total addict of Lock and Lock Boxes. They are the best “tuperware” boxes that I’ve found. We also use Ziplock bags (Costco – beg for membership! It’s next to Madjeski Stadium, Reading) to freeze things like dried herbs and soups, but I am a little paranoid of storing everything in plastic. If only they made BPA free ziplock bags!!!

Do you Batch Cook? Which recipes are the easiest and quickest that you like to cook? I’m intrigued to know as it would be great to get some more meals to add to my repertoire.