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 were that it couldn’t be full of recipes that used canned soups or Velveeta 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.
COOKBOOK REVIEWS: Which Freezer Cooking Books to Buy and Those to Skip
The books that made my list were:
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 I 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 delicious recipes and too many that used premade soups. This book 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 make 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!0