Fateful question, every evening in front of the wide open fridge:"What is - what are we eating tonight"?
Do you know that too?
Me, I never know what to eat at night. And when I have inspiration, I'm always missing an ingredient or time.
So, I give up, and it ends up in butter pasta most of the time...
Fortunately, I found a great solution. It's called "batch-cooking" or how to cook for the whole week in one go.
It interests you ? So, follow me to discover the 9 good reasons to start batch-cooking this weekend . Watch:
It is a method that comes to us from the United States. "Batch" in English means "to group together".
Batch-cooking is cooking all the meals of the week in one go.
It's a way to get organized, save time and money, and eat healthy, even on a totally overbooked evening!
But, be careful, it's not making a huge gratin dauphinois just to eat it for a week, no, no! On the contrary, it is a varied and balanced cuisine.
For example, instead of preparing 2 zucchinis each evening, you prepare 6 at once in different ways:a ratatouille, a zucchini velouté and a gratin.
And all this only takes 2 more minutes. I'm not telling you how happy you'll be to find these ready-made meals during the week!
Let's continue the example by talking about cooking:while the gratin is cooking on the top plate, a pie can also be cooking below.
And tac, in addition to being practical, it's economical, because the oven will only work once for 2 cookings.
On average, you can cook for the week in just 3 hours with a little practice and organization.
Yes, I know, you're going to tell me:"I don't have time"!
But you will see that this time taken over the weekend will make your life so much easier during the week that you will not regret.
The dishes are kept in airtight boxes in the fridge or freezer as appropriate. So there is no hygiene concern with these dishes.
The advantages of this way of doing things are numerous, even for beginners, singles or less seasoned cooks, take a look:
This is, in my opinion, the most important of all the advantages of batch cooking.
Because thanks to this method, we group the same tasks at the same time.
It allows you to go faster and take out the kitchen equipment only once.
So, no need to wash the peeler, blender and cutting boards 5 times a week.
Here they will just be rinsed between the preparation of the different dishes. Save time and save water too!
When you add it all up, cooking all at once actually takes less time than cooking it every night.
And suddenly, we gain free time for family evenings.
It therefore avoids having to worry every night when you leave work tired and having to think about what you are going to eat and especially having to cook...
No more evening anxiety in front of your fridge!
Everything is already ready, so I can concentrate on other things.
It's a kind of inner peace.
It also relieves everyday life, because there is no longer any need to take out 1000 pots and utensils every evening and have to clean them afterwards.
Basically, I just have to heat it up and set the table, that's all! Not bad, right?
As the basics of the meals are ready, all that remains is to assemble the main dish with its accompaniment, to heat it up and to set the table.
And all this without urgency or hysterics!
Because I'm sure it's happened to you to start cooking at 8 p.m. and cook a dish with 45 minutes of cooking.
Results ? We eat at 9:30 p.m. in stress by sending the meal. In short, another family evening wasted...
Instead, my family and I now eat quietly, chatting.
Children even have time to read and play a little before going to bed.
When we cook day by day, we don't necessarily have any ideas, and we kind of always do the same thing...
In the end, everyone is disappointed.
To batch-cook, you must have planned your menus in advance.
The ideal is to do it as a family, so everyone can choose a dish they like, and you no longer have to think for yourself.
And all this while respecting seasonal fruits and vegetables, or by favoring a promotion that you will have found at the market.
It's also an opportunity to try out new recipes or cook a new ingredient.
Give yourself 20 minutes every week to choose what you will eat during the week.
It's usually the weekend that we have the most time (well, if we have classic schedules).
Since everyone is available, we can put everyone to work!
The gentleman peels the vegetables, the children arrange the fruit on the pies and wash the vegetables.
It's a great moment of sharing and also of learning for the little ones.
A moment during which we can chat, laugh, put on some music and have fun.
When I was little, I loved to cook with my grandmother, she taught me many of her tips that I now give to my children.
As we plan the menu in advance, we buy only what is necessary thanks to a prepared shopping list.
Without a list, we fill the cart, but in the end, nothing agrees to cook a good little dish... and we throw away half of it.
Hello mess!
No more emergency stops at the supermarket on the way home from work.
You know, the one where you buy a prepared meal full of yucky ingredients and super expensive.
Now you can say goodbye to unnecessary expenses!
Savings are also made on the side of electricity and water.
By optimizing the operation of the oven (2 dishes cooking at the same time), it will stay on for less time in the end than if it operates for 25 to 45 minutes every evening.
Ditto for water:vegetables and fruits can be washed together in the same basin, filled only once (and whose water will be recycled to water the plants for example).
With the butter pasta menu, the 5 fruits and vegetables a day are a long way off!
Because, I don't know about you, but stuffing myself with the peeling of a kilo of potatoes and a piece of squash after a hard day doesn't appeal to me at all.
Whereas with batch-cooking, all of this has been planned and anticipated from the weekend.
The vegetables are already introduced into the dishes (we have time to peel them), all you have to do is reheat them.
My tip? Compose the dish according to seasonal vegetables, those you have in the garden, or promotional baskets found at farmers or at the local merchant.
For example, if I have eggplant, I will pair it with meat that goes well with it, not the other way around.
Thanks to batch cooking, everything is ready in the fridge.
This avoids overpriced pizza or sushi orders, all because you're too lazy to cook.
The "homemade" is back in force! Again, these are great savings.
But above all, it's the end of junk food and its hallucinating doses of sugars and saturated fats that the body ends up rejecting.
It's your body that will thank you by avoiding appointments with the doctor every four mornings!
This method of organization and cooking allows you to use (and buy) only what you need.
No more things rotting at the bottom of the fridge because we didn't have time to prepare them.
Over time, you will not only be able to adjust the quantities, but also accommodate a leftover dish.
For example, if you have cooked too many potatoes, you can make them in a salad, stir-fry or soup.
With batch-cooking, nothing is lost, everything is transformed!
To every advantage there is a disadvantage.
So you want to know my opinion on batch-cooking? To be honest, I only found 2 negative points to batch-cooking:
- The first is that of time. Most books on the subject promise cooking for the week in 2 hours. For now, I can't do it, I need 3 hours. So, maybe I still have things to improve to be faster, but I can't see which ones yet!
- The second concerns the weekends when you are not there. So you can't cook. There are 2 solutions for this:either you batch-cook a little during the week and freeze it, or you plan all your meals well for the week so as not to spread yourself too thin and fall back into the ease of ready-made meals.
So ready to give it a try? I advise you to stick to it for at least 3 weeks in a row to assess the real benefits. You'll tell me about it!
Have you tried batch-cooking for the week? Tell us in the comments what you thought of it? We can't wait to read you!
