flexitarian food
the freezer is here and soon will have electricity. trying to figure out meal plans that
* minimizes meat, but
* accommodates the US-dudely Must Have A Lump Of Protein feeling, and
* leans on whatever prepared frozen foods I can get (that aren't wildly wildly wasteful with plastic), or at the very least, weekend meal prep into the freezer
it's interesting how different the constraints are from earlier times in my life when i've done a lot of cooking!
re: flexitarian food
@maya Are you open to recommendations?
re: flexitarian food
@maya Alright :) Two things that I've found to work very well to freeze-and-microwave, as batch meal prep options:
1. Macaroni with a bit of minced meat (real or substitute) and, crucially, 'tough' vegetables like carrots or broccoli or even green beans (no pre-cooking), everything except the macaroni fried in a single frying pan.
The 'tough' vegetables make it so that there's still some crunch to it after microwaving. Fried mushrooms also survive a freeze/microwave cycle pretty well, if you like those.
Relatively easy to adjust the 'dosage' of meat, you can just fill it with more crunchy vegetables and mushrooms instead.
2. Sauerkraut mash with a little bit of diced bacon. Basically just boiled potatoes and boiled sauerkraut (boiled short for a more sour taste, boiled long for a more neutral taste), and then add in pan-fried diced bacon afterwards. The grease of that should be enough that no other animal products need to be added.
This one is a bit more subject to personal taste preferences, I think - it's a dish I personally love, but some people really hate it. It freezes-and-microwaves extremely well though, as long as you 'flatpack' it (in eg. a sealed freezer bag) and don't freeze it as a chunk, or it'll never heat equally.
Both are pretty low-complexity to cook, needing one normal pan and one frying pan each, with high margins for error. Pretty much any vegetables can go into the macaroni, though crunch really does make it a lot better (pre-cut works fine too).
re: flexitarian food
@maya Whoops, forgot to mention: adding some sort of tomato *something* to the macaroni is pretty crucial for the taste. Either paste+water or passata is fine. For paste, make sure that it gets a while to cook.
re: flexitarian food
@joepie91 mm, we've been doing a *lot* of pasta dishes made for >2 with the excess packed into pyrex meal prep containers. any interesting veg mixes you're fond of? right now i mostly do single-veg stuff (frozen broccoli, spinach, etc), but we're going to have more room, so...
i love vinegary cabbage in piroshki, but i'd cooled off on sauerkraut as a side... i'll try sauerkraut and potatoes!
re: flexitarian food
@maya It varies (nowadays my macaroni mostly consists of leftover ingredients) but I'd say that garlic + onion + mushrooms + carrots is definitely a good base.
re: flexitarian food
@joepie91 yeah if there's something you've liked along the same lines! it may or may not be something that works for us but chatting about food recs is good :)