Batch Cooking for Blended Diet
So I did a big-batch cookfest for Little B's blended diet yesterday, and I thought I would post a bit about it. I always thought that batch cooking would be dreadful, arduous and take forever. Yesterday's cookfest took about 90 minutes, and involved a medium saucepan, a skillet, a steamer, the food processor, and muffin tins (for freezing the blended veggies in serving-sized portions). There was a paring knife, a cutting board, and a spatula as well. I made three "blends" -- a green, a red, and a yellow. I'm all about the color coordination.
It went something like this:
1. Get out *all* the veggies I planned on using (if I don't, I always forget something in the fridge).
2. I started with the greens, for no good reason. I set the savoy cabbage, celery and broccoli in the saucepan to steam (using the steamer basket). There were three separate batches of steaming... While the steamer was softening the celery, I sauteed the spinach and kale for a few moments in the skillet, just to wilt it slightly. Once everything was nice and steamy, I whizzed everything in the food processor. My blender is not the most powerful thing in the universe, so it needs all the help it can get. Since the greens tend to collapse so delightfully, I put the puree into muffin tins and froze them.
3. Then came the oranges, which for some reason are my favorites. I used butternut squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. The butternut squash I just microwaved, which was crazy easy (so much better than roasting in the oven for an hour our more! It was 12 minutes in the microwave!).
In any case, everything got chucked into the freezer, and is waiting for me to pull them out and blend. I rotate between the colors, one for each day. Oh, the glamour!
It went something like this:
1. Get out *all* the veggies I planned on using (if I don't, I always forget something in the fridge).
2. I started with the greens, for no good reason. I set the savoy cabbage, celery and broccoli in the saucepan to steam (using the steamer basket). There were three separate batches of steaming... While the steamer was softening the celery, I sauteed the spinach and kale for a few moments in the skillet, just to wilt it slightly. Once everything was nice and steamy, I whizzed everything in the food processor. My blender is not the most powerful thing in the universe, so it needs all the help it can get. Since the greens tend to collapse so delightfully, I put the puree into muffin tins and froze them.
3. Then came the oranges, which for some reason are my favorites. I used butternut squash, sweet potatoes and carrots. The butternut squash I just microwaved, which was crazy easy (so much better than roasting in the oven for an hour our more! It was 12 minutes in the microwave!).
4. The reds included beets from our garden and tomato paste (yum?). The beets were just steamed, and colored the steaming water (which I ended up using as cooking water for the millet). Speaking of which, I ended up making a ton of millet for Little B's blends, using the steaming water as a base, along with a dehydrated soup base (salt-free).
Comments
Post a Comment