Your Mass-Cooked Foods?

I’m really limiting myself because during school I am away from food and buying the stuff they make there is pretty much shit. Gotta make my own now, but do not want to spend a lot of time making.

What kind of foods do you mass cook? How much do you make and how long does it last? Time for preparation?

To start off, I was thinking of

Baked potatos (what to add on it for taste? Cheese/Sourcream etc is fat, and carb/fat really isn’t great)

stir fry a crapload of chicken!

I am wondering what to do to ground beef to make it good. Ive made chili, but by itself it tastes pretty bad!

Chili tasting bad? Try again my friend. I personally love marinara sauce so I’ll make a kilogram of ground beef’s worth to eat in a day and add plentiful amounts of olive oil cause it’s very hard to detect the “Extra Virgin” taste. And yes I’ve walked around with a tupperware container full of marinara and nothing else (watch for leaks with that one, a thermos is probably a better idea, man that would cause some wierd looks).

I used to eat peanut butter straight which I hated before I started to do so, but by the time I had developed a sort of liking for the taste, I realised it was turning my shits to concrete (lesson learned: peanut fibre doesn’t count).

Some days when getting food was a challenge I’d pick up a gallon of milk and pour it down the hatch. For a lot of people this causes liquid shits but for me, it just turns my shits to concrete again.

For someone like me worrying about F+C combinations isn’t really relevant and it helps to get the cals in not having to worry.

[quote]kickureface wrote:
I am wondering what to do to ground beef to make it good. Ive made chili, but by itself it tastes pretty bad![/quote]

I usually have ground beef cooked in larger amounts, because I can mix it with a lot of things:

Beef, mixed herbs, garlic, salt, pepper, cayenne pepper, paprika, green/red peppers, onions, mushrooms & red kidney beans - cooked in 1-2kg amounts.

From there you can have it on it’s own, mix it with wholewheat pasta, rice or make a lasagne.

You can prepare chicken much the same way, though for me after a day or two it dries out a bit and the texture isn’t as good. Again, chicken strips, peppers & spices or you could crumb it with wholewheat breadcrumbs and grated coconut.

I don’t really do much mass cooking like you mean, but have you thought about just making 2x the amount of food at dinner? Throw half of that in a container and haul it around the next day. It really dosen’t take any extra time also.

For example, I made bacon-wrapped tenderloins, skillet potatoes, and snap peas last night. Made 8 loins (only ate 2) so now that’s easy food today.

Mmm, anabolic leftovers . . .

Hmm all this sounds good.

Gump-
I’ve thought about the marinara idea too. Chili and Marinara are almost the same anyways, right? My chili most likely needs more tomato content, I’ll try it again. What’s in your marinara?

RSGZ-
I’m guessing you stir-fry? I stirfry everything, including my chili which I make in a wok…lol if other cooking methods are better let me know, folding 3+lb of glop in a wok gets tiring. How long does the 1-2kg meat take?

Brant-
I’m considing wrapping everything I eat with bacon now. Did you wrap the lateral side of the tenderloin (pork?) or just completely cover top n bottom? Anabolic leftovers and skillet potatoes! Caught red handed! Quick breakdown on how you make your skillet potatoes?

[quote]kickureface wrote:
RSGZ-
I’m guessing you stir-fry? I stirfry everything, including my chili which I make in a wok…lol if other cooking methods are better let me know, folding 3+lb of glop in a wok gets tiring. How long does the 1-2kg meat take?
[/quote]

I chuck it all in one pot, usually 1kg of meat at a time - takes abour 20-30 minutes each.

I buy about 6lbs of chicken breast a week, 2.5 lbs of 96/4 ground beef and 3lbs of tilapia. On sundays I heat up the outdoor grill throw some dry rubs on the meat and grill all of it. I get an entire weeks worth of food done in a bout an hour, put it in containers for each day and all I have to do is prepare some veggies which is easy.

Brown rice.

I cook about 6-8 cups of rice in my ricecooker with some black beans in it. Then I put one bowl of rice into several ziplock bags and freeze them. Then when i need rice, I pop the frozen rice into the microwave. Usually 6 cups of rice will give me around 10 severings of rice or 10 ziplock bag of rice.

Every Sunday I cook chicken and steak. I steam broccoli and some other vegetable (usually green beans). I put it in containers and heat it up in the microwave throughout the week. As long as I cook the meat thoroughly it lasts through Friday easily.

I usually put McCormick montreal chicken and steak seasoning on the meat and take a meat tenderizing hammer to the chicken.

On Saturday I’ll get a slab of salmon from Costco, cook it, and eat off that on the weekend. The downside being my whole apartment smells like fish for a few hours.

I boil about a kilo of chicken drumsticks on Sunday evenings. Cheap stuff, cos everyone wants chicken titty.

buy a slow cooker, goto your local butchers and but a shit load of stewing beef or lamb, add some potatoe, parsnmip, carrot, peas, broccolli, cauliflower, some stock cubes etc, thats 4 - 5 days of lunch made.

also 2 -3 cans of tuna sweetcorn, mayo and chilli powder mix, thats another 4 days lunch mix

quick food like this makes life so much easier!

Multiple pounds of chicken, de-fatted and dry seasoned. Takes about 10-15min to cook at 400

Rice, takes about 45min to cook a few dry cups.

Ground Beef, takes about 15min to cook 2-3lbs.

Then I just pre-scoop a few days of shakes, and put my pills in their own bags.

It makes shit a LOT easier and only takes a total of 45min; with a good portion of that waiting for the rice to finish.

[quote]MUthrows94 wrote:
I buy about 6lbs of chicken breast a week, 2.5 lbs of 96/4 ground beef and 3lbs of tilapia. On sundays I heat up the outdoor grill throw some dry rubs on the meat and grill all of it. I get an entire weeks worth of food done in a bout an hour, put it in containers for each day and all I have to do is prepare some veggies which is easy.[/quote]

x2

what do you guys do for storage to maintain freshness/taste? saran wrap, closed containers, freezers?

Chicken lasts a week for me, as does rice and beef.

I just have 3 big Tupperware containers and then a bunch of smaller ones.

I buy cheap beef roasts and cook them in the slow cooker then cut them up into portions and put them in the fridge.

Add some frozen/fresh vegetables to it and you have your self a really quick and delicious meal.

Chili is another good one, I add veggies to it though during the week.

I recommend concentrating on always have portions of meat in your fridge, as it is easy to whip something up quick if you already have the meat cooked.

I mass cook Sweet Potatoes, and Steaks/Chicken/Hamburger (Lean).

I cook the steaks on the grill on Sunday evening, takes about an hour for all of it to last me until Friday.

The sweet potatoes, I’ll grab 5-6lbs, throw them in the oven at 400, and wait about…2-2 1/2 hours because I get the really big ones.

Just get a programmable slowcooker and put a bunch of stuff in there then move them to tupperware containers when its done.

my dinner tonight and also have 6 more big portions:

6 large chicken breasts (bought from BJ’s)
cut them in to small chunks and stir fry with soy sauce, seasonings, chicken stock or balsamic, and olive oil

when cooked mostly add 2 cans of mushrooms, 1 large can stewed tomatoes, 1 can black beans, 1 can kidney beans (all drained)

there will be liquid but that’s a good thing. Simmer until it reduces a bit while adding salt and pepper (30 mins maybe)

meanwhile, cook 2 LARGE bags boil n bag brown rice in large pot.

when the rice is done, combine everything in to the large pot and enjoy an easy and really tasty meal.

ducket-
crockpot = slowcooker? just found one of those. how do they even work- i thoguht the longer you cook the tougher and drier it gets!
btw how tender does your roast get and what price are you buying it at?

oquen-
you just wrap the potato in tin foil? else how many baking pans you use?

update:
made my first semi-mass cooked meals. only 1-2 day’s worth. bunch of chicken thighs oven baked with chili powder and garlic powder with cheese on top–after it gets cold the day after it’s kinda gross.
2 large potatoes made into roast potatoes using garlic powder. kinda overcooked possibly since all the garlic powder turned black. tasted kinda good right away, but next day was mediocre and very throat-drying.