Perfect meal: Something that I can pre-prepare on the weekend, freeze and then reheat without losing too many nutritional benefits!

Do you have any advice on storing vegetables?

Great blog Kathryn!

– Fiona

Hi Kathryn. With all your great ideas, I’m happy to provide some input.

– I agree with Fiona. Pre-preparing in bulk is the biggest point of interest to me, and learning how to best suspend & restore the meal in fridge/freezer/oven etc.
– Combining smaller pre-prepared items to make an interesting meal when presented together.
– I would like to learn about using new or interesting ingredients that are preferably seasonal.
– Interesting textures. The idea of one pot stews/soups gets a little boring if done too often.

Looking forward to what other readers say.

Andrew

Hey Kathryn – what a great question! My favorite (i.e. quick!) midweek meal is Udon Noodle Soup. With a couple of essentials on hand – noodles, buillion, tamari, rice vinegar and sesame oil – you can throw whatever fresh or frozen (edamame!) veggies you have on hand.

Thanks Fiona, Vanessa and Andrew for answering my call and for your thoughtful feedback.

Fiona, firstly thanks for your kind words. I’m also a big fan of the pre-prepared meal. I really don’t see the point of preparing one meal at a time, when with very little extra effort you can make enough for two or more meals and put half of it in the freezer for later (or at least take it to work the next day). When you ask about storing vegetables, do you mean fresh vegies, or how to store cooked stuff for use later?

Andrew, another vote for the pre-preparing in bulk! I also like your point about smaller pre-prepared items that can be used in different ways. Over the last few weekends I’ve been buying big chunks of pumpkin and then roasting them with spices. I then add this to salads, soups, pasta, risottos during the week – is this the kind of thing you mean?

One-pot cooking is my idea of mid-week nirvana . . but I’ll try to mix things up a bit!

Vanessa, firstly you’ve answered my back-of-head question about what to have for lunch today, so thank you. In a similar vein, one of my current favourite mid-week meals is this soup from Nourish Me. I add some noodles and tofu and it takes about 12 minutes.

Kathryn, your pumpkin analogy is exactly what I mean.

Another example of small meals might be leftover Risotto turned into Risotto Balls to eat through the week with some dips etc.

Quick and pre-prepared is my idea of Mid-Week Nirvana.

BTW, funny you should mention pumpkin. I just did a lovely spiced pumpkin (paprika, cumin and cinnamon) char-grilled with honey/mint yogurt dressing drizzled over it.

Your pumpkin dish sounds fabulous Andrew, will it be featuring on your blog?? Usually the leftover risotto in our house gets used for lunch the next day, but you’ve just reminded me I used to make risotto cakes – leftover risotto in muffin tins, baked in the oven. And they were delicious.

Thanks for following up, you’ve certainly all sparked my brain off firing about new recipe and cooking ideas.

Hi Kathryn,
I guess I am curious in both! Do you have any tips on getting the maximum storage time out of fresh vegies and also I was interested in the nutritional benefits of cooking up a big batch of vegies (my partner and I both eat vegetarian at home) and freezing the cooked food (usually soup, curry or casserole) to be microwaved again at a later date.

Many thanks!
Fiona

Okay-dokey Fiona, thanks for the clarification. I’ll mull on both of those. Generally there’s nutritional losses, but also nutritional benefits in cooking foods, although I’ll have to do a bit of swotting on whether freezing further degrades (I suspect it does slightly, but not enough to counter-act the benefits of having good, healthy food rather than take-away).

Thanks for your time and thoughts.

Hi Kathryn, first things first – what’s your vege casserole recipe? Sounds fab. One of my favorite mid week meals is red bean wraps. This includes some tortilla wraps, a can of red kidney beans and chopped up veges like tomatoes, lettuce, capsicums – whatever is in the fridge. The beans I fry up with onions, garlic, a little cumin and chilli. Sometimes I add some canned/fresh tomatoes to make it a bit saucier. Then add the bean mix with some fresh veges and wrap it all up. This meal is super fast to prepare, tasty and healthy. Plus it’s one of those recipes that you can add whatever to so it’s a good one for when there is not a lot left in the cupboard. Other options are to add some hoe made humus or yoghurt to the wraps.

Trina, thanks for your comment and I think you’ve touched upon another aspect of mid-week meals – flexible recipes that can be made using whatever is in the cupboard / fridge. Your beans and tortilla wrap is a perfect example of that. And my vegetable casserole is also similar. I’ll post the “recipe” in the next couple of days.

This is a really interesting discussion – I’m always looking for perfect weekday suppers! Most of my criteria are the same as yours Kathryn (speed, leftovers, nutrition, minimal washing up!). In addition to all the fabulous ideas already mentioned I also look out for ‘mopping up’ recipes that are flexible enough to magically use up lots of odds and ends from the fridge (stir fries being the obvious), and things that are complementary in terms of ingredients (for example half a bag of spinach mixed into a curry on one night and then the other half in a tomato sauce for pasta the next night). I hate having a fridge of half-used up things quickly going out of date! I’m also a big fan of things I can make lots of (or at least part prepare) and freeze ready to grab in a really busy week.

I’m look forward to seeing what you come up with after all these ideas :-)

That’s a great point Sophie. It’s something that I do as part of my normal routine – we do a weekly shop and then I cook with whatever is in the house. I HATE wasting food, so we probably end up having some funny meals, but it’s always healthy. I’m going to produce some guidelines for myself from this and also probably tweak my categories. Thanks again for commenting.

[...] I recently asked the question what’s your perfect mid-week meal and received some interesting and useful responses. [...]

[...] A while ago I posed the question what’s your perfect mid-week meal? Two themes that came through the responses were, pre-preparing meals on the weekend (which could then be frozen and re-heated), and making use of leftovers. [...]