Updating the Rotation

Updating the Rotation

Updating the Meal Rotation
Like most people we have a core group of recipes we rotate, generally speaking, it is about 12 recipes. We try to keep it interesting by interjecting different and usually more complicated recipes.
If you have checked the blog out, you will know that I use various strategies to keep healthy home cooked meals.

These strategies generally include:
• Cooking large quantities of an ingredient or a recipe and then portioning them in meal servicing sizes. I then freeze or hot water can them for future use.

• When measuring out marinades or rubs, I do the same. If we choose to have salmon, we only have to purchase or thaw the salmon apply the rub, and we are ready to go. Excellent meal that we all like and are easy to make.

• Shopping to eat better, we purchase items (like chicken) in family packs and separate them into an individual piece, wrap and freeze for further use. We do the same for salmon, buying a slab and cutting it into 6 to 8-ounce portions and freezing them.

Eventually, the time comes to take a solid look to update the rotation.
I am currently trying to update our rotation.

We had recently purchased an Instant Pot and are using it for a few recipes and ingredients. It is intriguing for us in that we seldom decide what’s for dinner before 4 pm. With this, I could cook frozen chicken in a short period of time.

Brown rice is difficult for me to cook, so I tried it in the pressure cooker, and in 28 minutes it came out perfect for me. Now I cook enough brown rice for 6 meals and freeze what we don’t use.
I started to think about using the pressure cooker for meals that I can put in the rotation.
We particularly like some Asian dishes, that had to be done only on a special night. I looked for recipes for recipes that could be cooked in a short period of time. I found a recipe and tried it. It had a great deal of brown sugar, and we didn’t care for it. I then used our tried and true Asian Beef and Broccoli recipe using the cooking time for the first recipe. It was excellent and only took 8 minutes to cook. We used a less expensive cut of beef, and it came out tender.
When preparing the recipe, I doubled it and froze half for another time. A couple of weeks later we decided to make it again. The beef and sauce came out of the freezer for thawing. From that point on it was only about 30 minutes to put a meal that everyone enjoyed. Now I will check the ingredients before shopping and make sure that I have enough for at least 4 meals.
I am reviewing all our unique recipes to determine which could be added to our rotation. I am also am looking for pressure cooker recipes that we can update our rotation.