<p>I don’t do anything special–just blend up the leaves and oil and freeze in bags. It’s green when we eat it (even in February), maybe not as “bright” as just picked in summer, but definitely green.</p>
<p>Fresh is just a whole different thing, frozen anything will never look like the perfect, from the garden, variety. So we tend to contemplate what we’re willing to give up in asethitics. If the flavor is there in February, we can compromise on the shade of green. Pesto without the cheese freezes well. We freeze very little, but if you use a vacuum sealer, many soups and stews freeze well too.</p>
<p>This year I have extra time and have experimented with canning fruits and vegetables in interesting ways. Very garlicky green beans, spicy asparagus, fruit compotes in very old rum. I’ll report back mid winter.</p>
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<p>Did you invest in a canner to do the green beans and asparagus? I’ve canned tomatoes and tomato sauce, but haven’t tried to can anything that couldn’t be done in a water bath.</p>
<p>“fruit compotes in very old rum”</p>
<p>Sounds so good. Hope it’s ready by holiday season…over a nice dense Italian olive oil cake.</p>
<p>“Recently, I had a revelation that you have to be a stay at home mom to be able to feed your family well/healthy. Do you agree?”</p>
<p>Disagree, but “well” and “healthy” is on a continuum.</p>
<p>My biggest lesson is, don’t “spoil” them with too much “flexibility”.</p>
<p>I think the food industry has sold us on the idea that cooking from scratch is terribly difficult and time consuming. It’s advertising the idea that you can save time with a convenience product–which is basically food sold at a profit. (A restaurant is also food sold for a profit–3 to 4 times the cost of the ingredients.)</p>
<p>You can minimize the food industry profits by minimizing the amount of processing that goes into your food. </p>
<p>The flip side, of course, is that it takes time–at least, so the food industry says–to eat unprocessed food.</p>
<p>I say that’s not true. It’s just not that time-consuming to cook.</p>
<p>My son made himself a lovely omelette this morning. Took him less than ten minutes from the start, when he pulled the ingredients out of the refrigerator. I actually timed him. It was very healthy too: lots of veggies (he cooked those in a little olive oil) and organic free-range eggs. </p>
<p>There are many fast and simple recipes out there–but people think they have to cook fancy. I could make a stirfry of chicken and veggies in a few minutes. If I wanted rice to eat with it, I’d have to start it in advance. Still… not a big deal. (You can also make rice in the morning and reheat it at dinnertime: just add boiling water to brown rice, put the lid on, and leave it until dinnertime. Reheat just before serving. Only works with brown rice IMO; white rice gets too mushy.)</p>
<p>^</p>
<p>Wow! Your son sounds pretty experienced! How old is he?It takes me at least about two minutes just to heat the pan to the right temp! I am curious about which vegetables and did they require any prep. For me, it does take more effort to have fresh vegetables (you have to shop a little more frequently for some of then), and to prep them, and I grow my own, and belong to a CSA. So I world be flexible about frozen chopped peppers in the winter for example.</p>
<p>OTOH, my son can do a cheese omelet with pre-grated cheese in that time, NOT counting clean up. A box grater with cheddar cheese stuck in it is a real pain! So I keep some shredded around for him.</p>
<p>Let’s see: he had carrots and some sort of kale, onions, peppers… The veggies are from our CSA or from our garden. (So are the eggs.)</p>
<p>I grate a lot of cheese when I have time and put it in small ziplock bags in the freezer.</p>
<p>Okay, he started the oil heating in the pan while he washed and chopped veggies. The pan was very hot by the time the veggies were ready. He tossed those in (in appropriate order) and started them cooking while he beat the eggs in a bowl. Once the veggies were wilted/cooked, he poured in the eggs (over the vegetables). Took another minute or two to cook.</p>
<p>(We do have a Viking gas cooktop; it gets very hot very fast. An electric range would take more time to heat up.)</p>
<p>Nice! I m going to try that with the cheese. Do you have to freeze it spread out first? How old is he? Does he clean up? We also have a Viking. Does yours tick like a bomb?</p>
<p>Also, do you prep your CSA vegetables when they arrive? (if only I didn’t spend so much time on cc!) Do you end up using them all?</p>
<p>I agrree that cooking does not have to take time. what takes more time is planning, and having all the ncessary ingredients available.</p>
<p>Yes, I spread the cheese out to freeze, inside the ziplock bag, because otherwise it’s one solid lump ;-)</p>
<p>I prep a lot of the veggies when they arrive… Mostly we use them all. Some I end up feeding to the dogs, but that counts as using them, as far as I’m concerned.</p>
<p>I just had Chinese food. And i got a mooncake.</p>
<p>Again…planning is highly over rated. Better yet, keep a well stocked pantry with the basics.
At least twice a week I have a “make due” meal. I don’t just cook left overs but I just make due with whats around. Tonight it was baked potatoes and a “junk” salad—Salad whatever is left in the fridge. That is generally my H’s favorite meal. If it was cooler out
(105 today!!) it would have been a “junk soup”.</p>
<p>Um, okay. Planning is over-rated, enough time is over-rated. It must be me.</p>
<p>Possibly…but do we really have to make cooking a simple meal so complicated? I think DMD77 is right, our culture has sold us on the idea that cooking is much more difficult and time consuming that it really needs to be. Media and the ersatz “gourmet” trend has almost fetishized the kitchen and whatever passes through it. Don’t get me wrong. I love talking about food, eating, dining out, traveling…the whole nine yards. But in the end it’s just dinner.</p>
<p>I can’t say I’ve never used convenience foods, but certainly 90% of the cooking in this house is from scratch. Anything I cook we eat at least once more, sometimes twice. </p>
<p>It does help that I work at home and so can start things in the oven and go back to work, but even when I worked out of the house I figured out how to plan meals so they worked with my schedule. Slow food like pot roast gets cooked on the weekend while leftovers or stir fries, simple things like pork chops or the grill work during the week. I also like to do roast chicken - it takes exactly one hour from the time I walk in the door if it’s not too big. (Basically you set the oven to 450, stuff it with herbs. Stick it in. Then peel garlic and shallots and put them in the pan with 1/2 cup of white wine or vermouth. Zap 3-4 Tb of butter and pour it on top. Baste the chicken every 20 minutes and add more liquid if it dries up.) While the chicken is cooking you take care of vegetables and salad.</p>
<p>I’m not that much of a planner. I tend to buy what looks good and fresh and then come home and figure out what to do with it. There are staples like apricots and olives and tomatoes that might not be in everyone’s kitchens, but mean that you can make more interesting sauces.</p>
<p>Quick roast chicken: cut out the spine with kitchen shears, spread the chicken flat, and roast it flat. Every bit of skin is crisp!</p>
<p>dmd…I do that with my roast chicken but I remove the skin and coat it with sweet balsamic vinegar and lots of dried herbs. Comes out great in our convection oven! </p>
<p>I agree that it’s not hard to cook. I would rather spend a bit more time and money to avoid lean cusines, canned soup, and hamburger helper.</p>
<p>But I do use SOME convenience foods. Canned black beans. Canned wild salmon. Brown rice in packets from TJs. Jarred salsa (as long as the ingredients are natural). Tortillas (again, I’m looking at the ingredients). And high quality spaghetti sauce (no additives) since I don’t have time to make it all the time! </p>
<p>We get lots of veggies from our CSA. I use some and keep others in the fridge - in special “no spoil” bags that my SIL got me.</p>
<p>Musica–believe me, I don’t overcomplicate cooking! 
As i said from the start, I cook most things from scratch, and keep them simple (sauteed chicken breast and a veggie, for instance.) But I do on occasion buy pre-made things like frozen veggie burgers or TJ veggies n sauce to have on hand when fresh isn’t available. If I had more time, and more planning, I probably would do that less. c’est la vie! :)</p>
<p>dmd - good point I have a recipe for rosemary lemon chicken where you do exactly that and it spends even less time in the oven than regular roast chicken.</p>