More 'Dumping'...!
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| 10 more plant-based/oil-free, ready-to-cook meals for my freezer |
My adventures in the McDougallizing (plant-based/oil-free) of "Freezer Dump Meals" experiments continues.
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| Meal assembly, in progress -- all 10 bags at once |
10 more minimal-prep, plant-based/oil-free 'dump' meals for my freezer, for a total of 14 meals (Freezer Dump, AKA as "Freezer-to-Slow Cooker", are meals that require minimal prep beyond peeling, chopping and measuring, with (mostly) raw ingredients 'dumped' into multiple bags assembly-line style, to be stacked and frozen until cooking day).
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| Minimal prep, ready-to-cook |
On the left we have two bags of "Crockpot Vegetarian Black Bean Soup (Panera copycat)", by New Leaf Wellness.
In the middle we have four bags of "Salsa Verde Chicken", by New Leaf Wellness.
On the right we have four bags of "Cilantro Lime Chicken with Corn and Black Beans", by Six Sisters Stuff.
I did have to make some significant modifications.
The 'Crockpot Vegetarian Black Bean Soup" recipe was already plant-based, which was nice. However I
used soaked-but-uncooked black beans, rather than the canned. I plan to prepare this
on cooking day in my Instant Pot for approx 7 minutes, then pureeing a
bit with my immersion blender. For the green onions called for, I
harvested and chopped the last of my
garden chives and garlic chives and used those instead. For the broth
called for, I simply added the bean cooking liquid that was drained from
the batch of beans cooked in bulk for all the meals. I also added some
chopped garden carrot to each bag that the recipe did not call for. I
plan to serve this on cooking day with either bread or cornbread, dumplings or polenta, plus a blob of homemade soy yogurt as a topping, and salad.
For the 'Salsa Verde Chicken', I made a big batch of my own homemade Salsa Verde from my
recently harvested green tomatoes (see this post), instead of the jarred salsa called
for. I omitted the chicken, subbing instead a scant cup of baked diced
tofu cubes per meal, and bumping up the quantity
of beans. The corn used was harvested from the garden and frozen
earlier in the season. For the cream cheese called for in the original
recipe, I'm planning to either add some of my own homemade soy yogurt,
or make a batch of blogger Cooking With Plants
'Sunflower Seed Cream Cheese' -- adding either
at the very end after cooking (or depending on how it tastes I might
even omit it all together). Without the meat (and with the beans
pre-cooked) I figure this likely wont take nearly as long to cook as the recipe
suggests. In any case, I plan on serving this differently each time, with either
baked potatoes or baked sweet potatoes, rice or spanish rice.
For the "Cilantro Lime Chicken with Corn and Black Beans", I obviously omitted the chicken, instead subbing a few
homemade 'breast of tofu' baked tofu chunks per meal, and bumping up the quantity of beans. The corn used I was garden harvested and frozen earlier in
the season. I also added some chopped garden red tomato the recipe did
not call for, because I still have lots on hand that need using up. Without the meat (and the beans pre-cooked) I figure this likely wont
take as long to cook as the recipe suggests, but, we'll figure that out. Am also planning to serve
this differently each time: with tortillas and/or rice, mashed
potatoes, polenta, etc etc.
So will this all actually work and taste good...? Who knows! I do know I just love the convenience factor of this concept, and the time and money savings. I really should calculate the cost of all these meals, though it can't be much between the dry, bulk-purchased beans, bulk-purchased tofu and free garden produce. And it will be so great pulling these out on especially busy days and leave the cooking to my Instant Pot.
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