Cooking fast or HOW TO BREAK OUT OF THE KITCHEN without leaving the FAMILY FAMILY

IN THE EVENING I WILL PREPARE SEMI-FINISHED PRODUCTS FOR THREE DAYS

No, folk wisdom is always right! I began to make for three days, only not ready food, but semi-finished products, for example, strong broth. Having taken out the meat with a slotted spoon on a plate, I separate it from the bones, crumble, put it in the broth, I will definitely boil it. From the portion of the broth I cook on the first day noodles soup, the next day pickle, then kharcho or others. The broth ended - I make milk soup, fish, and on weekends I spend longer, process a lot of vegetables into borsch, cook fresh meat or chicken broth - three days again.
   If the cooked meat is a bit too much for soups, I put some of it in the refrigerator, be sure to cover it so that it does not get airy and does not fill with extraneous smells. I use such meat for salad, pancakes, pies, pizza, navy pasta.
   I fry not one carrot in vegetable oil, but several at once, shift some to a jar, keep in the refrigerator. I use carrots for first courses, stewing chicken or fish, dressing salad with boiled beans with garlic, etc. Similarly, I’m storing onions in large quantities: it subsequently goes everywhere.
   I make melted lard immediately from a large piece. Scoop a spoonful of cracklings with fat from a can in the refrigerator much faster than fry them every time, for example, for scrambled eggs or potato grandmother. I can fry chicken skin cracklings and also use it at the right time, for example, in egg salad or stuffing pies with mushrooms.
   Boiled mushrooms (fresh or dried) fried in vegetable oil with onions, for several days participate in salad, stewed potatoes, zrazy, soup, cabbage hodgepodge.

I keep the broth from these mushrooms in the refrigerator for no more than two days. On it I cook soup or sour cream sauce (with fried onions, carrots and can be used) for pasta, rice. Mushroom broth can be added to stewed potatoes or to vegetable stew with fresh cabbage. And there are wonderful cracklings.
Cook cereals in two to three servings. I cook barley in water with salt, partially set aside; add sugar, butter, milk, milk, salt to taste in a saucepan, boil over low heat, if possible, rearrange to languish in the oven - milk soup is ready. The remaining pearl barley the next day, warming up in a pan with fried onions, served in the side dish for the second, and I use the next portion from the refrigerator in pickle or mushroom soup. Similarly, fat-free rice is used for several days - for porridge, pilaf, cabbage rolls, kharcho soup, etc. Boil rice only with salt (I boil three glasses of water, salt, pour a glass of rice, remove the fire for the smallest, cover it, do not touch it for 10 minutes, then turn it off; I do not open it for another 10-12 minutes).
   I use boiled beans in salads (with fried carrots and onions; with garlic; with raw onions; with cracklings; with fried ham and onions; with boiled or smoked fish), in vinaigrette, borsch, pickle, mushroom and just bean soups.
   Boiled cabbage leaves in salt water, except cabbage rolls, go to “cabbage in sour cream”, “envelopes” and “envelopes with fish”, and also in crushed form - to lazy cabbage rolls, hodgepodge, fish stew.
   All these and other semi-finished products without additional heat treatment, for example, in salad, are used only on the day of preparation, and in subsequent ones after boiling or frying.

SEMI-FINISHED PRODUCTS HELP COOKING QUICKLY

The presence in the refrigerator of several types of semi-finished products of a high degree of readiness made it possible to quickly compose complex dishes in the morning. So, I get a full-fledged mushroom soup in 20 minutes, boiling potatoes over high heat in water with salt and onions, adding concentrated broth with meat, fried onions and carrots, boiled pearl barley, fried mushrooms, mushroom broth, sour cream, boiling, then holding it for low heat, bringing to taste and adding dried herbs.
   Not quite right, but “quick” pilaf is done in a few minutes by frying semi-finished products from the refrigerator in a deep frying pan with vegetable oil: pour boiled meat that needs to be poured into a boiling oil, add a spoonful of sugar, a pinch of caraway seeds, if you like, add a handful of raisins refrigerator fried carrots and onions, put garlic, mix, pour in any sauce, even if it’s cooked, containing tomato, bring to a boil, mix with boiled rice, reduce heat; if there is not enough liquid (oil with sauce) at the bottom, add a couple of tablespoons of broth or water, cover; bring to a boil, turn off.

BILLETS - GOOD ASSISTANCE

I also have preparations that I actively use: adjika made from tomatoes, bitter and sweet peppers, garlic, pickled cucumbers for pickle (some that turned out to be empty, grated on beetroot grater, laid in half-liter jars, sterilized and rolled up in tin lids), borsch dressings (summer - one of sorrel, another of a mixture of sorrel, Beijing cabbage, chard, green onions, dill, spinach, and autumn - from beets, carrots, beans, zucchini, cabbage, onions, cauliflower, red and brown tomatoes, beetroot flax tops and parsley; by the way, all the ingredients of autumn dressing are given in the order they were boiled in vegetable oil and the juice that stood out before being placed in sterilized half-liter jars and rolled). All these preparations were made without vinegar (they contain preservatives - cucumber pickle, oxalic acid and tomatoes), therefore, perfectly combined with fresh broth of potatoes, meat broth, sour cream, they allow you to cook a tasteful first dish in a matter of minutes.
   For broths, especially fish and chicken, in the summer I dry a “broom” from dill “umbrellas”. Both dry stems and “umbrellas” themselves give the soup a very pleasant taste. A mixture of dill, caraway seeds, black and a little allspice peas, dried a little in a dry frying pan (preferably cast iron), grinded in a coffee grinder (then you need to thoroughly wipe it with a soft dry cloth) and use colored stew in chicken, fish, fried vegetables - colored cabbage, green beans, ordinary beans, etc.

YES HELLO TEST!

When friends began to come to children, pies, donuts, rolls, brushwood, pancakes and other dough products helped me out. Therefore, I began to make dough, both fresh and yeast, in large portions, leaving half in the refrigerator overnight, which made it possible to modify products the next day, to saturate the family and children's company. For example, the dough for dumplings the next day could be used for ears with berries, pasties, scarves with fish, brushwood; liquid yeast pancake dough, adding flour to the whites, adding muffins to the roll with sweet fillings (for example, chopped lemon with sugar / I also make such a preparation for the future / and pieces of nuts). And the pancakes, given that they are fried before serving, began either with meat, then with cottage cheese, or with apples (from one batch, I bake at least 20-30 pieces of thin pancakes, cling-cakes). I make cakes the next day from half the dough for fritters, and also half with meat, fish or cabbage, and the other half with sweet. As a rule, the dough, having spent the night in the refrigerator with swollen gluten, on the second day is neither better nor worse, it is just different, not so light, but more interesting. A raw egg interferes in the unused part of the dough for cheesecakes (you can add flour), lazy dumplings are formed, and you can make them from dough for cheesecakes without adding anything, but with an additional egg they are lighter, not so dull. Lazy dumplings, taken out by a slotted spoon from boiling water, are seasoned with butter and sprinkled with powdered sugar (to get it, grind a couple of tablespoons of granulated sugar in a coffee grinder). Such dumplings are tasty and cooled for several hours, while seasoned with sour cream or not seasoned lose their quality quickly.
   But if you have the time, do everything fresh!

CAST IRON TABLE SAVES TIME

Another lifesaver for me was the quick cooking of second courses in a cast-iron enameled saucepan (goose bowl) over high heat, including without water, in hot oil. Pieces of meat, poultry, fish, vegetables, cereals are quickly cooked in it. Either continuously stirring, then reducing the fire and covering with a lid, in a few minutes I brought the dish to the desired condition and ran to work, and a thick-walled cast-iron pan kept the food down.

IN THE FREEZER - ALL BY PORTION

The third help is when in the freezer semi-finished products are already laid out in bags of one portion (per your number of eaters, per pan or pan): beef and pork, sliced \u200b\u200binto goulash, chopped chops; fish and liver - in pieces, minced meat, pieces of meat for individual dishes, fish already seasoned with raw eggs, even barbecue marinated. Then in the evening you can transfer the bag from the freezer to a plate in the refrigerator (to the balcony, to the windowsill or directly to the sink, if it’s not hot), and the next day straight (or through breading) into a frying pan or into a saucepan, without chopping, without beating, without seasoning. It happened, however, that she got beef entrecotes, and in the morning it turned out that the liver was actually in this package. Nothing, fries even faster. And one more reason, besides time-consuming: semi-finished products are prepared after the “shopping”, when no one is sleeping, but you would try to beat the meat at 6-7 in the morning!
   Same thing with other products. You can not send unwashed vegetables, berries with ponytails to the freezer; everything should be ready for use: asparagus beans - cut into pieces that fit in a spoon, sweet pepper - peeled and chopped or prepared for stuffing, cauliflower sorted into inflorescences.

FOOD FAST TO HEAT THAN TO PREPARE

Another freezer is good for freezing cooked foods. Leaving for a business trip for several days, she left a stack of plates packed in plastic bags (with cutlets, fried fish, chicken liver, stewed chicken, cabbage rolls) in the freezer. It remained only to heat them in the microwave. If you still have uneaten kebabs, meatballs, fried fish or others, and there are time and products for cooking for today, put the finished products in the freezer: when you have no time or food, as you find, you will warm it up.

IN THE OVEN - IMMEDIATELY TWO-THREE DISHES

If you turned on the oven for any dish, for example, roasting meat, chicken, use it at the same time to prepare other dishes, say, darken the porridge, bake sandwiches, make pizza, crusts, just dry the crackers or calcinate the seeds. Even if you have a vanilla curd casserole on one sheet and a fish on the other, the smells do not penetrate another dish (but there is an original mixture of aromas on the outside).

I HAVE NO HOME AND THE PROCESS IS GOING

In addition to the above, you can make the products “cook” even in your absence: knead and leave the yeast dough (if you can’t do it earlier than three hours later, boldly put it in the refrigerator; yeast, though slowly, will work), soak the peas, beans , dried mushrooms and dried fruits, soak the kidneys, scars, peeled radish, pickle convenience foods, etc. Other products can be left before leaving (or at night), only a little boiling in salt water (cereals, legumes, broths); subsequently, bringing them to readiness will require much less time than with continuous cooking.

I ARE BUSY, AND THE PREPARATION IS MOVING

And use the time when you are at home, albeit busy with other things, to cook beets, broth, beans or other “long-playing” products, boil cabbage and rice for cabbage rolls, etc.

WHAT CAN YOU PREPARE?

When preparing semi-finished products for a dish, think about why you can also make another workpiece from this raw material: firstly, it saves time, and secondly, a variety of menus. For example, before scrolling all available meat or fish into minced meat, look, maybe, separate pieces to put aside for goulash, frying; cut them and put them in the freezer, twist the rest.

When you have free time, cook for the future, then - how it goes.
   I prepare dry cake cakes in advance, which can be quickly soaked in warm custard, or sour cream or condensed milk cream - from the evening before the guests arrive, so that the cake is soaked. Just a few days before the holiday, birthdays, I bake sandy (not too sweet) baskets - you can serve salad, pate, fruits with ice cream or cream, boiled condensed milk with dried fruits soaked in alcohol, nuts, soft cheese and custard and etc. You can make pieces of custard dough - both on cakes and on tartlets with salads.

A few days before the celebration, you can prepare time-consuming dishes, such as stuffed fish, chicken, chicken skin rolls, and send them to the freezer in the form of raw semi-finished products, and on the eve of the celebration, when it’s a lot of trouble without them, just defrost them and send them cook, bake, fry.

WHY KITCHEN IS FIRST PLACE

Over the years, the kitchen has become my priority, since no one, coming home, asks to admire a well-tidy room or a cleanly washed window, but everyone wants to eat.

Keep such products in stock so that households do not remain on an empty stomach, if there is no opportunity to engage in purchases and cooking, and from which you can quickly make food for those who arrived who arrived without warning.

From the book of Evgenia Efimova "How to break out of the kitchen without leaving the family hungry"

Every woman dreams of freeing herself from household chores even for a short time. Rest or joint family leisure in comparison with daily standing at the stove clearly wins. The regular consumption of convenience foods from supermarkets can hardly be called healthy food, especially for children.

The freshness of the product is also in doubt, as well as the observance of the correct storage conditions in the store. You can reduce cooking time and meet the needs of each family member by cooking various semi-finished products once a week and sending them to the freezer.

Production of frozen meat and fish semi-finished products

The main advantage of homemade semi-finished products (as opposed to store ones) is their manufacture exclusively from natural products. They do not pose a threat to human health and can be safely fed to children. After a busy working day, the semi-finished products are brought to readiness and a side dish is prepared for them.

Meat and fish semi-finished products ( cutlets, meatballs, zrazy and much more) are prepared in large quantities according to a standard recipe. Next, the finished product must be placed in the dishes, after making sure of its frost resistance. After that, the container can be sent to the freezer. Consider the features of cooking frozen fish cakes at home.

As the main component, you can use low-tailed fish ( hake, zander, perch, etc.)

It is noteworthy that in case of using ice cream of industrial production fillet, the cooking process is much easier.

Fish should be cut into fillets, which will not contain skin and bones. Then they are cut into small pieces and passed through a meat grinder.

Add soaked bread   allows you to increase the looseness of the cutlet mass, and its repeated passage through a meat grinder - contributes to uniformity. A raw egg favors the viscosity of the resulting mass. Spices ( salt and ground pepper) improve the taste of the finished product, as well as finely chopped onions.

Careful manual kneading and shaping of cutlets is the next step in cooking.

The proportions of the starting ingredients are as follows: 1 kg. minced fish, 300 grams of bread, 2 eggs, onions, salt and pepper to taste. Perishable product must be immediately placed in the freezer.

Otherwise, the development of microorganisms in a favorable environment makes cutlets completely unsuitable for consumption. Meat cutlets are cooked similarly.

Semi-finished products are individually laid out on the board   (plate), which were previously sprinkled with flour, since their contact with each other will lead to deformation. It is recommended to freeze fish cakes in small portions. After a short freezing process, the finished product is placed in a container for storing food and tightly closed.

The advantages of this method are obvious, even our ancestors actively resorted to it. Due to the lack of freezers, prepared semi-finished products were procured in large quantities and stored in special bags all winter.

Other, no less useful semi-finished products - home production

Frozen cabbage rolls or stuffed peppers are very tasty. It is noteworthy that you can start cooking them without waiting for defrosting. Home-made pancakes are not inferior in popularity, and it is often quite possible to pamper household members with the help of blanks.

To prepare the dough, we need: 2 eggs, salt and 2 tablespoons of sugar. Beating should occur before sugar is dissolved in the egg mixture. Then the flour, previously sifted, is gradually added. The gradual sifting of small portions of the main ingredient will prevent the formation of lumps, and the dough will be airy, elastic and very light.

Adding a glass of milk with constant stirring will result in a liquid (creamy) consistency. The baking process will be facilitated by adding 1 tablespoon of vegetable oil directly to the dough. Cooking the meat filling consists in frying the minced meat with onions.

Pouring milk and stewing the filling until tender will provide a soft and delicate taste for the pancake filler. Baking, forming a traditional form - the so-called pancake "envelopes" and placing the cake mix in the freezer are the final stage.

If you choose this technology, in the process of cooking pancakes, it will be enough to use a microwave. The use of raw minced meat implies the further frying of a popular product.

It is noteworthy that catering establishments with a large flow of customers acquire crepe makers - compact equipment for instant dough preparation.

Natalia .: | January 22nd, 2018 | 2:59 pm

Dasha, tell me, please, is it possible to freeze a ready-made vegetable stew, which contains potatoes?
Answer:   Natalia, if you like the taste of thawed potatoes, then freeze. Mashed potatoes tolerate freezing well and do not change the taste.

Svetlana: | November 20th, 2017 | 3:49 pm

LF: | October 13th, 2017 | 11:13 dp

Good afternoon! Tell me, how do breakfasts then unfreeze? If there is no microwave
Answer:   you just need to put a container (package) from the freezer in the refrigerator in the evening. Until the morning everything will unfreeze, in the morning it will remain to warm up if necessary.

Tatyana: | September 11th, 2017 | 1:46 pp

Dasha, many thanks for your tremendous work. It is a pity so recently I saw your site. I am retired, but I found out how many interesting things.
Answer:   Tatyana, thanks for the kind words! Do you have time to please grandchildren;)

Inna: | September 6th, 2017 | 7:01 dp

Thank you very much Dasha for the recipes, for your culinary secrets. I would really like for you to share the recipes for children's breakfasts before school. How to quickly organize breakfast for your child so that it is tasty, healthy and not to be late for school.
Answer:   Thanks for the idea! Wait for the next newsletter, I will share.

Valentine: | September 4th, 2017 | 8:23 dp

Dasha, how clever, thank you very much!
Answer:   Thank!

Hope: | September 3rd, 2017 | 5:46 pm

Good afternoon! Thank you for your ideas! I admire what a wonderful system you have invented! I look and learn from you with pleasure!
Answer:   Thank! I'm glad I could help.

Lena: | September 3rd, 2017 | 1:44 pp

Dasha, it seems to me that I got food for a month))
Answer:   It depends on which family. For a small one of two or three people, that’s enough for a month.

Klavdiya: | September 2nd, 2017 | 10:44 pp

Thanks for the recipes and experience! I liked the video :-)

Natalia: | September 2nd, 2017 | 7:56 pm

super I'm delighted with the site immediately there was a desire to create in the kitchen thank you for the site
Answer:   And thank you for your feedback.

Valentine: | September 2nd, 2017 | 7:05 pm

Dasha, thanks, very interesting! My question is, how many products by weight did you spend on a large baking tray with lasagna? Or how many times did you increase the basic recipe?
  Answer: Valentina, I didn’t weigh by weight, but increased the ingredients of the basic recipe by 2-3 times

Irina Amulenko: | September 2nd, 2017 | 6:51 pm

Dasha, your advice is invaluable and it helps to save time. It's great that there is such a necessary site. Good luck to you, dear.
Answer:   Thanks to my subscribers!

Catherine: | September 2nd, 2017 | 4:25 pp

Daria, with a cursory count, I got more than 20 dinners and breakfasts! Thanks for the live streams!
Answer:   Thank!

Tatyana: | September 2nd, 2017 | 4:14 pm

I am shocked !! Super! And how do you manage to maintain such cleanliness in the kitchen, with such intense cooking? 👍 I will take an example, otherwise I lost my inspiration (
Answer:   Tatyana! I'm glad I was able to inspire you!

Olga: | September 2nd, 2017 | 4:10 pp

Thanks for this live broadcast! Very clear and informative. I can not decide on such a feat, but in part I want to try to cook everything in a few days and in large quantities. You explain everything very clearly. Thank!
Answer:   Thank! If it is scary to start a lot right away, you can first cook every day a little more than usual and freeze part. There will already be stock. Then try to freeze in one day for 2-3 days. Perhaps then you will decide for more.

Julia: | September 2nd, 2017 | 12:41 pm

Thank you very much Daria for your work. Now with a small child everything is more relevant than ever. Accidentally came across your instagram and so on time.
Answer:   Julia, and thank you!

Ella: | September 2nd, 2017 | 12:35 pm

Thank you, Dasha !! I really liked it!
Answer:   Thank! I am glad that you found it useful.

Thank you so much

Dasha thanks, looked with pleasure.

I don’t like to spend a lot of time cooking daily, so I’m always looking for simple recipes and cooking methods. The idea of \u200b\u200bhomemade convenience foods seemed very interesting to me - and, as it turned out, this can really make life easier.

Well-known cooks are often advised to regularly make blanks for future use. For example, the legendary Spaniard Ferrand Adria always recommends keeping fish, chicken, beef broths, tomato sauce, bolognese and pesto sauces, peas, spinach in the freezer. I use frozen vegetables all the time, but I have never tried to store sauces and broths in the freezer. So, one Saturday I had patience, as well as a set of multi-colored containers and packaging of plastic bags, and was going to spend half a day in the kitchen, so that later I could enjoy homemade food as long as possible without any effort. I decided to cook lazy cabbage rolls, hedgehogs with cheese, stuffed peppers, meatballs, Bolognese sauce, cheesecakes and broths - vegetable and chicken (and at the same time boiled chicken meat).

Cutlets are the first thing that comes to mind when you think about convenience foods. I used to cook them for the future according to the simplest recipe of ground beef, white loaf, eggs and onions. But at first, difficulties arose with freezing. Many people advise putting cutlets first on a cutting board and putting them in the freezer with them, and when they harden, put them in a bag. But for some reason I didn’t get along: either cutlets tightly froze to the board, although it was sprinkled with flour, or did not have time to freeze to the end and then stuck together in a bag. As a result, I came up with a method that turned out to be very convenient for me: I put the patties on a plate covered with cling film or a bag so that there is free space between them, and then cover with another layer of film on top. Already frozen cutlets are very easy to separate from polyethylene, put in a bag and store in it.

I cooked lazy cabbage rolls according to the classic recipe.   Having fashioned cutlets from the cabbage and meat mass, I sent them to the freeze, also laying them on plates covered with cling film.

For hedgehogs with cheese, I took 1/3 of boiled rice and 2/3 of ground beef, egg and onion. Mixing everything into a homogeneous mass, molded small round cutlets from it and, laying out a piece of cheese on the middle, well plucked the edges like a pie, and then gave the cutlet a ball shape. All hedgehogs froze according to the same “technology”.

Next came the line of stuffed peppers. I chose classic with meat. It seemed to me that this is one of the finest options for home-cooked foods - to cook very quickly, easy to freeze.

Using the remaining mincemeat, I prepared a huge frying pan of Bolognese sauce according to Ferran Adria’s recipe (though I excluded pork and butter, but added some red wine), and then cooled it down, put it into containers and sent it to the freezer.

Bolognese sauce (from the book "Family Dinner. Cooking at Home with Ferrand Adria")

(can be stored 5 days in the refrigerator or 6 months in the freezer)

Ingredients (for 2.5 kg): butter - 225 g, minced beef - 1.2 kg, minced pork - 350 g, onions - 500 g, celery - 150 g, carrots - 400 g, extra virgin olive oil - 150 ml, chopped tomatoes in their own juice - 1.6 kg, sugar - 2 g, tomato paste - 12 g.

Cooking. Place a large pot on the fire a little more than average. Melt the butter. Add the chopped beef and fry until it changes color, then add the minced pork. Fry for a few more minutes, then sprinkle with salt and pepper and cook for another 15 minutes, stirring often until the forcemeat turns golden brown. Meanwhile, finely chop the onions, celery and carrots. Put another pan on a slow fire and pour olive oil into it. Sauté the vegetables lightly until they are soft - about 12 minutes. Add meat to vegetables and mix well together. Add chopped tomatoes and mashed potatoes. Sprinkle with salt, pepper and sugar. Cook over low heat for an hour and a half.

By the way, homemade pasta can also be made for free and frozen, as, for example, Valentino Bontempi advises. Then your home-made spaghetti and Bolognese sauce can be taken out of the refrigerator at any time and cooked in literally 15 minutes.

Chicken stock (from Gwyneth Paltrow's book “Daddy's Daughter”)

Ingredients: 1 chicken carcass, 1 teaspoon peas of black pepper, 1 bay leaf, 2 celery stalks (chopped), 1 large head of onion (chopped), 2 carrots (chopped), 3 sprigs of thyme, 1 teaspoon of coarse salt

Cooking. Place all the ingredients in a large soup pot, fill with cold water (2.8 L) and bring the broth to a boil over high heat. Remove the foam, then reduce the heat and simmer over low heat for 1.5 hours. Refrigerate the broth, then strain and pour into freezing containers. The broth is stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks, in the freezer for 6 months.

I took a little more water, but the broth still turned out quite strong. When it cooled down, I divided it into 4 servings (about 1 liter) and froze it in plastic bags - not very aesthetically pleasing, but convenient.

Boiled chicken

I removed the chicken meat from the bones and, dividing it into portions and spreading it in containers, also froze. It can be added to salads, soups, vegetable stews or, slightly fried, mixed with a sauce of mushrooms, garlic and cream.

Vegetable Broth (from Gwyneth Paltrow's “Daddy's Daughter”)

Ingredients: 1 large onion head (chopped), 2 carrots (chopped), 1 celery stalk (chopped), 1 feather of leek (chopped), 3 cloves of garlic crushed by the flat side of the knife blade, 4 sprigs of parsley, 4 branches of thyme , 2 sprigs of tarragon, 1 bay leaf, 1 teaspoon of coarse salt, 1 teaspoon of black pepper peas, 2.8 liters of cold water.

Cooking. Combine all ingredients in a saucepan. Bring the broth to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for 45 minutes on low heat. Let cool and strain in a clean container. Such a broth is stored in the refrigerator for 1-2 weeks, in the freezer for 6 months.

Vegetable broth turned out to be very fragrant. I froze it in small bags, like chicken.

Syrniki

I cooked cottage cheese pancakes with dorblu, and their taste was not affected by freezing. What can not be said about the lazy dumplings, which I often cooked earlier and once froze as an experiment: they crumbled when cooking.

Results: it took about 5 hours for everything about everything, I tried to cook several dishes at the same time. But the end result did not just please me - it shocked me. My husband and I had enough of the resulting blanks for almost three weeks. All this time we spent cooking a minimum of time, and it seemed that we saved a lot of money - after all, convenience foods are not only inferior in quality to homemade food, but they also cost more. Of course, the issue of lack of time can be solved in another way: to go to a restaurant, order food at home or, in the end, cook pasta with sausages - this is everyone’s personal business, but I found an ideal option for myself, and maybe it will turn out to be useful to someone else.

Agree, it is much more convenient to come home after a hard day and immediately warm up a tasty and mouth-watering dish, rather than standing at the stove and boiling-frying-steaming. You can arrange this only with the help of semi-finished products. But most industrial semi-finished products can hardly be called useful food, therefore, it offers to cook dumplings, pancakes, pasties and other goodies at home and freeze for the future.

Cooking

We associate convenience foods with junk food, right? But what if we say that muffins are also semi-finished? There is nothing harmful in them, if properly cooked and frozen. As breakfast, you can defrost pre-cooked blueberry muffins, muffins with ham, bacon and cheese or pancakes with savory filling. Take the classic muffin recipe, increase or decrease the amount of sugar to taste, and add the filling. You can freeze the dough in molds or an already finished product.

You can freeze any dish - so that lunch can become a semi-finished product. Bell peppers stuffed with rice and chicken fillet, cheesecakes or unsweetened pancakes with boiled egg can be heated in the microwave for several minutes. Hearty, simple, delicious, and most importantly - in the morning you do not need to get up an hour earlier and stand at the stove.

Even dinner can be thawed, heated and served - a casserole of noodles and sausages, with minced meat or other meat is ideal for such a task. The same can be said about chicken nuggets, pasties and dumplings - warmed up and done, so that on weekends you can prepare portions for a whole week.

Freeze

It is best to freeze the dish when it has completely cooled at room temperature and stood in the refrigerator for several hours - there the temperature difference will be minimal, and the taste of the dish will be preserved. Keeping food in the freezer costs no more than two months, as the temperature regime changes due to the constant opening of the freezer door.

For freezing, it is best to use plastic pans, tight bags or glass forms - depending on how you want to warm up the dish and whether you need to keep its shape. You can simply lay out the blanks on the board - if the place allows. If these are cutlets or dumplings, then freeze them first on the board, spreading so that they do not touch each other. Then shift to a form or a special bag. Raw vegetables should be washed, peeled, drained from water and then frozen.

Warm up

With warming up everything, as with freezing, you need to gradually change the temperature of the dish so that it retains its taste. For example, do not immediately send the casserole to the oven for heating, but first put it in the refrigerator, then on the table and after the final defrost, heat it.

By the way, glass pans or containers are suitable for reheating - you can freeze a dish in them and then immediately reheat in the oven without shifting to another dish. During freezing, foods lose moisture, and gradual thawing will allow them to absorb the same lost moisture.