End of Summer Batch Cooking

I am really enjoying our semi-cool weather lately! This has motivated me to do some extra cooking and baking every couple of days, to have prepared foods on hand for this Fall and Winter.

My main goal this Fall is to prepare enough applesauce to last us until next Fall. Only 4 of us eat it, but we LOVE it…and eat it at least once a day. Homemade applesauce is sooooo much better than store-bought, and it’s so easy to make. I don’t have an apple corer, though, so peeling and coring is the part I’m dreading because this will be a HUGE amount of applesauce to make – a year’s worth!

My applesauce recipes is as follows:

– Couple of apples (4 apples will make a nice little batch for a meal or two)

-1/2 cup water (and more, if apples appear dry while cooking)

– Brown Sugar, to taste

– Cinnamon, to taste

Peel, core and cut apples into small pieces (the smaller the piece, the faster they cook down to mush!). Put in pot with 1/2 cup water. Bring to boil, then lower heat to Medium-Low and simmer until apples break down and you can mash them with a fork very easily. Add more water (like a TBSP at a time, so you don’t add too much) if needed while simmering. Remove from heat and add desired amount of brown sugar and cinnamon. Stir to mix in completely. Served warm is the BEST!

I think I added 1/4 cup brown sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon then tasted and added more if needed. We really like sugar and cinnamon in ours. If you don’t like cinnamon, just leave it out.

Another thing I did in a batch this week was Fruit Crisp Topping. This was my first time making this. The recipe I found is HERE. I made the 4 pints worth, freezing 3 of them and used one last night over apples for our Apple Crisp Dessert!! Super yummy! I just cut up 3 small apples and laid them in a 9×9 baking dish (not pan) and baked at 375 degrees for about 20 minutes. The recipe for the topping said each pint is for a 13×9 size pan, but I liked it bunched up more in the smaller pan.

I am actually snacking on the last serving of the Apple Crisp now, while I type this. 🙂

Thirdly, I am making a batch of black beans today. Well, I started the soaking of the dry beans at 1:30, so I’ll put them in the crockpot around 9:30 tonight, so they will be ready in the morning to have for lunch after church. I found a really tasty recipe HERE for Crockpot Black Beans. I am hoping they are actually as delicious as they sound and look! We like beans, but I really like trying new recipes so we don’t get bored with plain cooked beans all the time.

Last night, we made pizza. I used the 3rd ball of frozen dough from the same batch cooking site that has the Fruit Crisp Topping. It’s the honey pizza dough on that page. Mmmmmm. We loved it a few weeks ago, when we first had it. Yesterday, I pulled out one of the frozen dough balls to thaw on the counter, then we rolled it out and put our toppings on (just sauce and LOTS of cheese for last night). The girls helped me; they really like to help…and eat handfuls of cheese!

My planned items for batch cooking/freezing this Fall are:

– Applesauce (top priority!)

– Pizza dough

– Beans (1 week’s worth at a time, they don’t keep well after about 5 days in the fridge once they’re cooked)

– Bagels

– English Muffins

– Muffins

I don’t know if this is a long list or not, but we go through a lot of all of these, so I figured making a bunch of each every so often would help me from having to make each one every week (or several times a week).

Anyone else batch cooking/baking/freezing this Fall? I always love new ideas and recipes!