Well, hopefully you guys have taken a week (or two) to try and do some basic cooking for yourself.  And I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if you’re a little bit bored and sick to death of couscous.  I know I was when I first started trying to get my culinary act together.

But now…it’s time to take your lazy cooking prowess to the next level.

Stage Two involves a bit of investment cooking.  This isn’t following a recipe, or trying to do anything super complicated, so don’t panic.  All we’re doing here is cooking a couple of things in big batches so that you have them on hand.  The toughest part of this is breaking your finished food down into single(ish) servings, I promise!

If I might make a suggestion…you can accomplish most stage two cooking in a big pot on your stovetop, but it’s going to be a little more fussy and hands-on than it should be. You will save yourself a ton of time and effort if you get yourself one simple countertop appliance:  a good pressure/slow cooker.  Yep, I’m suggesting you get an Instant Pot. You can find them used for around $50, but a new one will probably run you around $100 (wait until they go on sale, which happens all the time).

Let’s get to it:

Ground meat

Ground (or chopped meat) in it’s various versions is a kitchen staple.  You can use it as the primary protein to create all sorts of single-serve ‘casseroles’ with the techniques I described at Stage One.  And then there’s always tacos, sloppy joes, meat sauce, chili…But what you guys probably don’t know is that cooked ground meat freezes beautifully.  You can take a single serving out of the freezer, defrost it in the microwave in 2 1/2 minutes–and have your meal finished in less than 10.

INGREDIENT CHECK: This does not have to be ground beef. I know that ground beef is becoming increasingly more ridiculous price-wise. The cooking instructions below will work equally well with ground pork or chicken. For a pound of ground meat you can add any (or all) of the following to get closer to the taste of ground beef:

• 1 to 1 1/2 teaspoons of beef bouillon granules (or a stock cube)
• 3/4 -1 teaspoon Better than Bouillon (a beef stock paste)
• 1 tsp soy sauce or Worcestershire sauce (or more to taste)
• 1/2 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1 teaspoon to 1 tablespoon of an oil of your choosing (or even butter) to get a a “mouth feel” closer to the fat content of ground beef.

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

Buy your ground meat in quantity — at least a 2 lb family pack if you can find it.  And if you can find it on sale, stock up.  

ON THE STOVETOP:  Brown the meat in the biggest pot you can find.  Use a potato masher to break up the bigger chunks of meat if necessary.  Season as directed above to taste.  

IN THE MICROWAVE:  Dump your meat into a container big enough to fit. Season as directed above.  Microwave for two minutes, then break up the chunks with a potato masher.  Repeat this process until all of your meat is cooked.  

IN A SLOW COOKER:  Dump your meat into your slow cooker and season liberally as above.  Cook for 2-3 hours on low or 1-2 hours on high.  Use the potato masher on your meat once an hour — if you don’t see any pink when you mash up the meat, it’s done.

NOTE: I don’t recommend doing this on a pressure cook setting. The meat will clump together under pressure and you might as well be making a meatloaf. Trying to break up the meat after it cooks is not worth the physical effort involved.

STRECHING YOUR DOLLAR EVEN FURTHER: Especially in a slow cooker, you could “bulk” up the volume of what’s in the pot and get more meals out of your ground meat without changing the taste much at all. For each pound of ground beef that you’re cooking, add up to 1 cup of any of the following:

• 1 cup lentils (pre-cooked or canned, 1/2 cup if you’re starting them dry in the slow cooker)
• 1 cup finely chopped mushrooms
• 1/2 cup oats
• 1 cup cooked rice
• 1/2 cup bread crumbs
• 1 cup cooked beans, mashed
• 1 cup finely chopped “neutral” vegetables (carrots, onion, zucchini, celery) — this is not the place to use up your leftover spinach or green peppers. Think of things that seem like they would disappear when they’re grated and cooked. If you’ve ever seen a vegetable used in one of those “hidden vegetable” recipes, it would probably work here.

STORAGE: Once your meat is cooled, break it up into single serving size packages and freeze. You can use food storage continers like Tupperware or Gladware, half-pint mason jars, or even Ziploc sandwich bags (double-bagging your meat packages will help reduce the chance of freezer burn).

YIELD: you should get roughly 4 4-ounce servings for each pound of meat that you purchase. (More if you add fillers — probably closer to 6 servings per pound.)

Boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs

COOKING INSTRUCTIONS

IN A SLOW COOKER: I cannot say this enough — this technique is sooooo much easier if you have a good slow cooker. Season your chicken with salt, pepper and garlic powder (or your favorite ‘plain’ seasoning salt). Layer your meat in your slow cooker (again, buy in bulk — at least 2 pounds). Pour in your liquid of choice. I’ve used plain water, but the chicken breast comes out a little bland. You could use a cheap drinking wine (white or red), barbecue sauce, salad dressing (Italian is fantastic for this), pasta sauce, or (my favorite) canned or boxed chicken broth. The broth enhances the chicken-y flavor of your chicken and doesn’t impart an extra flavor that might be an issue if you want, say, chicken to throw on your take-out salad. Anyway…once you’ve decided on your liquid, turn on your slow cooker and poach your chicken for 4-6 hours on low or 3-4 hours on high. You can’t really overcook this chicken in your slow cooker but you can undercook it (which is dangerous!), so if you are comfortable running your slow cooker overnight while you sleep, have at it.

OTHER COOKING METHODS: To be honest, I love my slow cooker for this and haven’t tried other methods. So here’s a couple of links to other people’s poaching techniques: Stovetop Method / Microwave Method.  Let your chicken cool and wrap single pieces in plenty of plastic/cling wrap or use Ziploc bags.  

INSTANT POT: This method is for chicken thighs ONLY. While this hands-off method works great for chicken thighs, it does tend to overcook the meat, which can leave chicken breasts stringy and dried out. Pour at least 1 cup of water, wine or broth into the Instant Pot (to get it up to pressure–you want a thin liquid for this, not something like salad dressing or barbecue sauce) and add as much chicken and seasonings as you like. Pressure cook the chicken for 8-10 minutes for fresh chicken thighs or 12-14 minutes for frozen. Let the pot release pressure naturally for 5-10 minutes.

YIELD:  This one should be blatantly obvious — it depends on the number of chicken pieces in your package.

Rice and other grains

Beans

The only exception to this is small legumes like dried peas and lentils.  Because of their small size lentils would turn to mush in a slow cooker.  They cook very similar to rice and can be cooked using just about any of the rice cooking methods above.  Cooking times may be longer for lentils, though.  

Ice Cream

And then I found Gemma Stafford’s miraculous no-machine ice cream on her website, Biggerbolderbaking.com. 

Oh.

My.

God.

Three ingredients (for standard vanilla).  Five minutes of hands-on time.  And my husband’s reaction says it all:  he didn’t just ‘like’ this ice cream.  According to him, “I love this stuff so much I just want to attack the carton with a spoon. I won’t, but I want to.”

And the great beauty of making your own ice cream (as Gemma shows in the video) is that once you’ve mastered this insanely easy base recipe, you can pretty much have Cold Stone Creamery at home.  Take a look at your pantry and snack cabinets and have a ball!

Note:  This is a supremely simple recipe if you have a stand mixer or electric hand mixer, but if all you have is a whisk and an anger management problem, you should be able to make this ice cream too!  It will just take you a bit longer (and requires a lot more effort).

These ideas should keep you busy (and well-fed) for a while.  So happy cooking!  I would love to hear how it’s going!  If you have any comments or questions about these cooking posts, leave them in the comments below!