A few weeks ago, I snagged a great deal on organic milk. It was marked down 50% off to $2.99 each, which is a steal, but the "sell by" date was just a few days away. I bought 2 gallons anyway, knowing that the date is arbitrary and that I could find some good uses for it in the next week or so.
I decided against freezing the second gallon, even though it was still unopened nearly a week later. Looking back, I probably should have just frozen it, but we had fun thinking of all the ways to use it up quickly! Enter the completely unplanned and terribly long waffle and pancake freezer cooking session!
(Note to self: do not attempt something like this ever again without much forethought when you have a sick and whiny toddler and a constantly nursing newborn!)
First, I made a triple batch of pancake batter. I have one griddle. One batch made 13 pancakes. Each group of pancakes took about 6 minutes to make, give or take, depending on how closely I was watching them in between cleaning up all the batter that ended up in strange places.
This was the first group. I think I might have over-sprayed the griddle or either was temporarily attending to a toddler disaster which caused them to burn a tad (but no one notices if you just flip the pancake over and serve them the unburnt side up!)
After the marathon pancake making, which lasted almost 2 hours with all the distractions that life with 2 under 2 brings, I was exhausted and did not even want to think about freezing cooking for oh, about a year.
But the next day, the nearly bad milk was starting to mock me, so I went ahead and made a triple batch of waffle batter (but this was after I had already made one batch for breakfast that morning). I have 1 waffle maker. Each giant waffle takes about 5 or 7 minutes to make. Each batch makes 3.5 large waffles. This therefore took forever. You would think I would have learned my lesson from the pancake episode just a day ago. But I like a challenge. And now we have pancakes and waffles in the freezer ready to pop in the toaster for those mornings when I don't feel like cooking a big breakfast (which is just about every morning these days!).
But I don't think I will buy that much extra milk again. Or if I do, I will come to my senses and freeze it!
Have you done any freezer batch cooking lately?
1 comment:
I have tried this in the past. It is exhausting even without 2 under 2! :-)
This reminded me of my jam-making and apple pie in a jar late last year. I was standing over the stove, peeling and coring apples, etc. for 4-6 hours a day. It was exhausting, and then I had to clean up! Ugh. But I will do it again this year. Going to the cupboard and pulling out some homemade jam is awesome. It was well worth it, and I think you'll feel the same.
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