A GOOD BATCHING SESSION

Want to ensure you maintain your healthy eating goals throughout 2020 for you and your family? SUSAN JANE WHITE says batch cooking is the answer.

Susan Jane White invites you to try batch cooking for a happier, healthier new year

Finding the time to cook healthy meals can sometimes feel as easy as hula-hooping on a hoverboard. More often than we’d like to admit, we end up dialling in home deliveries or settling for junk when our bodies deserve better. The bad news is that we are overloading on cheap fat and salt by doing so, sabotaging our energy levels and our new year resolutions.

Be good to your body. You’re the one who has to live in it. Convenience foods aren’t designed to keep you alive and well in the long term. What’s convenient about that? I’m with Bill Murray on this one. Whoever snuck the “s” into fast food is a clever little bastard.

As a time-pinched, financially-puckered mum, I suddenly found myself in a rather messy situation where my kitchen management needed drastic re-evaluation. Sometimes I got it right, but most evenings I felt like a wine gum in a combine harvester.

Being short on time, money and patience, I had a problem. I wanted to cook badass nourishing meals, but I didn’t want to cook every single night. I wanted to reduce the honking stress at 6pm in our home. I wanted to spend less time in the grocery store queuing and more time at home, high-fiving my genius. I didn’t need another freaking meditation app. What I needed was to get through the month without maxing out my Visa card or adrenal glands.

That’s when I started batch cooking. The freezer is my BFF. I’m saving on shopping, cooking and washing up. My personality finally feels like an update is being installed.

And my body seems to be shifting into a lower gear without trashing the engine. It’s a new-age nirvana. Fancy joining me there?

Instead of cooking a meal for four, I now cook for 12 and like to freeze the left-over portions. Yahtzee! I am slackjawed and cross-eyed with admiration for my new hobby and love interest. When I keep my freezer stocked up, life flows much easier. My kitchen becomes less operatic and more playful. I find time to channel energy into other dramas life throws at me: binge watching Benedict Cumberbatch on Sherlock, water-pistoling magpies from our robin’s nest, or husbanding bees for my teensy lavender plantation. Healthy batch cooking is not just about upgrading your food choices. It’s about upgrading your life.

So, where can you sign up? The first step is to start love-bombing your kitchen space. Pick some podcasts to make your dimples hurt with laughter. Own that zone. This is where the magic happens. So much of our diet is contingent on mood and convenience. If we curate both of these in our very own kitchen, then we stand a chance of giving our body the grub it so desperately needs.

The second step is to take out everything in your freezer right now – if you didn’t know it was in there, chances are you won’t miss it. Your freezer space is now directly linked to your sanity. Be ruthless. Defrost or throw out most of the confusion (Unrecognisable mush? Lonesome chicken breast?) to make way for your beautifully labelled batch cooking.

Next, get your mitts on masking tape and a Sharpie marker to label your suite of suppers. Both withstand freezer conditions and give a Pinterest-perfect vibe to your newly acquired genius. You might also like to start collecting reusable glass jars as nifty freezer containers. Fill the glass jars only 70 per cent to avoid breakages, as liquids will swell once frozen. When defrosting, it’s safest to place the frozen jars inside your fridge until thawed. This way, the glass won’t experience any hasty temperature change.

Then there’s the weekly limelight. I’m referring specifically to a weekly meal planner. Without plotting ahead, family mealtimes can sometimes feel like an AGM for dehydrated vampires. My meal planning happens every Sunday evening. I choose the recipes I’d like my family to mainline during the week, then figure out where I can squeeze in a shop. Snoresome? Not when you’re maxing Hozier on full volume and caressing a bottle of Tempranillo like a lost kitten at a stranger’s leg. That Tempranillo and I are a good team – we make Korean generals look lame.

The result? I don’t freak out at mealtimes; my little family ends up both physically and emotionally nourished; and my adrenal glands are back on speaking terms with me. What a clever batch. This might be as close to enlightenment as I’ll ever get.

“Healthy batch cooking is not just about upgrading your food choices. It’s about upgrading your life.”