I love fresh meals…I mean…who doesn’t? But with our busy lives and daily schedules, we cannot afford to spend all day in the kitchen, morning, afternoon, and evening. Here is a Meal Storage tip for Staying Organized.
I grew up in a family of six and we cooked soup for eba, and stew for rice or yam on a weekly basis. My mother will store the soups and stews in large bowls, usually 2 or 3 bowls for each meal-making time.
However, the challenge was that it gets really frozen while in the freezer and if it’s only one person that was eating the eba, you will have to wait for the soup to thaw before you can scoop the quantity you want.
To increase the thawing time, we had to pour hot water around the bowl, and after all these processes just to get one serving, we put the soup bowl back into the freezer. The constant freezing and thawing eventually makes the soup lose its initial taste and sometimes it sours.
Another challenge is that the proteins will settle at the bottom of the bowl and you cannot wait for the whole bowl to thaw. So you end up eating without meat.
- Set of food containers
Having lived a single life for over 10 years and through many cooking, over-cooking, and wasteful attempts, I have been able to sort out the quantity and number of meals I need and what it takes to make them.
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I love the taste of my meals but I dislike cooking. Well, not cooking per se, but the whole preparation process. When I get a domestic staff, their job will be just to prepare everything for cooking each meal. I will do the actual cooking in 30 – 45 minutes.
To stay organized and plan my meals adequately, I went through a trial-by-error process. You might have to try out the process by observing the quantity of meals you consume. This will help you plan well.
For example, the regular market cup of egusi gives me four servings for my eba. To make soup for 2 weeks, I will need 2 cups. The rest of the seasonings and condiments follow the size of the soup. The main determinant is the number of egusi cups.
Now when the soup is done, I allow the soup to cool off and then I package the soup in bowls.
To package the soup, I first remove all the meat from the soup because I don’t want to be searching for meat from the bottom of a semi-defrosted bowl of soup.
I have learned the portion of soup that is ok for each serving and I bought bowls that can take the servings. I prefer rectangular food containers because it’s easier to align and arrange along the freezer walls. You can get glass food containers or plastic food containers.
This bowl gives me 3 servings of soup each, which means I need 3 bowls for my 2 cups of egusi.
- Food container
After pouring the soups into the bowl, I visually divide the bowl into 3 and gradually drop the meat with each serving. I do this because I intentionally do not want to tamper with the other part of the soup when scooping out the day’s portion. This ensures the soup doesn’t sour from too much turning.
I place 2 soup bowls in the freezer section and place 1 bowl in the fridge. The bowl in the fridge stays cold but not frozen. Be mindful of how stable your electricity is. If you cannot boast of a 10-hour power supply daily within your area, please put all soup bowls in the freezer.
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When the 3 servings in the fridge bowl finishes and I know that eba is in my meal plan for the next day, I will bring out 1 frozen bowl from the freezer and place it in the fridge, allowing it to thaw gradually.
By the time I’m ready to take my meal the next day, I will not be struggling to scoop the quantity of soup that I want.
If you do not want to spend the time placing meat on top, you can simply put all proteins in a different bowl and soups in another bowl.
This has helped me in maintaining the same food taste throughout the duration that the soup lasts. It has also aided in reducing food waste because I know the quantity of meals I need. If a visitor comes to my house, I feed them the same portion of the meal without inconveniencing myself.
If you are the type that makes several soups at a time, I suggest using this label sticker or this label sticker to label the top of the bowl covers to help you identify which soup you want to bring out, when rummaging through your freezer.
I also extended this pattern to other meals, like rice. I use a larger size of the same bowl shape for rice or yam.
You might ask “How can you be storing cooked rice in the freezer?” Well, I’m single and I don’t get to cook the quantity of meals a whole family will eat at a time and it’s unwise to consume gas every now and then just to boil a fresh cup of rice.
I hope this has helped you to plan your meal storage better, declutter and be fruitful.
