Stainless Steel Meal Prep
We've embraced stainless steel in our kitchen for its unmatched durability and safety, evident in Bear's well-loved, albeit battle-scarred and completely banged-up, steel water bottle. Our avoidance of plastics isn't solely for health and environmental reasons; it's about choosing materials that stand the test of time and childhood adventures. BIFL, if you will.
This commitment extends to our meal prep containers – sturdy, reliable, and perfect for our freezer-to-oven culinary escapades.
For the uninitiated, meal prepping is about more than just preparing meals in advance. It's about creating a mindful, organized approach to eating. It's the art of preparing and storing meals efficiently, ensuring that even on the busiest of days, a nutritious, home-cooked meal is just a thaw away.
This practice not only reduces waste but also allows us to relive the warmth of sunnier days with every meal we unfreeze. Living where we do, the bounties of summer and autumn are fleeting. To sustain ourselves through the winter, we rely heavily on frozen, dried, or fermented produce. And so during winter, our biggest treasure chest is our deep-freezer.
But our culinary journey doesn't just stop at convenience. It's about broadening horizons, especially for our kids. By incorporating diverse, sometimes exotic dishes, we're introducing our little ones to a world of flavors – spicy, sour, and texturally unique. It's a way of ensuring that as they grow, their palates and minds remain open and adventurous.
But sourcing ingredients that hail from far-flung corners of the world can be a challenge in itself. When we do manage to find these culinary treasures, their shelf life often becomes a race against time. Exotic herbs, spices, and produce, while bursting with potential, are fleeting in their freshness. Incorporating them into our daily cooking isn't always feasible—before we know it, they wilt, wither, or lose their vibrant flavors.
To counter this, we've turned to large batch cooking. This method allows us to harness these rare ingredients at their peak. Take our Phanaeng curry, for instance. Ingredients like fresh lime leaves, spicy curry, or Thai basil may not be staples in our local markets. By preparing a substantial quantity of this curry, we capture the essence of these ingredients, locking in their flavors and aromas.
14 quarts of curry, ready to be portioned
Leaving an airgap helps with the frozen ice expansion
Our stainless steel containers seamlessly transition from the freezer to the oven - or on our wood stove. This feature is particularly handy for dishes that need a good crisp-up, perhaps with a sprinkle of grated cheese on top, like gratin, baked pasta, or lasagna.
And when we want an even faster reheating in the microwave, thawing the containers easily lets the content plop out, like a huge icecube.
After that, the containers go straight into the dishwasher.
Reheated phanaeng curry - One container worth fits perfectly in one of our bowl
We sourced our stainless steel containers from “The Grene Sisters”, or rather Søstrene Grene - A danish store that operate in most of northern europe. But you should be able to find similar-looking lunchboxes and containers online, fairly easily.
