I'm itching to get started on my "summer" freezer but we're about to move house so I'm holding off. Any frozen food I have prior to the move will almost certainly have begun to defrost before I can get the freezer plugged back in and re-frozen in the new house. I'm trying to look on the bright side and see this as a chance to give the freezer a really good (and desperately overdue) defrost. But I'm getting very restless - we were supposed to have moved by now!!
So in the meantime I'm sharing my list of our favourite warm weather batch cook recipes.
This is an old favourite that I come back to time and time again. It's not too spicy but has plenty of flavour and texture. I can see some of those fresh garden veggies in this picture - I can't wait to get a veg patch going again!!
Another flavourful recipe full of texture and cheap as chips too. It's packed with plant protein so it's a nice and light meal, perfect for warmer days.
We have this during the winter too, usually served with mash. But in the summer I make it with couscous for a lighter option. It's perfect for alfresco dining - I'm soo looking forward to giving my outdoor dining set a spruce up!!
I've been known to live almost exclusively on this bolognese. It's cram packed full of veggies which makes it dirt cheap to make - this one has certainly got us through some hard times. But it's scrummy too so it's always in my freezer. During winter I tend to make more of the lasagne that's also shown on this recipe but during the spring and summer I'm more about the spag bog. Perfect on jacket spuds - yes I have a thing for jacket potatoes in the summer.
This paella is a new addition to my list of favourites. I'm excited to try different varieties over this summer. Definitely prawn for starters, maybe prawn and cheaper white fish would be an economical option - the price of prawns these days is scary!! Or cheap frozen salmon and prawn - yum yum!! It's make a good vegan dish made with a meat substitute . . .
Another old faithful. This is a super simple recipe but it's oh so flavourful. It's actually designed to take advantage of dried herbs to give a summer taste during the winter. It's a nice light dish though and the herbs really do make it taste like summer!
This is an old recipe too, based on one of Jamie Oliver's. It still needs some more refining to make it just perfect. There's definitely another batch in my future - it's delish!!
Now I just need my new kitchen so I can get on with cooking all this scrumminess!! If there's any chance the person whose buying my house is reading this - please, please, please tell your solicitor to get a move on, I want to get moved!!