veggie mania

Last week I was frustrated when I took 2 hours to prepare my next day's meals.  So I decided to cook a big pot of veggies on the weekend so I wouldn't have to cook them every night.  Then I just have to make my salads for the next day and that doesn't take too long.  Well, I kind of went overboard with the veggies.  Holy cow.  I had 2 pressure cookers going at once, followed by two more batches.  I didn't take pictures as I didn't get started until late so was trying not to dawdle too much.  Here's what I put in the veggies:

• less than 1/4 cup each of purple barley, rye berries, black rice, and buckwheat.  Cooked these up separately in a regular pan (not pressure cooker), starting with the barley, then adding the rye berries and black rice, then the buckwheat (in reverse order of cooking time).  I added cinnamon of course.   
• collards from the freezer.  we still have last summer's batches.  they still taste okay.  one more is left in the freezer.  then we'll just wait for the garden to produce again.
• 2 onions
• 3 different kinds of mushrooms
• chives from the garden
• canned tomatoes (1 16 oz) from the garden
• asparagus
• 3 broccoli heads
• a head of cauliflower

That made 12 servings, defined as the bowl size I freeze them in.   I hope they freeze and thaw okay.  I left out a few for the first few days of the week.  maybe they will last through next week too.   I think this was about twice as much as I want or need to make at once so next time I will buy less veggies and it won't be such a production and I'll have one week's worth.   

Bucket o' veggies

Sorry the picture is out of focus.  I made a bunch of cooked veggies for the week.  I filled two large pressure cookers full of veggies.  They cooked down, but this is a large bowl too.  These veggies fit into 6 2-cup containers and went into the freezer.  They taste quite good.  Here's what I put into pot #1:  eggplant, broccoli, cauliflower, yellow zucchini, green zucchini, red bell pepper.  In pot #2 went an onion, a bunch of collard greens, and mushrooms, topped with some dried herbs du province and fines herbs.  After they cooked up, I added 2 16-oz cans of tomatoes.  The tomatoes came from the garden and that contributed a lot to the delicious taste.  The collards were just a bit bitter so I added some lemon juice.  I was surprised how good the final result tastes.  I guessed well what veggies and herbs to use.  The only problem is I tend to overcook veggies in the pressure cooker.  Well, the greens pot was just right.  Next time I will use a lower setting for the veggies pot.   I drank the broth leftover from the tomato jars and steaming to reclaim the vitamins lost in the water.   It was good.  I look at it like drinking a rich cup of tea.

I also prepped beans which I'll cook tomorrow.  I juiced a 5 lb bag of carrots (about 36 oz) and am soaking a lb of beans overnight in this juice (in the refrigerator).  Tomorrow I'll make a pot of collards, onions and mushrooms, and add those to the beans after the beans cook.  I'll divide into bowls to freeze for next week.  Then I just need to make a salad every day.

This is pretty much my standard meal plan.  I'm following an easy guideline, Dr. Fuhrman's GOMBBS acronym:  Greens, Onions, Mushrooms, Beans, and Seeds/nuts (in the salad).   The extra B is for berries which I eat a few times a week.  I add other fruit to my salads this time of year:  apple, orange, pomegranate seeds.  It's the same as the post I wrote here, without the asian pear.  I might have a small bowl of frozen cherries and mangos for dessert when I get home from work.