Wanted: good, mostly vegetarian, freezable make-ahead meal menus

I would pay good money for this: a website or cookbook with good, mostly vegetarian make-ahead meal menus (eg., dinners for an entire week that you could prep on your day[s] off, freeze, and then reheat day-of). Bonus if many of them were “throw and go” (that is, freezable uncooked but then thawed and finished on the day of eating). The few websites I’ve been exploring so far have the structure I like, but the majority of recipes seem too meat-heavy and aren’t very progressive.

I posted the above grousing on Facebook, and the thread that sprang up around it had some great suggestions. I’m posting them here for posterity. (Facebook search leaves a lot to be desired.) Normally I’d give props/credit via links, but I’m omitting names for privacy’s sake. Continue reading “Wanted: good, mostly vegetarian, freezable make-ahead meal menus”

Tartine Bread, Day 11: Need to formalize starter proportions for Cavanagh

For the Tartine Bread starter (which I’ve named Francis*), I’ve been roughly following the original amounts and proportions that Chad Robertson lays out in his book Tartine Bread. As I’ve said in earlier notes, for daily feedings he has you discard all but 20% of the starter and then add to the remaining blorb an equal mixture of flour and water. I believe he says something like “amount doesn’t matter.” But I’ve been adding back the same weight of stuff I’ve discarded. Which, yes, as my friend John Wozniak points out, is pretty wasteful of flour. (In fact, I’m now more than halfway through my two 5-pound bags of white and whole-wheat flours just on growing the starter alone). Flour is relatively inexpensive, and I anticipate I’ll modify the feeding once I make the recipe exactly according to the book. Continue reading “Tartine Bread, Day 11: Need to formalize starter proportions for Cavanagh”

Tartine Bread, Day 7: Bringing in the designated hitter, Cavanagh

I’ve brought Cavanagh up from off the bench (i.e., the refrigerator) and have revived it after months of neglect. Which is first-hand proof for me that you really can resuscitate a starter you’ve all but left for dead. What I’m going to do is keep feeding the TB starter and see if I can get it to take, but if not, I’ll use Cavanagh next weekend to make my first loaf of the Basic Country Bread. Continue reading Tartine Bread, Day 7: Bringing in the designated hitter, Cavanagh