Hey BOS gang, what did you just eat and/or drink?

Regional Dining Discussions Boston, New England
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Kind of feel in a creative rut lately with work kicking my *ss and already dreading back-to-school (wife’s a teacher) so looking for some fun inspo and generally curious too. We’re about to work through our freezer a bunch to make room for some upcoming meal prep which we’ll freeze for convenience across the freezer and chest freezer; it’s an annual tradition for us as summer ends and we get real busy again

We had a quinoa baked dish for dinner and I nursed a rum & coke and seltzer to wash it all down.

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If I understand your question, you are looking for meals to make in advance, freeze, come home – heat up and eat, correct??

I make various bread wrapped items for this purpose. I make up a yeast based bread dough, roll it out thin and wrap it around various items. Sausage, lentils and even sweet potatoes (or anything you like). You can add any vegetable or cheese to your wrap, then bake them off. Let them cool and freeze them.
As an example here are some bread wrapped mashed sweet potatoes. I added a little spinach and cheese, prior to rolling them up.

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They can go from freezer to oven to the table in about 30 minutes.

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My SO takes advantage of the Norwich farmers market this time of year to make freezer stocks of pesto and tomato jam. A breakfast treat all winter is toast with tomato jam, topped with a fried egg and crispy prosciutto.

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Dunno if your quest is specific to the Boston region, but these here threads might be good for inspo, too:

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I agree with @MaxEntropy - take advantage of the summer bounty and make MORE stuff for your freezer!

Tomato Jam - made that about a month ago; 2 small 1/2 cup containers in my freezer. I need to buy a boatload of ripe tomatoes and make more! OR just make tons of tomato puree, freeze in ice cube trays to toss into whatever you’re making down the road.

I make pistachio pesto, since I can’t eat pine nuts that aren’t from the Mediterranean (and those that are are way too expensive to use in pesto). Freeze it in 1/2 cup Rubbermaid containers for later tossing with pasta and grilled chicken.

Corn on the cob - I’ve bought 2 dozen so far, stripped the kernels, frozen in 2-cup increments in Ziploc bags laid flat in my freezer.

Corn Stock - made from the cobs for later use in Chicken Corn Chowder or anything requiring a vegetable-based stock. It’s SO easy: a dozen cobs, broken in half if you want and 1 medium onion, peeled and cut in half, all tossed into a large stockpot, fill water to about 2" from the top, cover, and bring to a boil. Turn down to simmer, let it go for about 2-3 hours, stirring cobs on occasion to move them around in the water (because they float and not all of the corny goodness is being submerged). I usually tip the lid about halfway through as well. Turn heat off, let cool for a bit, cut off the bits of corn at the end of the cobs if you want, and toss the cobs. Strain the liquid from the falling-apart onion, freeze in whatever size containers you want (Ziploc 2 cup twist-lid containers are perfect for this, plus they stack in your freezer).

Other “feed the freezer” meals:

Shepherd’s pie filling - cooked ground lamb, corn, peas, pearl onions, seasonings, and potatoes if you want, with some leftover lamb gravy. Defrost, reheat, top with mashed potatoes (which I also often have too much of, so a quick defrost of those), sprinkle top with paprika or grated cheese, pop in a 350° oven for 30 minutes and dinner.

Pork, Sweet Potato & Apple Cider Stew - this is best with unpasteurized cider, but not everyone can get it. What's For Dinner #79 - the Carly Simon "An-ti-ci-pay-yay-shun" Edition - March 2022 - #222 by LindaWhit

Mac & Ham & Cheese - make ahead, add cheese sauce, and freeze as-is before baking. Defrost and bake for 350° for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

Meatballs or meat sauce - Meatballs for a sub sandwich, meat sauce for lasagna, sketti, whatever else you can think of.

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I’m a high school teacher in the Metro West area and generally the main cook in my household, so I totally hear where you are coming from right now!

As much as I would love to make something new every night, more and more I’m finding batch cooking, with the ability to have planned leftovers (either as a repeat or base for a slightly different dish) is where we are at right now.

Last week, I made a batch of borracho beans (drunken beans). Lots of different recipes online and in cookbooks (I used the one from Amá’s cookbook, but Rick Bayless’s is fine too). We had it on its own with rice, in shrimp burritos, and as a base for some roasted Arctic Char.

Borracho beans and rice
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shrimp and bean burrito
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Arctic Char with Borracho Beans
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This week, I had mush grander plans that ended up being way laid by some family health stuff. So, there was more delivery than I would have preferred. That being said, we pretty much always have fish and seafood in our freezer due to a monthly shipment from Wulf’s. I made a double batch of a Kerala style coconut curry with fluke and shrimp that we got a few meals out of. Even in the summer, stews can be a big help with meal planning during the week.

Keralan Fish Curry - Thali
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Tonight I’m planning something with a bag of shrimp that’s thawed in the fridge. Might be tacos. Might be shrimp salad with tortilla chips. This will depend a lot on my partner’s meeting schedule today (which apparently ends with a virtual happy hour for WFH folks). Tortillas - both corn and flour - can absolutely come to the rescue on a busy week night. Anything can be a taco (or burrito)!

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Tomatoes and corn are go-to bases for easy meals at our house, because it’s the season. Last night’s dinner was caprese salad, prosciutto, and a hunk of Iggy’s bread. Olives and carrot pickles on the side (having various extras like that in the fridge helps dress up a meal).

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Corn cut from the cob, tomatoes, and burrata or mozzarella show up in various quick pasta dishes.

Not to forget the joy of a simple tomato sandwich! My go-to is summer tomato slices, Cabot’s pepperjack cheese, and lettuce on toasted bread, dressed with Duke’s mayo (which I hope I can get at Wegman’s now that our neighborhood deli now longer carries Duke’s). Or, a BLT if you’re feeling fancier.

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Just bought more a couple of weeks ago, so yes, you can. :slight_smile: Only comes in squish containers, however, which is fine for me, as I don’t go through it quite as quickly as a family might.

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Best. News. :smiley: I need to make a Wegman’s run.

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Sounds like one of our Saturday night suppers on weekends we are able to make it to Norwich for the farmer’s market. Substitute King Arthur olive levain for the Iggy’s and Three Cow Creamery “camembert” for the mozzarella…

My SO laments the fact that there’s only about a 6-8 week window when you can get truly ripe tomatoes (compared to her childhood in the middle east), but we do take full advantage while they’re here.

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Recently, I’ve been making a lot of roasted veggie and mushroom bowls. I’ll sometimes toss a bit of leftover meat or seafood on there, if I have some. I almost always have cooked rice on hand anyway, so it’s a good way to use up the last bits of leftover rice, and the roasted veggies are quick. Usually a combo of broccoli, cauliflower, portabella mushrooms, asparagus and/or carrots.

I will sprinkle my rice with furikake, rather than adding a dressing to my veggies. This gives it the little punch of flavor I want.

For frozen, I will usually do Japanese hamburg steaks in batches. Dinner is cook the hamburg steak with sauce, rice and some steamed or roasted veggies on the side. For drinks, I’ve been stocking up on teas recently - both loose leaf Chinese teas and Japanese teas.

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Not necessarily. Just trying to get inspiration whether fresh or frozen :slight_smile:

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The two threads I linked are a treasure trove of inspiration. Just sayin’ :wink:

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This discussion of “office day dinners” may also help you

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OK…
Today, I was testing out a new recipe/idea and made up a test batch of Lentil-Cheese lunch rolls for my girlfriend. If she likes them, I’ll batch cook up a bunch of these and freeze them for later use. After they were in the oven baking off, the thought occurred to me I should have added some spinach – next batch.

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I imagine these could also make a nice dinner with a salad on the side??

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Addressed not only to you but to other fishy folk here: How do you reheat fish/shrimp and preserve reasonable texture? I’m lousy at it.

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Not BOS (in the airport sense anyway lol), but for inspiration I use a few threads here — Dish, Cuisine, and Cookbook of the Month are great to point in a specific direction (plus they change every few months), and the menu planning thread is great for a birds eye view of other people’s menus, which are easy to borrow from.

There’s also a thread for using TJs products for a quick meal.

You’ll see a dish doing the rounds sometimes from one of those threads, because everyone is borrowing inspiration from everyone else.

Here are the current threads for each of those, but you can also see prior ones by clicking the tags at the very top — dish, cuisine, cookbook, weekly.

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I don’t have a magic bullet for this, but using the microwave set to 60% power in 30 second intervals until the dish reaches your desired warmth tends to work ok (stirring gently between intervals). Yesterday, I used a saucepan on the stove and brought the remaining serving to a simmer for about 3-4 minutes and that worked out. More often than not, when I bring leftovers to school for lunch, I just eat them at my desk, cold.

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Ooh you might need a back-to-school gift of one of those personal crock pots! (My teacher cousin got one as a holiday present a few years ago, but it comes in a couple of sizes / shapes now, basically a self-heating bento).

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looks delicious! Recipe, please!