cooking tips

The Beauty of Batch Cooking
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The Beauty of Batch Cooking

Cooking Tips with Taffy

The Beauty of Batch Cooking

The Beauty of Batch Cooking

Do you ever get tired of cooking meals, or just wish it were just easier to get dinner on the table? As a professional chef who cooked in my restaurant seven days a week for years, I can admit that sometimes I didn’t want to cook my own meals when I was done cooking everyone else’s. But I still had to eat and feed my family. That’s where the beauty of batch cooking came in. I used the time I spent cooking to make my own meals faster and easier.

What exactly is batch cooking? The basic premise is simple: when you cook, cook extra. Use the time you do spend cooking to get greater results and more meals with virtually the same effort. The key to making it work is cooking basics that can be used in a multitude of ways so that you are making interesting new meals that come together quickly and easily.

When batch cooking becomes a regular part of your kitchen life, you may actually feel excited about preparing meals. With a little creativity and just a few minutes, you can put versatile ingredients to good use. It will make your time in the kitchen more enjoyable and more efficient, freeing up time you can spend elsewhere.

The key to good batch cooking is choosing foods that are inexpensive, versatile, full of nutrition, and neutral enough to use in many different meals. The good news is that many keto friendly proteins and vegetables tend to hit all these marks. Cook large batches of simple proteins and vegetables and then dress them up throughout the week in different ways so that every meal is something new and fresh but makes it to the table quickly, and with as little effort as possible.

Eggs are a great food for batch cooking. They cook quickly, keep well, and can be used with so many ingredients to cook all kinds of dishes, sweet and savory. Boiled eggs are convenient of course, as are deviled eggs and egg salad. Bake them in muffin cups with a tablespoon of filling to use up cooked meat and vegetables, or extra cheese that needs to be used up.
Roast extra chicken legs and use them for salads, soups, wraps, or just about anything you can think of. Bone-in, skin-on legs won’t dry out in the fridge and the bones can be saved for stocks and broths.
Cook extra steak or chops and you will be rewarded with easy protein that can be reheated with fried eggs or used to top salads. Sliced steak over a green salad with a side of blue cheese dressing is one of my favorite meals.
Bake extra fish, like salmon or cod, then flake it and add it to casseroles, soups, chowders, and fritters or patties.
Steam double the broccoli you need, and plunge half of it into ice cold water to stop the cooking, chill it and use it throughout the week in soups, salads, stir fry dishes, or casseroles.
Bacon can be cooked and crumbled to add to salads, casseroles, and egg dishes. It can also be cooked, portioned and frozen for quick heat and eat breakfasts.
Shred an entire head of cabbage. Use half for soups, stir fry, and keto “noodles.” Use the other half to make cabbage slaw, with vinegar and oil that can stay good in the fridge for up to a week.
Roast a bunch of radishes and use them in breakfast hash, “potato” salad, soups, and casseroles. Or keep some raw and quick pickle them with salt, vinegar, and your favorite spices.
Make an extra-large batch of mashed cauliflower and use the leftover to thicken soup, make the base of dips like “hummus”, or give body to casseroles.
Ground beef can be cooked in large batches and portioned out for additional dishes as well. When you buy ground meat in large quantities, take the time to portion it out before you store it. Make hamburger patties, and meatballs, then freeze them for cooking. Or cook ground beef and freeze it for nights when you need something to add to a quick tomato sauce or chili.
Bulk sausage can be portioned out into sausage patties, cooked into casseroles, gravies, and sauces, or used to make quick, flavorful meatballs in a hurry.
Mix batches of your favorite Keto Chow recipes in advance. I like to make the hot cereal mix in advance so that it is ready to go after adding some hot water. Mixing Keto Chow soups with dry seasonings and a powdered fat source makes it even easier to prepare for a working lunch or meal on the road.
Make dressings and sauces in large batches so that you know you have something flavorful in the fridge to turn your prepped ingredients into a delicious dish quickly. Compound butters, vinaigrettes, flavored mayos, barbecue sauce, and homemade stir fry sauce are just a few of the things that can make your time in the kitchen easier and more enjoyable.
Save bones, vegetable scraps, and herbs in the freezer to make your own broths and stocks. When you have enough saved add them to a slow cooker or pressure cooker with fresh water and let them cook while you concentrate on something else. Having homemade stocks and broths will add so much depth and nutrition to your cooking.

Having high quality food readily available helps make it easy to stay on plan and can streamline your kitchen life. The beauty of batch cooking is that with a little planning and know-how, you can turn an hour or two in the kitchen into fabulous meals all week long. See the 7 day reset e-book for some of my favorite recipes and examples of the ways I use batch cooking to make delicious meals all week long.

Prep Like a Chef for the Holidays
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Prep Like a Chef for the Holidays

Cooking Tips with Taffy

Prep Like a Chef for the Holidays

Professional chefs have a secret to getting a lot of work done in a streamlined way: they use a prep list to organize their cooking. The secret to a good prep list is breaking recipes down into small steps, making it easier to pull off a large or small meal with finesse. This makes a huge difference particularly for big holiday meals!

Here are eight steps to prepping like a chef for your own big day.

1. Make your prep list. Grab some paper and a pen and start by listing every dish on your menu, then break those dishes down into smaller steps that can be grouped together. When you turn the oven on, you can toast nuts and seeds, bake bread for stuffing, and roast vegetables for your stock all in one prepping session. When you work on the stovetop, clarify and brown butter, simmer stock, make cranberry sauce, and blanch vegetables. Chop all the vegetables at the same time, then divide them into portions for each recipe and label them accordingly. Remember to cross items off your list as you finish them.

2. Make a grocery list. Use your menu and prep list to make a detailed shopping list. Take note of the total amount you need of each ingredient so you can buy the correct amount and avoid going back to the store at the last minute for missed ingredients. If four recipes call for one cup of heavy cream, you will know you need a quart of heavy cream total. Don’t forget to buy extra if you need it for coffee, and garnishing desserts.

3. Start prepping. If you have time, prep what you can as you unpack your shopping. Place fresh herbs and vegetables like parsley, green onions, and celery in a large pitcher of cold water and cover them loosely with a plastic bag. Wash and dry greens before you put them away so they will be ready to use when you need them. Store cleaned greens, loosely packed and covered in a large container lined with lightly damp cloth. Divide large packages of meats, cheeses, and nuts into smaller portions before storing or freezing.

4. Mix dry ingredients in advance. If you have a few recipes for baked goods or other dishes that call for mixing dry ingredients, you can measure, mix, and store them in small containers in advance. Label them with the name of the dish and how much you have in the container. This way, you can pull out all of your Keto Chow flavors, keto flours, and sweeteners at once, then put them all away and avoid fussing with them on the day of the big meal. With most dry ingredients, you can do this up to a week in advance.

5. Prep vegetables. Most vegetables can be prepped up to three days before you cook a dish. How many onions do you need for all of your recipes? Chop them all at once. When it’s time to cook, just reach for your prepped vegetables. You can prep all the vegetables for each recipe and store them together or store chopped onions, celery, and garlic separately and measure them as you need them.

6. Bake and cook some items two to three days in advance. For example, make and par-bake pie crusts, or bake keto breads that need to dry before they can be used in stuffing. Make desserts like ice cream that need time in the freezer. Make stocks, compound butters, and cranberry sauce. Toasting nuts and seeds is another step that you can do in advance.

7. Check in and update. Two days before the big day, check your list and make sure you haven’t missed anything. Regroup and double check that you have all the ingredients you need, and that everything looks good. Some ingredients I always check for are butter and heavy cream, as they both seem to go faster than expected.

8. Set up and enjoy the big day. By the day of your big meal, you should have a good idea of what exactly needs to be done and when. Pull out any ingredients that need to be at room temperature about 30 minutes before you plan to use them. Preheat the oven and set up any equipment you will need. Now enjoy the final flourishes of preparing a special meal. You deserve to enjoy time with family and friends, too!

View our free Thanksgiving e-book here.

By Taffiny Elrod|2020-11-30T15:01:44-07:00November 19th, 2020|Categories: Cooking Tips with Taffy|Tags: holidays, Chef Taffy Elrod, cooking, cooking tips|0 Comments

All About Keto Sweeteners: Part 1
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All About Keto Sweeteners: Part 1

Cooking Tips with Taffy

All About Keto Sweeteners: Part 1

Part 1: Granulated Sugar Replacers

Have you noticed how many keto-friendly sweeteners are available these days? It’s getting more and more complicated to sort them all out, let alone decide which one to use. But even though it seems as if there are dozens of sweeteners to choose from, most of the sugar-free sweeteners available are made from the same few ingredients. Once you know what those ingredients are and how they function in cooking and baking you can decide which ones you want to invest in.

I have also noticed that there doesn’t seem to be any standard for making the claim that a sweetener “tastes and cooks just like sugar” in fact as far as I can see almost all keto-friendly, granulated sweeteners make this claim. However, I have found that they vary widely in taste, texture, and results. I can’t say any of them taste or cook “exactly” like sugar but some of them do come close and when you combine different sweeteners for the result you want they can come very close to approximating sugar.

If you want to replace the sugar in something like a brownie, cookie, or ice cream, you have to account for more than the sweetness in the mixture. You have to replace the sugar by weight or volume as well because it can be up to 75% of the total weight or volume of the overall product. In cookies for instance sugar usually supplies 25 to 50% of the volume, and it contributes to the cookies’ distinctive traits such as crispness, browning and flavor. In ice creams sugar supplies some of the volume of the mix, but more importantly it contributes to the texture, binding water to keep the ice cream from freezing too hard.

Erythritol, xylitol, allulose and Bocha Sweet are granulated sweeteners that can be used to replace sugar in keyways. They deliver sweetness and they also deliver volume, body, and texture. They all have different levels of sweetness and different cooking qualities. It may take some experimenting to decide exactly what works for you but they can deliver excellent results when used with care.

Erythritol is the work horse of the sugar-free world. It is a sugar alcohol that can be found granulated and powdered and is the carrying agent in most sweetener blends, like monk fruit and stevia blends. it’s inexpensive and it offers many uses. It does have a cooling effect as an aftertaste, and it doesn’t truly dissolve, so it recrystallizes after being cooked. This means it can add a crunchy texture to baked goods, which is great for things like biscotti, granola and brittles, but less good for custard-based pies, and creamy caramels. It’s mildly sweet and functions best with another sweetener like stevia or monk fruit to strengthen its sweetness.
Xylitol is another sugar alcohol it has been in use for quite a long time. It is especially popular in chewing gums, candies, and dental products because it has a beneficial effect on dental health. It is considered a natural sweetener, it has a similar flavor to sugar, with no obviously detectable aftertaste. It can be used for most cooking and baking. It can be used to make ice creams that don’t freeze hard and custard based pies that stay soft. It is almost as sweet as sugar and can be used 1:1 in replacing sugar in recipes.

*Xylitol even in small amounts is dangerous for dogs so many people choose not to have it in the house at all.

Allulose is a sweetener that is quite new to the market. It’s a naturally occurring “rare” sugar that can’t be metabolized by the body. It does bring many of the characteristics of sugar to baking and cooking which is very exciting. It is more costly than some other sweeteners, but you will get a lot of use out of it. I would say skip sweetening your coffee with it if you have another alternative for that and save the allulose for baking and making sweets when you want to impress. Allulose can caramelize first and foremost and makes ice cream scoopable and soft. It helps keep moisture in baked goods too. It does tend to brown quickly however so it can make baked goods look overdone, and it stays soft after cooking, so it doesn’t achieve a crunchy texture with it in things like brittles or crisp cookies.

*One caveat allulose can cause digestive distress so it’s a good idea to try it in small doses to begin with. Your digestion should adjust as you become accustomed to it, but it can be a steep learning curve.

Bocha Sweet is a very new, still quite uncommon sweetener and in fact the only information I have found about it originates from the producer. As the name suggests bocha sweet is derived from kabocha squash and is considered a natural sweetener. It is still expensive but many people have reported enjoying the taste and texture which is similar very similar to table sugar. It has no aftertaste and few side effects. The good news it’s an easy 1:1 replacement for table sugar and has many of the qualities of sugar in cooking and baking, including keeping ice creams scoopable.

I have baked and cooked with all of these sweeteners to some degree but I thought it would be nice to apply some science and try a side by side comparison in a baking experiment and really see what kind of results I would get when I switched out just the sweeteners in a simple recipe that was otherwise identical, and in which the sweetener is obvious.

I made the classic three ingredient peanut butter cookies that I first learned to make in middle school:

1 cup peanut butter, 1 cup sugar, 1 large egg

I made a batch of cookies with each sweetener, unsweetened-creamy peanut butter, and standard eggs. I made all the cookies the same size with a #40 ice cream scoop and baked them all for 20 minutes at 350 degrees. I checked their flavor and consistency while warm, when cool and for two days after being baked. It was interesting to see so plainly how differently the sweeteners worked.

Below are my results

Erythritol cookie – This cookie was soft, lightly brown, didn’t spread at all while baking, had a noticeable cooling effect, and hardened immediately as it cooled. After 12 hours it was rock hard and remained that way.
Xylitol cookie – This cookie spread while baking like a sugar-based cookie, it browned slightly, it was quite sweet, it was soft and crumbly while cooling but after 12 hours became hard and shortbread like. It didn’t brown at all.
Allulose cookie – This cookie didn’t spread at all but became brown quickly, it was moderately sweet, held together while cooking, had a more recognizable sweet, caramelized flavor, and was still tender after cooling and remained moist and tender 12 hours and beyond
Bocha sweet cookie – this cookie was sweet, very soft, and crumbly, it spread like a sugar-based cookie, it remained soft as it cooled. It tasted good and would be hard to tell apart from table sugar by the taste alone. After 12 hours it became hard and crumbly like short bread. It didn’t brown at all.

Based on my experience with these cookies and my keto baking over the years, I suggest keeping at least two sweeteners to work with. Erythritol is less expensive, easy to source and has many uses, and when combined with another sweetener like allulose or Bocha Sweet you can create some impressive keto baked goods and sweets. From there, its up to you to experiment and see what you like the best.

Happy Cooking!

By Shanelle Sorensen|2020-11-03T09:33:07-07:00November 4th, 2020|Categories: Cooking Tips with Taffy|Tags: sweetener, cooking, keto cooking tips, cooking tips|1 Comment