Cooking in larger batches has been my solution to the current trends in grocery pricing. It also helps to smooth out variability in recipes. Small batches are impacted much more severely. For example, if a recipe calls for 1 egg, you get exactly one chance to use an egg that's reasonably sized relative to the other ingredients. If you scale this to a dozen eggs, you could simply forget 2 of them and the difference would likely be undetectable.

I used to buy things like taco shells in boxes of a dozen or so. Would make enough marinara for 8 pasta bowls. Today, I will buy hundreds of corn tortillas from the bakery, a big bag of pork fat trimmings from the butcher, and then I'll run my own lard and taco shell factory for a day. I'll make 4 dozen cookie balls at a time. I've scaled my chicken fried rice recipe to implicate 16 entire chickens.

The cost savings has been incredible, at the expense of a lot of discipline and planning. It's not that it even necessarily takes more time to do things this way. Batching effects are unreasonably effective in all domains. Throw the magic of the freezer on top and it gets even more interesting from an economics standpoint.

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sersi a day ago | parent | next [-]

> 1 egg, you get exactly one chance to use an egg that's reasonably sized relative to the other ingredients.

I've always had the habit of weighing the eggs I use and adjusting the rest of the recipe for baking. Some recipes also includes weight of eggs in grams for exactly that reason. (Tip for converting, if it's a European recipe assume 45g per egg), if it's US assume 60g per egg.

> The cost savings has been incredible, at the expense of a lot of discipline and planning

It's also at the cost of taste. A lot of food don't taste as good after being frozen (especially in a home freezer)

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0xffff2 a day ago | parent | next [-]

> (Tip for converting, if it's a European recipe assume 45g per egg), if it's US assume 60g per egg.

How did you arrive at those numbers? I (an American) have always understood one "standard large egg" to be 50g.

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bob1029 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> A lot of food don't taste as good after being frozen (especially in a home freezer)

How you reheat the food makes a huge difference. Freezer => microwave is noob tier. What you want is something like: freezer => thaw 24-48h in fridge => stir fry for 5 minutes. Make some fresh pasta each time. Start preheating the oven right before your 1130 meeting starts. This stuff doesn't take that long. Adding a bit of extra ceremony on the backside can make a huge difference in the final result.

	▲	cwillu a day ago \| parent [-]
		And a sprinkle of MSG to supplement the naturally occurring that which was probably lost during the cook/freeze/reheat cycle

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greazy a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Ive scaled my chicken fried rice recipe to implicate 16 entire chickens.

Care to share this recipe? Sounds wild.

	▲	rtkwe a day ago \| parent [-]
		Just take your current favorite recipe and make more breading for the coating. That doesn't sound like there's much to actually do there.

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0xffff2 a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> I've scaled my chicken fried rice recipe to implicate 16 entire chickens.

Is this satire? Do you do your cooking in an industrial cafeteria kitchen? Do you have a family of 20 people?

	▲	account42 6 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Reads to me like he's doing an extreme version of the meal prep trend.