Batch Cooking – Tacos and Taco Soup

Batch Cooking – Tacos and Taco Soup

Here is how I make a huge batch of tacos and taco soup in a couple of hours. This yielded about 12 pounds of taco meat and 11 quarts of taco soup. Each of the finished and separated meals described below will usually feed 3 of us for 2-3 meals with an occasional bit left over for a lunch for 1 or 2 of us. (DD doesn’t like ground meat so she typically opts for a cheese sandwich or a soft taco with pepper slices and cheese instead.)

Taco Meat Ingredients

  • Just over 9 lbs of ground venison
  • 6 lbs of 80/20 Hamburger (that’s 80% lean & 20% fat)
    • Venison is a very lean meat and you need the fat from the hamburger to help it cook
  • 5 1/3 cups of Ortega Original Taco seasoning (the only one I have found to not bother my onion sensitivity)
  • 12 cups of water

Substitution Option

If you don’t wish to or can’t use ground venison, then you can use whatever split of hamburger you like but I would not recommend going any fattier than 80/20

Taco Soup Ingredients:

  • 1/4 of the prepared Taco Meat
  • 3x 15 oz cans of black beans – drained and rinsed
  • 2x 15 oz cans of white beans – drained and rinsed
    • I usually use Great Northern for this soup because they are a similar size to the black beans
  • 3x 15 oz cans of corn – do not drain
  • 4x 28oz cans of diced tomatoes – do not drain
    • petite diced are better than normal diced but either will do
  • 3x 28oz cans of Rotel Original tomatoes and chilis – do not drain
  • 1/4 cup taco seasoning
  • 3 bay leaves

Kitchen Supplies

To handle this massive cooking task you will need:

  • A large stockpot – mine is about 12 quarts
  • A large skillet for cooking the seasoned meat – mine is 12 inches
    • If you don’t have anything that big, then use a large pot like a dutch oven or just use the stockpot again
    • I prefer a skillet because my current stockpot isn’t lined on the bottom and tends to burn easily
  • 2 9×13 pans or dishes lined with a double layer of paper towels
    • These are for draining the meat
    • I use 2 large pyrex lasagna pans
  • Kitchen Scale
  • Bag holder – I got some off of amazon and they make a huge difference
  • Vacuum seal bag rolls – large and small
    • I make the large rolls into 4 bags about 2 ft long
    • I also double seal the bottom of the large bags, because I have had soup leak out of them before – it made a huge mess!
    • I make the small rolls into 6 bags about 1 foot long
  • Vacuum sealer – like a food saver
  • A 1-quart measuring cup
    • I use one of those twisty storage containers. The larger of the 2 sizes sold in most grocery stores is 1 quart.
    • You could also use a measuring cup – 1 quart = 4 cups

Step 1: Cook the Taco Meat:

  1. Put 3 pounds of the hamburger into the stock pot
  2. Cook on Medium-Low (about 4 if your stoves has numbers) until the meat is cooked through, stirring/mashing regularly to break the meat up into small pieces
  3. Once the meat is cooked, use a slotted spoon to dish it into one of the 9×13 pans – leave all the fat and drippings in the stock pot
  4. Repeat with half of the ground venison
  5. Repeat with the other 3 pounds of ground beef – this time using the other 9×13 pan
  6. Repeat with the other half of the ground venison
  7. Remove stock pot from the heat – once it cools a little drain any excess liquid in it into a disposable container – We keep things like old yogurt tubs or spaghetti cheese containers around for this kind of thing
  8. Add approximately, 1/4 of the meat to the skillet
    • Be sure to get a mix of both types. Don’t just scoop from the top
  9. Add 1 1/3 cups of taco seasoning and 3 cups of water
  10. Stir and cook on Medium-Low stirring occasionally until the sauce begins to thicken – about 5-10 min
  11. Repeat 3 times for the rest of the meat
The stock pot keeps the splatter contained while the meat is cooking.
Here is half of the cooked meat draining.
By the time I was done making the taco meat, I had used almost 3 1/2 tubs of taco seasoning!

If you are going to continue and make soup:

  1. Add 1/4 of the taco meat and all of the soup ingredients to the stock pot
  2. Cook on Medium-Low until it starts steaming, then reduce heat to Low (2 if your stove has numbers)
  3. Allow soup to cook for 3-4 hours, stirring occasionally to be sure nothing is sticking and burning to the bottom of the pot
  4. Remove bay leaves before eating or preparing for the freezer
Yummy!

Steps for freezing all these meals:

For the Taco Meat:

  1. Place bag holder on the kitchen scale
    • I use to just eyeball but I have found that meal planning is easier when I have a better idea of how much meat is coming out of the freezer.
  2. Fold the sides of a small vacuum seal bag back about 1 1/2 inch so they stay clean – this makes a big difference in how well it seals
  3. Place the vacuum bag on the bag holder, adjusting the height as necessary
  4. Reset the kitchen scale to 0 lbs
  5. Place about 2lbs of taco meat in the bag
  6. Remove bag from the bag hold and unfold sides
  7. Seal and label the bag
  8. Repeat with the other 5 bags
  9. Freeze and enjoy within the next 6-12 months

For the Taco Soup:

  1. See my tips for vacuum sealing soups post for helpful hints
  2. Place bag holder on a very steady surface
  3. Fold the sides of a large vacuum seal bag back about 1 1/2 inch so they stay clean – this makes a big difference in how well it seals
  4. Place the vacuum bag on the bag holder, adjusting the height as necessary
  5. Place 2 1/2 -3 quarts of soup in the bag
    • I typically get 2x 2 1/2 quart bags and 2x 3 quart bags of soup
  6. Carefully remove bag from the bag hold and unfold sides
  7. Seal and label the bag
  8. Repeat with the other 3 bags
  9. Freeze and enjoy within the next 6-12 months

When you want to pull these out of the freezer to eat on a busy day:

  1. Pull them out the night before and place in the fridge to start thawing.
  2. Place them in a slow cooker (crock pot) in the morning and set to low for about 8 hours.
    • The taco meat fits fine in a 2 1/2 – 3 quart slow cooker but the soup tends to warm up better in a larger one.
  3. Dinner will be ready with little to no extra effort from you!

An additional note on the approximate cost of these meals:

  • Ground venison – Free
    • My father deer hunts, and my parents and I do all the venison butchering ourselves.
    • Other than the time required to process the deer, this is a free source of meat.
  • 6 lbs of hamburger ~ $12
  • 5 cans of beans ~$2.50
  • 3 cans of corn ~$1.35
  • 4 large cans of diced tomatoes ~$3.15
  • 3 large cans of tomatoes and chilis ~6.75
  • Taco seasoning ~$11.50
  • Bay leaves ~$0.20
    • Total cost ~$37.45
    • Cost per bag of taco meat ~$2.94
    • Cost per bag of soup ~ 4.95

Tips for Vacuum Sealing Soups

Tips for Vacuum Sealing Soups

Here is how I vacuum seal soups in bags to go in the freezer:

1. Use the large bag rolls.

2. Make the bags at least 18 inches long.

3. Double seal the bottom of the bag. I had a seal fail once, and it made a huge mess when I went to move the bag to the vacuum sealer! I had to move the stove out and clean puddles of soup out from under it.

4. Use a bag holder while you are filling the bags and fold the sides of the bags back about 1 1/2 – 2 inches before you place it on the holder.

5. For an easy way to monitor how much soup is going into each bag, ladle the soup into a 1 quart container. Then pour it into the bag. I use one of those twisty food storage containers. This also seems to minimize splash.

6. Find a space of counter that has a shallow drawer right under it. Place the vacuum sealer a couple of inches away from the edge of the counter. Place the bag of soup into the drawer and then place the open end of the bag into the vacuum sealer. This allows the vacuum sealer to do its job and keeps the soup from spilling in the process.

7. Once you start the vacuum sealer, watch VERY carefully. As soon as the top goes flat and the liquid from the soup starts to get sucked up the bag, press the “SEAL” button to stop the vacuuming process and seal the bag.

8. Double seal the top end of the bag to protect against leaks.

9. Freeze bags of soup flat for easy stacking.

Butter Making Adventures

Butter Making Adventures

Fueled by my homesteading spirit, I am currently dreaming of getting a dairy cow. I just love the idea of having fresh, homemade, and preservative- and additive-free dairy products.

Well, I had to promise DH that I would hold off on the cow for at least another year and until I have a better handle on everything currently requiring my attention. I can completely understand his concerns. In the last 18 or so months since moving to the farm, I have taken on a massive load of extra work.

Just dealing with a house that is about 3 times the size of our old house has been an adjustment. We have to keep up with mowing the 7 or so acres of pasture and lawn (thanks mom for all your long hours on the mower this summer!) Learning how to manage pastures in a real setting as opposed to on paper has been an adventure. We also put in a gigantic 32×30 foot garden that I attempted to work that all summer (at least until the bermuda grass got so bad that I couldn’t stay on top of the weeds anymore – more on my new garden plan is coming soon). Plus, I have also started homeschooling DS & DD. Both are still learning to read so school time is still very hands on for me.

So, with all of that and more, I have more than I can handle and have reluctantly promised DH that I will wait on my cow.

Okay. Sorry about the crazy long introduction to my adventures in butter making. 🙂

I figured that if I want to eventually get a cow, I needed to practice and get in the habit of regularly making dairy products that we normally use. I decided to start with butter, which seemed like the easiest first step.

To make butter, you basically beat up heavy cream until the butter and buttermilk separate. First, I tried it in my KitchenAid mixer. That was fun and pretty easy but had two major negatives. 1. It made a huge, greasy mess! 2. It took close to an hour. But, the butter was really good! Plus, the buttermilk pancakes that I made the next morning were really good too.

Next, in an effort on contain the mess, I tried making butter in my blender. It was all going wonderfully until just after it started to separate when the heat from the blender softened the butter up so much that it blended into the buttermilk. I moved it to the KitchenAid, hoping to undo the problem and just made a bigger mess. Since I had been at it for over an hour and didn’t really feel like sticking the mixer bowl full of butter in the fridge for a while then trying again, I threw in some salt and mixed it for a few more minutes. I ended up with very tasty whipped butter.

Well, I started looking for a contained butter churn and found an old fashion, hand crank one. It said that it made butter in 10 min. I figured that it was worth a try, so I bit the bullet and ordered on. I tried it today.

The instructions said that the cream needed to be left at room temperature for 1-2 hours. After my experience last time, I was hesitant to let the cream get too warm so I tried it after about 45 min. Twenty minutes of hand cranking later (quite a workout) and still liquidy. I left it for another hour and tried again. Another 20 min of hand cranking (Ouch!) and still nothing. Another hour. Another 20 min. By this time, my arms felt like I had been carrying water buckets all day. Still just cream. 🙁 (Did I mention that I pulled the cream out of the basement fridge that is set on super cold?)

In desperation, I just left it alone until the entire thing felt close to room temperature and tried again. 10-12 beautiful minutes and 3 YouTube videos on using a hand churn later, I had about a stick’s worth of butter and over a cup of buttermilk! DD helped me sample as I added salt (1 tsp for a 1 pint container of cream’s worth of butter). She also was a big help churning, but, at 4, her arms got tired quickly.

So that has been my tasty adventure in butter making. I am going to try the hand crank churn again tomorrow or Saturday and will definitely leave the cream out for 3-4 hours first.

So, to any on you out there who are interested in making butter, I would say give it a try. It tastes so much better and really is a lot of fun to make!

Summer Time Batch Cooking

Summer Time Batch Cooking

Summer time, has become batch cooking season around here.  For anyone who is unfamiliar with the term, batch cooking is making food in large batches and preserving it (usually by freezing) for use at a later date – think soups, stews, etc.  With school starting up in August, I will be twice as busy as I have been.  When taking farm work, house work, and school time, I have no time (and probably not much energy) left for fixing full dinners during the week.  I started thinking about how to make that easier and came up with summer batch cooking.

In late May, I made a list of the dishes that 1. my family likes, 2. were easy to cook on a large scale, and 3. froze well.  (Thankfully, with 1 large stand-up freezer, and two fridge freezers, we have plenty of freezer space.)  While making this list, I also listed out the ingredients, including quantity, required so that I could buy them when they were on sale.

Here is my list (if you want any of the recipes that aren’t posted, just leave a comment or email me and I will make a post for it):

  1. Burgers (done with ground venison, ground beef, and ground bacon)
  2. Chili and Kids’ Chili (done with ground venison and ground beef)
  3. Taco Meat (done with ground venison and ground beef)
  4. Taco Soup
  5. Meatballs (done with ground venison and sausage)
  6. Meatloaves (done with ground venison and ground beef)
  7. Lasagnas
  8. Shredded Pork
  9. Chicken Stew Meat see my Chicken Stock Recipe
  10. Prepacked Raw Chicken Boneless Skinless Breasts (yes, I know that this is not technically batch cooking but they so versatile, often on sale, easy to vacuum seal in 2 meal size portions, and it takes 5 minutes to throw them in an oven safe dish with some BBQ sauce for an easy main dish)
  11. Chicken Pot Pie Filling
  12. Chicken Stock (see the above link)
  13. Tortilla Soup
  14. Beef/Venison Stew
  15. Minestrone Soup
  16. Spaghetti Sauce (finally have a good recipe!)
  17. Potato Soup
  18. Bean Soup
  19. Split Pea Soup
  20. Vegetable Soup

In June and July, I cooked. Then, I vaccuum sealed (yes even soups) using my Food Savor Game Saver (awesome product by the way – the moist food setting is great!)  I freeze things on the top shelf of my upstairs freezer on a baking sheet sow they stay flat.  Then they are easy to stack in the big freezer in the basement.

At this point, some of you may be cringing at that amount of cooking.  It really isn’t that bad and doesn’t really take much longer than fixing a full meal for dinner.  Most batch cooking sessions took around 3 hours from start to finish (including time for grinding venison and for cleaning up).  Prepping meals for freezing later usually took about 30 min, if I didn’t need to rearrange for better freezer space usage.  We also eat some of whatever I batch cooked for dinner that night, so I cut out dinner prep work for that day. Score!

I put the soups in a large stock pot after doing the morning farm work and let them simmer with an occasional stir and taste test until dinner.  For shredded pork, I either put it in the Instant Pot (for pork shoulders) or the slow cooker overnight (for pork loins).  I also double up and make recipes that use similar ingredients at the same time.  Some examples are: taco meat and taco soup, bean and split pea soups, chicken stock and tortilla soup or chicken pot pie filling, and meatloaf and meatballs.  I can’t do burgers at the same time as anything else involving ground meat, because my Kitchen Aid will overheat if I try to grind more that about 9 pounds of meat at a time.  I buy ground beef, but I have to grind the venison and bacon myself.

Well, there you go.  Happy cooking!

Onion Free Tortilla Soup

Onion Free Tortilla Soup

Like I have said before, I can’t eat onions, in any way, shape, or form.  I have had to invent and tweak recipes to work around that.

This is my version of chicken tortilla soup.  It makes a LOT of soup, so be sure to have plenty of hungry people to feed or freezer room to save some for later.

Ingredients:

  • 1 quart of my home made chicken stock (another onion free necessity)
  • The dark meat off of a stock chicken (shredded or cubed) – the white meat never gets as far as soup around here :)*
  • 1 28 oz can of Rotel original tomatoes and chilies
  • 1 28 oz can of petite diced tomatoes
  • 1 10 oz can of petite diced tomatoes
  • 2 cans of corn
  • 3 cans of black beans (drained and rinsed)
  • 2-3 bay leaves (depending on size)
  • Cumin
  • Garlic powder
  • Ortega taco seasoning
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Half and Half

Toppings:

  • Sour Cream
  • Shredded Mexican cheese blend
  • Tortilla Chips

*If you don’t have any stock chicken on hand, you can substitute 2-3 boneless, skinless chicken breasts or thighs.  Just bake those in a covered baking dish with some water to keep them moist.

Directions:

  • In a large 5-6 qt crockpot, combine the first 7 ingredients.
  • Add a generous helping of both cumin and garlic powder (I rarely measure seasonings).
  • Add 1/2 packet or a more than generous helping of the taco seasoning
  • Add salt and pepper to taste (I prefer fresh ground on both.)
  • Add several splashes of half and half
  • Top off the crock pot with water
  • Cook on high for 2 hours then reduce the heat to low and cook for another 6 hours
  • Remove the bay leaves.
  • Once done, top with the cheese and sour cream (if you want to cut the heat down).  Crush up the tortilla chips and add to the soup or eat them along with it. Enjoy!

 

Onion Free Chicken Stock

Onion Free Chicken Stock

I can’t eat onions in any way, shape, or form.  I get 72 hour migraines if my food gets anywhere near them, and I stop breathing if I actually eat them.  I have not been able to find a ready-made chicken stock that is safe, so I started making my own.  Happily, this is a super simple recipe.  The other great thing is that you can reuse the chicken to make multiple batches of stock.  I usually make 1-2 batches with the meat on the chicken then debone it and make another 2-3 batches with just the bones.  The only thing is that you have to change out the veggies with each batch.  After they have cooked for a couple of hours, they have shared all their goodness with the stock and need to be recycled.  I usually pull out the carrots and celery and give them to my chickens and toss the garlic.

Ingredients:

  • 1 whole chicken
  • 3 celery stocks, rinsed
  • 3 whole carrots, rinsed
  • 1-2 whole clove(s) of garlic

Directions:

  • Rinse the chicken inside and outside, discard any “extras” that came inside of it.
  • Put everything in a large pot.  I use a pasta pot – the kind with strainer baskety thing that sits inside of it – because then you just lift all of the solids out and are left with the stock in the bottom pot.
  • Fill with water to about 2 inches from the top.  If you are using a pasta pot, don’t fill past the top strainer holes or it will boil over and make a huge mess.  (Been there.  Done that – several times.  Finally learned.)
  • Cook on medium heat for 2 hours.
  • Remove from heat and let cool for about 30 min.
  • Remove solids and separate stock into freezable containers.  I use the 1 quart containers with the twist on lids.
  • Debone the chicken and use the meat however you want.  I usually freeze the dark meat for soups, and we use the white meat in meals for the next couple of days.

You may be wondering why I didn’t add any seasonings.  I prefer to make my chicken stock completely basic, then season the things I use it in.