Kitchen Shortcut: Freezer Prep: Roasted Garlic & Holy Quartet

Maybe I'm the only one like this but there are nights when I'm so tired I simply cannot face the chopping board to get a from scratch dinner going.  With the popularity of meal prepping though, I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in that thought.  I like the idea behind meal prepping to avoid eating out or ordering in, although I have admit I'm not good at eating the same thing 5 or 7 days in a row like I see on a lot of meal prepping sites.  However, if the basic chopping is done, I'm much better at building a from scratch soup or entree quickly and with much more enthusiasm.

In an hour the other day I prepped 4 two cup bags of what I call my "Holy Quartet", a riff off the Cajun "Holy Trinity" of onions, green bell pepper, and celery.  I added carrots to the mix because there's very little that I cook that carrots wouldn't or couldn't be added to as well.  Sweet peppers were on sale at the grocery: 4 red, orange, and/or yellow for $5.00, so my mix included those 4 peppers, 2 large onions, an entire head of celery (including leaves), and 8 oz of baby carrots.  You don't have to pre-cook them or  do anything else to them, just chop, bag, and freeze.

The roasted garlic is a little more complicated but not much.  There are two ways to do it.  This time I bought Melissa's brand peeled garlic, threw it in a crock baking dish with a Tbsp of olive oil and baked them, covered, for 45 minutes at 350 degrees, until they were browned at the edges and easily squishable with a fork.  I let them cool and then placed them in a bag, squished into a flat pancake, for the freezer. Squishing them out flat makes it easier to break off the amount want at any given time.   I love the sweet mellowness of roasted garlic so I sub it for almost anything that requires garlic.

The second method is similar except using whole garlic heads, not peeled yet:  Roasted Heads of Garlic.

Now, I'm set to quickly make a multitude of recipes without having to face the dreaded (some nights) chopping board--freezer to saute pan, it is.

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