Cooking for two homes
You’re cooking anyway. A cook day makes it count twice: the same pots fill your freezer and theirs, and you take a few containers over each visit instead of cooking when you get there.
- Ask what they’d like. It’s their dinner.
- Use the same containers in both freezers, so they stack the same and you know what fits.
- Keep a note of what’s in their freezer, oldest first, and take over what’s running low.
Nomstash plans portions per person, so their dinners are in the plan and on the shopping list from the start, not squeezed out of yours.
New to batch cooking? Batch cooking for beginners starts at the beginning, and how to plan a cook day walks through one afternoon by the clock.
Smaller portions
Freeze in single portions. One container is one meal, nothing half-eaten sits in the fridge, and nobody is faced with more than they want.
If something does end up in the fridge, the FSA says to eat leftovers within 48 hours or freeze them. That rule and the rest are in freezing, defrosting and reheating safely.
Nomstash keeps count of every container and its portions, so you can see what’s left without opening the freezer.
Familiar dishes
Cook the dinners they already know and like. These are all among the 42 dishes in Nomstash:
- Cottage pie: beef or veggie mince under mash, with veg
- Shepherd’s pie: lamb or veggie mince under mash, with veg
- Fish pie: fish in a creamy sauce under mash, with peas
- Soup: a bowl of soup, with bread
- Bolognese: a ragu or tomato sauce, with pasta
- Crumble: fruit under a crumble top, with custard or cream
Ask about anything they can’t or won’t eat before you cook eight portions of it.
Clear labels
A label that’s easy to read from the freezer door: the dish in big letters, the date it was made and how many portions are in it. Use the name they’d use. “Cottage pie” beats “Beef and veg mash bake”.
A Nomstash label carries the dish, the date made and the portions, with a code and a QR. Scanning it opens the container in Nomstash or marks it eaten. Here’s how Nomstash labels and keeps count.
And leave a note on their fridge with the rules below.
Safety: defrost in the fridge, eat within 24 hours, reheat once
Worth writing out for their fridge door. Each rule comes from the Food Standards Agency.
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Defrost in the fridge overnight. If you can’t, use the microwave’s defrost setting just before cooking.
the safest way to defrost food is in the fridge overnight
Food Standards Agency -
Once it’s fully defrosted, eat it within 24 hours.
use food within 24 hours after it’s been fully defrosted
Food Standards Agency -
Food that’s been cooked and frozen is reheated once, not again after that.
you can freeze food again once cooked, but you’ll only be able to reheat it once after that
Food Standards Agency -
Cool cooked food and get it into the fridge or freezer within one to two hours.
cool cooked food at room temperature and place in the fridge within one to two hours
Food Standards Agency
Last checked against the Food Standards Agency page linked here.
Every rule, with all its sources: freezing, defrosting and reheating safely.
Special diets
If the person you cook for has a special diet, trouble swallowing or a condition that affects what they can eat, follow the advice of their GP, dietitian or care team. Nothing in this guide is diet advice.
The NHS page on swallowing problems (dysphagia) explains that people may be referred to a speech and language therapist or a dietitian for advice about swallowing and diet.
Sources
- Food Standards Agency How to chill, freeze and defrost food safely gov.uk
- NHS Dysphagia (swallowing problems) nhs.uk
Last checked . Each quotation on this page was read against the page it links to.