Meat for the week.

NoQuarter

Reading through on of the other threads some of the posters described buying their meat for the whole week from places like Dublin Meat Co which do a protein pack here: http://www.dublinmeatcompany.com/value-pack/protein-pack2013-04-11-15-55-33_-detail.html

Its pretty great value and is great for someone on a high protein diet.

My question is; when you buy your weeks supply of meat, what do you do with it it terms of freezing/cooking/keeping it fresh? Ideally I'd like to bring in 200g of meat for lunch everyday, so I need something that I can just pop in a microwave, so perhaps the best thing to do is cook a batch of chicken. But when you cook a meat, how long have you got before it goes off? What about fish and turkey and steak mince etc?

Do you buy your weekly meats, then freeze half? Does anything have less of a shelf life than others?

Has anyone any guidance for all this logistical type of stuff?

CR 7

I usually cook for the week on Sunday, and it's always been perfectly fine up until Friday/Saturday. I keep it in the fridge, in various lunch boxes. I just don't have the time to cook again during the week.

It's usually chicken/turkey/diced steak/whatever is the cheapest in Lidl. Haven't tried it with fish, but I don't think it'd last as long, for some reason.

NoQuarter

CR 7 wrote: »

I usually cook for the week on Sunday, and it's always been perfectly fine up until Friday/Saturday. I keep it in the fridge, in various lunch boxes. I just don't have the time to cook again during the week.

It's usually chicken/turkey/diced steak/whatever is the cheapest in Lidl. Haven't tried it with fish, but I don't think it'd last as long, for some reason.

So on a sunday you could cook the whole weeks lunches ahead and by Friday your chicken or turkey or mince would still be fine? That's good to know. I agree about the fish though.

thegreatiam

cook the poultry on sun, will keep in the fridge til wednesday.
eat the mince thursday, the steaks can sit "aging" in the fridge til friday.

Takes 30's to fry the steak on thursday evening.

Also a slow cooker is an amazing addition if you are stuck on cooking time.

Sunday I buy a big shoulder of beef. into the slow cooker then it lasts for a week. just pull off what I need each day.

Also you can roast a chicken/turkey on sunday with veg and leave it in the fridge for 3/4 days no problem. just slice of what you need daily.

CR 7

NoQuarter wrote: »

So on a sunday you could cook the whole weeks lunches ahead and by Friday your chicken or turkey or mince would still be fine? That's good to know. I agree about the fish though.

Well I've never found it to taste bad by the end of the week anyway. Usually mince would be in some kind of dish with eggs and vegetables, the bigger surface area might cause it to go bad faster if left by itself.

rubadub

I buy frozen chicken fillets in aldi now. I leave 1-2 defrost in the fridge overnight.

I have given up on fresh ones, too often you open them and they are already beginning to get that smell. I guess the aldi ones are frozen very soon after butchering.

They are cheap per kilo too, and I do not end up eating 4 fillets in one day just to use them up.

seosamh1980

We buy meat in bulk in this great butchers here that does lots of special offers. We get 12 chicken fillets at a time, bag them into 2's (or sometimes the butcher does this), throw them all in the freezer when we get them home and take them out when we need them. Usually we just defrost them in the microwave just before we use them, rather than letting them thaw overnight, due to being eternally forgetful about it.

When we cook dishes with meat in them we'd mostly do enough for the two of us to get lunch out of 1-2 days as well as the dinner, just left in fridge then.