Tanya

I'm Tanya from Basingstoke in the south of England.

I started cooking, or batch cooking, totally by mistake.

I didn't even know that was what it was called.

It was simply that I was rubbish at portion control.

I found that I seemed to cook for an unseen guest every single day, so there was always a leftover portion in the fridge or the freezer.

I then found that I quite liked having a meal that was either in the fridge or freezer good to go, so I started doubling up on the odd recipe here and there.

Then when the term batch cooking became more fashionable, I realised that was what I was naturally doing anyway throughout life and why not do something bigger with it?

So I started to have a day every now and then where I would pre-cook loads of meals.

And I would stack them out with extra veggies for healthy eating.

There was always something in the freezer on the days I couldn't be bothered to cook.

On the days when I was sick of that adult decision of what the heck do I cook for tea tonight, there was something ready to go for me.

I also discovered a friend of mine loves batch cooking, so we would, a couple of times a year, have a day where we would batch cook together.

We'd both get really organised, do our big shop, me online, her in the supermarket, and then we would gather around one of our houses.

and cook and cook and chat and cook and laugh and put the world to rights while we were preparing our healthy dishes.

The added bonus was at the end of the day we would swap over a few portions so each of us got to try something new.

We did everything from curries to stews to making our own burgers and cooking our own chips and you name it, we tried it.

But it meant that there was always a healthy meal in the fridge ready to go or in the freezer ready to go.

Batch cooking all the way for me.

No.

No, I'm facing the stark reality that I just cannot afford to stay.