- This episode of Basics with Babish is sponsored
by Bright Cellars, a monthly wine club
that matches you with wine you'll love
and delivers it right to your door.
It's easy, convenient and the bottles you receive
are personalized to your tastes preferences.
Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off
your first six bottle box plus a bonus bottle.
That's seven bottles total.
So follow the link in the video description
to take the quiz and get started.
Now let's get down to basics.
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All right, so this week on Basics,
I'm super excited to share that Sawyer,
who you all know and love, just became a father.
So as many new parents have told me,
he's gonna need a lot of quick and easy heat and eat meals.
So we're doing just that.
Frozen breakfast, lunches and dinners
that are literally going straight to his house.
As soon as we're done filming.
First step, as you can see,
I've got a half dozen English muffins here
that I am splitting and placing on a wire rack
set in a rimmed baking sheet, which we're gonna toast
for five to 10 minutes in a 350 degree Fahrenheit oven,
both because untested English muffins
just kind of taste weird and because moisture
is the enemy of the freezer.
As you may have guessed, we're making breakfast sandwiches,
so we need some eggs and just to be cute,
I wanna make my eggs into perfectly round patties.
So I'm gonna heat some butter over medium heat
in a non-stick saute pan and lightly beaten egg
in a small bowl.
Then I've got a stainless steel ring mold,
the exact width of my English muffins
that I'm gonna place right down in the butter,
pour my lightly beaten egg inside,
continue to lightly beat it.
You wanna keep it moving until it's mostly set.
That way, it doesn't seer on one side
and end up raw on the other.
Then once it's pretty much done,
we're gonna scrape around the outside of the egg
to separate it from the ring mold, pop it on out.
Give it a flip to make sure that it's cooked
all the way around and set it aside
to cool completely while we whip up six more.
I'm probably gonna end up saying this a lot this episode,
but you wanna make sure that everything is cooled
to at least to room temperature
before assembling fridging or freezing anything.
So now that our English muffins are lightly toasted
and likewise cooled, we can start assembling.
I'm going with a slice of cheddar on the bottom,
our egg Patty, of a slice of Canadian bacon
and another slice of cheddar.
Putting cheese on each side of the muffin
insulates it from any moisture that's given off
by the eggs or ham during the reheating process
which should hopefully help reduce sogage.
Next up, we've gotta wrap these guys for the freezer.
This can either be accomplished by virtue of parchment paper
or plastic wrap followed by a layer of aluminum foil.
The idea here is to reduce freezer burn as much as possible.
Once you've got everybody wrapped and labeled,
they're headed into the freezer where you can keep them
for up to two months.
You can reheat them either by wrapping them
in a moist paper towel and microwaving on medium power
for two minutes or taking off the parchment paper
and re wrapping them in the foil and baking
at 350 degrees Fahrenheit for 20 to 30 minutes.
Next up some big, bad breakfast burritos.
I plan on making about a half dozen of these
and each one requires about two eggs,
so I'm cracking 14 into a large bowl and beating together.
Yes, I know that's too too many.
I'd rather have too much than too little.
Nothing is sadder than an underfilled breakfast burrito.
And to cook said eggs, I'm going to melt two tablespoons
of butter in a large nonstick saute pan,
heat over medium until foaming,
add the eggs and slowly and infrequently move them around.
I'm looking for those, your dad on a Sunday morning,
hotel continental breakfast kind of eggs.
Big, fluffy, firm curds that are gonna help
give structure to our breakfast burritos.
And then since these are gonna be sorta kinda healthier
than the breakfast sandwiches,
I'm going to make a sauteed onion and wilted chard filling.
So I've got one large Spanish onion
that I'm gonna finely chop
and I've got some rinsed and dried Swiss chard.
The leaves of which I'm going to start removing
from the brightly colored stems.
I'm gonna roughly chop the leaves
and you could thinly slice the stems
and keep them in there, but they're very earthy tasting.
So I only recommend it.
If you really like the taste of chard.
We're heating a tablespoon or two of vegetable oil
in a large saute pan about one minute
or until shimmering adding our onion
and sauteing for three to five minutes
until they just start to sweat and soften.
Then once they got a little color
and they're looking nice and soft,
we're gonna add our chard, cooking for just another
one to two minutes until the chard
is nice and wilted.
Lightly sprinkling with kosher salt,
that's gonna help draw out excess moisture,
which again is the enemy of the freezer.
Once the chard is about halved in volume,
we're gonna give it one last seasoning with kosher salt,
freshly ground black pepper.
We're also gonna squeeze a clove or two of garlic in there
and saute that around for about 30 seconds
until nice and fragrant.
Then a great way to cool off most of these ingredients
is to spread them out thinly on a rimmed baking sheet,
maximizing their surface area and steam output,
which again, steam moisture, moisture bad.
For the protein, I'm just gonna do some of this
fully cooked, commercially available
chicken and garlic sausage, sliced into nice, thin
bite sized pieces for easy bite-ability.
Then just like the breakfast sandwiches,
we're gonna put together a sort of assembly station.
All of our intended fillings
including some graded Gruyere cheese,
all located in one place, easy to grab
so you don't forget nothing.
And it lasts it's time for assembly.
And just like with the sandwiches, we wanna try
to insulate the tortilla from its moist fillings.
So layer of cheese, layer of eggs.
layer, of our fully cooked commercially available,
garlic chicken sausage,
layer of our onion, chard and garlic mixture
and one last insulative layer of cheese.
Then it's time to wrap this guy up.
You might've noticed that I put all the fillings
in the lower quadrant of the burrito
so I can fold the bottom over it, followed by the sides
and then roll it up like a, I don't know, like a
like a burrito.
Wrap it up tight and there you have it.
Ready for the freezer.
Rinse and repeat with the remaining 'ritos.
Then the freezer prep is very much the same
as the sandwiches.
We wanna wrap it in either plastic wrap or parchment paper.
Jess was filming on B cam at the time
and thought that this angle was really funny.
She is a big fan of framing humor.
Anyhoo, plastic wrap or parchment paper
followed by aluminum foil, labeled with its contents,
the date it was packaged, your full name
and social security number and pop in the freezer,
once again, for up to two months.
Microwaving or baking the same as the sandwiches,
but maybe a little bit longer since these guys are thick.
Next up for lunch,
how about some soul nurturing chicken noodle soup.
Starting with about eight boneless skinless chicken thighs
that are gonna remove any fat and gristle from
and cut them into bite size pieces.
Then for onions, carrots and celery,
I'm using store-bought frozen vegetables
which were blast frozen commercially
at the peak of freshness.
So they're gonna be better for a freezer soup.
For flavor bonus points, you can add things
like fresh chopped parsley,
a whole lot of freshly chopped dill,
which I think is an absolute necessity.
One large parsnip finely chopped,
which I think brings a nice sweetness
and earthiness to chicken noodle soup
and some fresh chopped fennel stalks.
And then we're gonna go ahead and mix everybody together
to make our sort of frozen soup vegetable blend,
to which I'm also gonna add three large cloves
of finely chopped garlic, as well as a few inches
of freshly grated ginger.
Adding these to the vegetables at this stage
is gonna ensure that they're evenly distributed
throughout the mix.
Make sure that everybody's good and mixed up.
And then it's time to start discussing the actual
soup elements of this soup.
Now in an ideal world, you've got a whole bunch
of frozen pre-portioned homemade chicken stock.
The stuff I have here is pretty concentrated,
so about two cups worth is gonna be perfect
when diluted with two cups of water,
but you could also use store bought chicken stock
or a couple of bullion cubes.
Either way, your soup base is headed
into a large zip top freezer bag followed
by about two thighs worth of our chopped, chicken thighs
and several healthy scoops of our frozen vegetable
and fresh herbs medley.
This can of course be seasoned taste when it's cooked,
but it doesn't hurt to add a pinch of kosher salt
and a few twists of freshly ground black pepper.
Last up, the noodles.
And you can just add any kind
of pasta you want in the last 10 minutes
of cooking when you actually make the soup.
But if you're making it for somebody else, like I am,
I'm gonna put the pasta
in a separate bag along with the following instructions.
Put everything in a pot, except for the pasta.
Add two cups of water.
Simmer for 45 minutes, adding the pasta
in the last 10 minutes of cooking and bang,
fully from scratch chicken noodle soup.
Now, all there is left to do is rinse and repeat
with the remaining bags and put 'em in the freezer,
again for up to two to three months.
Next up for dinner, we got lasagna.
So we're gonna start by making ourselves
a very standard Italian American Ragu.
One large finely chopped onion gets sauteed
in about two tablespoons of olive oil in a large Dutch oven.
About three to five minutes until it is nicely sweated.
Then we're adding two carrots and two ribs of celery,
finely chopped, and saute those for eight to 10 minutes
until they're real nice and soft and starting to caramelize.
Then we're squeezing in, I'm gonna go
with like six cloves of garlic.
I don't think you can overdo garlic in a red sauce.
You'll notice that I scooted the vegetables
to the outside of the pan.
So the garlic gets some direct contact with the heat.
That's getting sauteed for 30 seconds
before we add about a half a cup of tomato paste.
Sauteing that for an additional two to three minutes
until it starts to stick to the bottom of the pan
and then deglazing with about a cup of red wine.
I know that this is normally sacrilege
to put in tomato sauce, but remember,
I said Italian American.
I'm also gonna add a tablespoon of oregano
and three 28 ounce cans of whole San Marzano tomatoes,
which you can either crushed by hand before dumping
or mashup using a potato masher.
I'm also gonna add one cup of water
and maybe half a cup of freshly chopped basil and parsley.
Then this guy's getting cooked for anywhere
from one to four hours.
Bring it to a simmer, keep it partially covered.
Drop the heat all the way down to low
and let this guy go until it tastes sweet and balanced
and well like tomato sauce.
Oop, almost forgot.
If you've got an extra Parmesan cheese rind hanging out,
go ahead and dump that in there.
Once your sauce is simmered to saucy perfection,
it's time to retrieve that Parmesan cheese rind
and season to taste with kosher salt
and freshly ground black pepper.
Once it is seasoned to your liking,
a way to cool it down quickly,
just like everything else is to spread it out
on a rimmed baking sheet.
It should be almost completely cool in like 20 minutes.
This is way too much sauce for our lasagna.
So I'm gonna bag up a couple quarts of this stuff
for just sauce's sake.
You want to make pasta, boom, homemade sauce at the ready.
Spread it out nice and flat.
Get all the air out and freeze for up to three months.
Now back to lasagna making.
You could just stack in no boil noodles,
but if you've got traditional noodles,
go ahead and cook them for about five, six minutes
so that they are really quite al dente.
Then I'm gonna toss them together
with a little bit of olive oil
on a rim baking sheet so that they don't stick together
and just like everything else,
let them cool completely before stacking.
Lastly, I'm gonna make some
of these Italian sausage lasagnas,
so I'm going to squeeze out maybe a pounds worth
of Italian sausage out of their casings,
mash them up and saute them until browned and cooked through
and drain them on paper towels to absorb any excess oil.
And of course, to let them cool completely.
Once everybody's cooled off, at long last,
it is time to assemble.
I've got some disposable aluminum baking trays here
that I think are gonna be perfect for two,
let's be realistic, one person.
Starting by spreading an even layer of sauce on the bottom
so that the noodles do not stick and burn.
Then dropping down a layer of noodles,
a layer of low moisture mozzarella
and optionally, our Italian sausage and I'm adding
a lot more sauce than I think I need.
Frozen lasagna has a tendency to dry out,
and this is gonna help combat that.
Then I'm finishing things off with just mozzarella
on top of the noodles and a grating of Parmesan cheese.
This is gonna give us a nice crispy, cheesy layer on top.
Then we're wrapping everything as tightly as we can
in aluminum, foil and freezing, once again,
for up to three months.
Reheating by baking at 350 degrees Fahrenheit
for anywhere from 70 to 90 minutes,
if straight from the freezer,
and anywhere from 45 to 60 minutes
if thawed overnight in the fridge beforehand.
Just make sure to tent the foil a bit when you bake it
so the cheese doesn't stick.
And that's it folks, some quick,
easy and convenient freezer meals.
Thank you again to Bright Cellars
for sponsoring this episode.
I look forward to receiving my bottles every month
because I can always try something new.
I also love that each box comes with a wine education card
for each bottle that explains the wines' origins,
flavor notes, and pairing suggestions.
You'll always have a good wine on hand
and you can rate each bottle you receive
so that your next box is even more suited to your tastes.
After a long day of making frozen meals,
I've been enjoying this Sabelia,
which is a Syrah blend,
particularly because it pairs nicely
with evenings on the patio.
This Cabernet blend from Mojave rain pairs nicely
with weeknight wine downs, which I think,
my new parent friends are gonna need.
So this is one of the bottles they'll be getting
along with their food.
Bright Cellars is offering you 50% off
your first six bottle box plus a bonus bottle.
That's seven bottles total.
Follow the link in the video description
to take the quiz and get started.
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