Meal prep on a FODMAP diet does not have to be hard. I know that it isn’t as if you can just order in or get pre-made meals from your local market. Nobody wants to spend an hour each day in the kitchen just to make a meal that doesn’t make them ill. That is why your freezer is your friend. When I first married my husband many moons ago, he thought that freezing food would render it virtually inedible. I would tell him that his meal had been previously frozen and he would complain that it was not as good as something made fresh. I then set out to prove him wrong.. I stopped telling him when something had been frozen and he stopped complaining. Now he enjoys frozen meals, even when I tell him it has been frozen with no complaints. This is how I spend 1 day a month cooking dinners for my mother in law that last for a month.
As we head into summer, my mother in law is still craving soups. Her favorite seems to be the Moroccan soup, but she still enjoys the others. Her taste tends towards warming spices like turmeric, cinnamon, nutmeg, cumin, and coriander.
Last weekend she let me know that her freezer was feeling pretty empty and the choices in the dining room didn’t let themselves to the FODMAP diet. I came up with a plan on Thursday night to make her a selection of her favorite soups.
Moroccan Soup (recipe in a previous post)
Carrot Ginger Soup
Parsnip Soup
Loaded Baked Potato Soup
After shopping Thursday evening at my favorite store, Berkeley Bowl, I got in with the help of my husband to peel and cut up the veggies. I have found that the cooking itself is not the hardest part, the veggie prep is. That is what seems to take the longest amount of time and given that I make large batches, having the husband peel and run the veggies through the food processor is a huge timesaver for me.
In the winter, having a large pot of something on the stove is great. The house gets warm and full of wonderful smells, but in the summer the last thing I want is something boiling away heating up my un-air conditioned home. This is why the food processor is essential for getting things sliced thin to minimize the cooking time, and save my hands from all the time chopping and slicing.
Over the course of a day I was able to get all four soups cooked, blended, bagged and frozen. I find that using quart size freezer bags with two cups of soup in each, frozen flat allows me to get more packed in the freezer. Once frozen, I am able to place them like books for easy access and the thawing time is minimized. She just places the frozen soup in the refrigerator the night before and when she is ready to eat, she puts the bag in water that she has boiled and turns off the heat. The soup gently warms in the bag and VIOLA! Dinner.
FODMAP Life 