“Batch Cooking” really can make your life easier. Over the years there have been lots of different names for this type of cooking, and slightly different approaches to it, but we think our version is especially great because of its flexibility factor.

We don’t put you in the kitchen for hours at a time fixing a month’s worth of meals or dividing up huge cauldrons of finished recipes. Our take on this is more about building blocks, (for lack of a better term), but more on that in a minute…

Apparently we’re not alone in our devotion to the idea of cooking a “batch” of something -- a batch that’s really a meal’s foundation and can morph into several different meals later on with minimal time and effort.

But don’t take our word for it. Listen to what one of our readers, Laura Huggins of Hermitage, Tenn., has to say:

“I just wanted to take a minute to thank you two for the chapter on batch cooking in your Cheap. Fast. Good! cookbook. I admit I didn't really think it would make much of a difference but boy was I wrong!

“First, as a single parent there were days when it truly was a lifesaver to have a stash of cooked meat in my freezer. But it wound up being so much more,” Laura said.

“See, I fell and broke my ankle and was off work for several months last year. It was devastating to me financially. We made it, but I really believe that if it wasn't for the fact that I had been shopping sales and had Basic Beef, the Mexican Beef, some Chunky Seasoned Chicken, etc., I wouldn't have been able to feed us during that time.

“I really never thought it would have been needed in that way, but I'm so thankful to you two for the book and all your tips and especially that Batch Cooking chapter!”

If you’d like to experiment with what Laura’s talking about here, give it a try with today’s featured recipe for Flexible Mexican Filling. In just 20 minutes you can whip up the five-cup batch, and then you freeze it in one-cup portions to use as a building block for six other recipes from Cheap. Fast. Good!

(While those other recipes are not found here on Kitchen Scoop, they’re incredibly simple …. For starters, use it as a filling for tacos, nachos, and a taco salad, all with the obvious toppings!)

If you try it, you will probably come up with some ideas for how to use Flexible Mexican Filling that we haven’t even thought of. If you do, we really hope you’ll share your ideas with us and all of the folks who’re reading here on The Scoop! You can either email tellus@KitchenScoop.com -- or better yet, leave comments in the section following this post.