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#Post#: 31026--------------------------------------------------
Freezer Cooking
By: Kimberami Date: May 14, 2019, 8:49 am
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I will be going to the criminal justice academy in a few months
for some training. I'll only be away from home for a few weeks,
but this will be a big transition for my family. I'd like to put
up some food to make things a little easier for my family while
I'm gone. Putting up things in the freezer seems like a good
idea, but I'm feeling a little overwhelmed about the process.
Does anyone have any helpful hints or tips? Good website
recommendations? What about good food prep ideas in general?
#Post#: 31030--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: Bada Date: May 14, 2019, 9:06 am
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I like this blogger. These are all no-pre-cooking freezer meals.
A lot are for the crockpot, which I love, and some are for the
grill. (I've never tried any of her giant "20 meals prepped in
60 minutes things" because I don't eat some of the meats she
chooses, so I can't vouch for that).
HTML https://thefamilyfreezer.com/blog/
#Post#: 31037--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: Chez Miriam Date: May 14, 2019, 9:53 am
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We've used the stockpot for when dealing with pumpkins, and tend
to make a 'chuck it all in' type of soup/stew ["some carrots in
the cupboard? That will do" sort of thing], and that seems to
make far more gallons than two people can eat, so we portion it
up into saved takeaway food containers [right sized portion for
one person] which stack neatly in the freezer and freeze that.
It's not deliberately stocking up the freezer, it's more
accidental (as a by-product of getting rid of a glut), but it's
very little effort once the chopping has happened.
#Post#: 31042--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: Luci Date: May 14, 2019, 10:22 am
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Pasta and rice dishes freeze well, which always surprises me. I
use the bulk containers with cardboard lids that I get at the
restaurant supply houses or Sam's Club and put the directions on
every lid.
#Post#: 31047--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: NFPwife Date: May 14, 2019, 10:57 am
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[quote author=Luci link=topic=1135.msg31042#msg31042
date=1557847363]
Pasta and rice dishes freeze well, which always surprises me. I
use the bulk containers with cardboard lids that I get at the
restaurant supply houses or Sam's Club and put the directions on
every lid.
[/quote]
I use the Sam's Club containers, too. I travel for work and try
to get things stocked up for DH before I leave. I use two
processes - the first is I double recipes for what we're eating
for dinner and take a few servings off the top and freeze those.
Then, a week before my trip I'll do some explicit food prep just
for the freezer meals. DH told me forever that we needed a
second electric pressure cooker. I resisted, but one was $50 at
Ollie's and I relented and bought it. He was sooo right having
two running at the same time really made a difference.
This week, I did "baked" potatoes in one pressure cooker, put
salsa chicken in the second, fixed a third salsa chicken that
was ready to go when the potatoes were done. (I ended up adding
northern beans and corn to the shredded salsa chicken and it's
more like a chicken chili.) I put the potatoes away and shredded
and portioned out the first batch of chicken while the final
batch cooked. The final batch finished and I had it ready to go
to the freezer making the whole process about 90 minutes. For
roughly 10 meals worth of food. I also did black beans in the
pressure cooker a week or so ago, and there are 10 containers of
those in the freezer. I made sealed PB&J sandwiches
(uncrustables) and froze about 35 of those. I used the crusts
from that bread to make a french toast casserole in the crock
pot. I ate that for breakfasts this week, but also froze 2
portions for me to have when I get home from my trip. (DH
doesn't care for it.)
Pasta does freeze really well. I think there are 4-5 portions of
that in the freezer from when I made it late last month.
#Post#: 31093--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: STiG Date: May 14, 2019, 5:32 pm
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Unless you make scalloped potatoes, I'd skip potatoes. They
don't freeze and reheat particularly well.
#Post#: 31102--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: QueenFaninCA Date: May 14, 2019, 6:32 pm
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If you cook something that freezes well now, make a double or
triple batch and freeze the leftovers.
#Post#: 31128--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: STiG Date: May 15, 2019, 6:35 am
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I always make more than I'll need at any meal and freeze
leftovers. I undercook the vegetables slightly so that they
aren't complete mush when reheated. I'll freeze a protein with
a couple of vegetables that we all use for lunches. Meatloaf
does really well as a frozen reheat, I find.
Other favourites: Pasta, chili, various soups, lazy cabbage
rolls. And a tip I learned from someone on eHell: When you are
freezing pasta, put the sauce in first, then the pasta. When
you reheat it, the sauce doesn't splatter everywhere. Then put
a plate over the container, flip over and you have your pasta
with the sauce on the top!
#Post#: 31151--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: Hmmm Date: May 15, 2019, 11:54 am
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I once had to leave the family for about 4 months. I enjoyed
cooking so was the primary meal preparer. One of the things I
did was to create a "family cookbook and meal plan". I created
about 10 meals that were easy to make and provided the grocery
list for each. Some of them relied on convenience items, but not
all. None of them required more than 30 minutes to prepare. I
did also cook and freeze some items for days where they didn't
want to cook or go out and instructions on how to "refresh" to
make them better.
Some things I did premake and freeze, and still do for an easy
dinner:
Italian Sausage & Vegetable soup. I made the base and then they
added refrigerated tortellini to the soup when they were ready
to eat.
Bolognese sauce and they'd cook the spaghetti and serve with a
salad and bread
Pulled Pork they'd then serve on hamburger buns and boil frozen
corn as a side
Chicken Rogan Josh and they'd make boil in bag rice and buy
frozen saag paneer from the supermarket
Some of the simple recipes they'd just make fresh were
Taco Salad (brown meat, add taco seasoning, heat beans and corn,
serve on top of package salad mix and ranch dressing
Orange Roughy cooked with lemon butter, served with wild rice
and microwave steamed beans
Italian meatball hoagies using frozen meatballs and bottled
sauce
Chicken tacos using rotisserie chicken, bottled green salsa,
packaged coleslaw
With so much grocery delivery or curbside pickup, it would make
it even easier today.
#Post#: 31166--------------------------------------------------
Re: Freezer Cooking
By: Pattycake Date: May 15, 2019, 7:05 pm
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[quote author=Bada link=topic=1135.msg31030#msg31030
date=1557842813]
I like this blogger. These are all no-pre-cooking freezer meals.
A lot are for the crockpot, which I love, and some are for the
grill. (I've never tried any of her giant "20 meals prepped in
60 minutes things" because I don't eat some of the meats she
chooses, so I can't vouch for that).
HTML https://thefamilyfreezer.com/blog/
[/quote]
Thank you for recommending this! I went there, and I have
downloaded a couple of her free things (you have to sign up for
a newsletter, but I didn't mind for this.) I have already made
the Tex Mex Chicken, and it couldn't have been easier! It made
the house smell great and it was delicious. And as I live alone,
it's also something I don't mind eating for a few meals in a
week, or freezing the leftovers. There's quite a few that I want
to try, and some, like this one, look easy enough to make
smaller too. I am looking forward to trying out making ahead a
bunch of freezer packets. She has one package where she gives
you the shopping list for everything on the menus for a month, I
think it is, and it only takes about three hours to bag it all
up and freeze it.
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