Cooking for the Freezer..

sunbat

This is a brilliant thread with the kind of ideas I joined to get my mitts on!

I wonder could anyone tell me, can you freeze fresh chillis, and what is the best way to do it? I was thinking of chopping them and putting into ice cube trays with a little water.....is there a better way?

SB

Introuble28

I know this may seem a silly question but when you cook from scratch and freeze, can you then safely reheal from frozen or does the food have to be defrosted overnoght first?

Thanks - Delia, I ain't!!

zippychick

sunbat wrote: »

This is a brilliant thread with the kind of ideas I joined to get my mitts on!

I wonder could anyone tell me, can you freeze fresh chillis, and what is the best way to do it? I was thinking of chopping them and putting into ice cube trays with a little water.....is there a better way?

SB

Hi Sunbat - I freeze them as they are If you leave them out for about ten minutes, they go soft enough to chop just like normal. Some people argue (with me) they lose potency, but that's a load of rubbish IMO

zippychick

Introuble28 wrote: »

I know this may seem a silly question but when you cook from scratch and freeze, can you then safely reheal from frozen or does the food have to be defrosted overnoght first?

Thanks - Delia, I ain't!!

Hmmmmm OSers would have different points of view on this one. Personally, I would be more comfortable defrosting overnight and cooking once thawed.

There is an older thread here - which contains a few threads merged which asked the very same question, so you can read and see what others think.

I personally am more comfortable with defrosting and cooking from that state - but then again I am a bit paranoid about poisoning myself as my stomach can be a bit weak

And by the way, no question in OS is a silly one, welcome. Hope you stick around :j:D

Kitchenbunny

I've been cooking for the freezer quite a lot lately - using my slow cooker in particular as it is a bit easier to clean than the oven So, I've managed to make:

The first one was a real treat. I found a pack of venison casserole steak on a stall in our local farmer's market. That went into the SC with some other bits and pieces, stock, etc, and I now have 2 bags of venison stew or venison pie filling. That'll make 2 pies, serving 4 at a time. That makes a £4.25 bag of venison a lot more reasonable for a luxury meal.

Then, I made a stroganoff base in the same way - some beef skirt (which needed a lot of long, slow cooking), sherry and herbs and all I'll have to do is stir some cream in when reheating - again, 2 bags in the freezer, serving 2 people each.

Another is a spicy tomato pasta sauce made using lots of chopped smokey bacon, passata, chilli, garlic and herbs - same portions as above in the freezer to make either a nice pasta sauce or pasta bake.

Tomorrow I'll be putting chopped sweet potatoes, passata and red peppers along with some stock and herbs/garlic to make either pasta sauce or soup. And it'll make loads.

Anyway, that's just my ideas for freezer meals.

Kitchenbunny xx

kindofagilr

Hi everyone

I want to start batch cooking, especially cooking in the slow cooker.

Our freezer on our fridge/freezer is tiny, but one of our friends gave us a chest freezer, which is in garage at the min not plugged in

Now I was considering plugging it in and using it to store that cooked foods that I make (I havent so far as I wasnt sure if it would be cost effective to have it, but then thought, well I am pretty sure that even if its a little dear to run, it will certainly be cheaper than the at least £150 a month we spend on take away:eek:)

So I was wondering, once Ive plugged it in and turned it on how long does it take to get itself ready to freeze things, if that makes sense

Sorry if this is a stupid question lol

Also to freeze batch cooked stuff, I was going to buy containers from wilkos the ones you get fried rice in the chinese, you knw the foil ones with cardboard lids? is this a good idea, or do you all use something else to store the food in the freezer?

Mags_cat

Freezers run best when they're nearly full - you could fill any spare space with loaves of bread - or freezer blocks for your cool bags (they always seem to take up acres of room in my freezer!).

I seem to recall reading something that said you should run a freezer empty for 24 hours before using it - e.g. if you've moved house and transported it. Lets it *settle* or something. May of course, be technical gubbins....

I'd go for a mix of plastic and foil containers for freezing meals in. With plastic you can defrost / reheat / cook in the microwave and with foil you can prepare things like shepherd's pie that will benefit from oven cooking (to brown the potato). With those, though, I'd get it out of the freezer in the morning to defrost before putting it in the oven otherwise you might end up with badly overcooked grub and a huger than normal power bill

If you're cooking larger dishes you can also line the dish you want to reheat it in with a large plastic bag and put the cooked food into that so that it takes the shape of the cooking dish. Freeze it in the dish, then when it's frozen, take the food (inside the plastic bag) out of the cooking dish. Now you should have a dish shaped block that you can slip out of the bag into the dish when you want to cook it.

kindofagilr

Thanks so much

I will go and turn the freezer on now lol I am going to head off to wilko's tomorrow and get some containers, and do my online shop, ive found some lovely SC meals I want to try

Butterfly_Brain

The 24 hour rule is to allow the gas to settle but once settled you can use a freezer after 8 hours.
I don't use the foil containers I use plastic reuseable containers or just freeze whatever I have made in the same pot or dish then once frozen put it into freezer bags and/or plastic boxes this way when you want to reheat you just pop the meal back into the original dish.

Cookie_monster_7

I want to spend less time cooking and washing up on a daily basis so I have more time to spend with my 2 dd's. So we have bought a small chest freezer and I intend to have a marathon cooking evening once a week to fill the freezer with homemade "ready meals" but I don't have that many ideas nor do I know what freezes well.

So far I have soups....minestrone, leek and potato, lentil, chicken.
Chilli, shepherds pie and em.... ?????

Does anyone do this? What do you cook for the freezer?