Cooking for the Freezer..

naki

I need to stretch my money this month, so I wanted to batch cook and freeze to make the most of what I have in the house as well as save money on those ill-affordable 'i'm tired, have a takeout' days.

I've tried to google/read other threads here about batch cooking, but there are so many ideas and I get overwhelmed easily looking at them all! I have the following things:

1 whole chicken
1 pack of bacon
1 500g pack of mince

Plenty of rice and pasta
500g of cous cous
1 500g pack of red lentils
A lot of spices and herbs
Plain/self raising flour
Breadcrumbs
Honey
Mustard powder
Tabasco
Stock cubes

1 pack of six eggs
2 blocks of cheese

1 pack of courgettes
1 pack of peppers
Frozen peas/green beans/sweetcorn/spinach
Half a bag of potatoes
5-6 big onions

Tins of beans and spaghetti
2 tins of kidney beans
4 tins of tomatoes
1 tin of salmon
2 tins of tuna
1 tin of peaches
2 tins of pineapple

1 pack of six frozen cod
2 bags of Quorn pieces

Any ideas? I know I have a lot there and I want to utilise it the best I can. I always have milk, bread and whatever fresh fruit is on offer around (I have a young toddler and get Healthy Start for milk, fruit and veg.)

I want to make enough meals to feed my husband and I lunch and dinner for at least two weeks (toddler gets a small amount of whatever we have.) Thank you!


Edit: I should mention what things I have to cook with! I have a steamer, slow cooker and electric oven with hob.


Edit again: Sorry, I just noticed I could have posted this in the store cupboard thread. Please ignore this, I'll post there (it's been a long, long day...)

poppy-glos

difficult to think of just things to freeze, but lots of meal ideas there.

i wouldn't freeze fish again (even after cooking), but the first meal would be a fish pie with mash on top, in a cheese/roux sauce.

the chicken i would use for a roast dinner meal, then strip the meat off and boil up the carcass with an onion and carrot for 25 minutes and strain, the next day i would make chicken rissotto and use the stock(stock and chicken could be frozen for another day), the leftover chicken would go into the freezer to be stretched for another meal.

the mince i would use to make chilli or spag bol sauce, or you could make up spag bo sauce, half it, then add kidney beans and chilli and cumin to one half to make up one of each. Both of those could be frozen.

The red lentils would go in homemade curry, jamie o has a redlentil curry i've done (has meat too but can't remember the name of it). Curry can be frozen once batch cooked.



cheap family recipes website has a carbonara recipe using the ingredients you have - not for the freezer but a frugal meal.

homemade pizza.. reduced down tomatoes, dash of oil and onion, premake the bases, cook, smear with small amount sauce, clingfilm and freeze, then reheat with the topping on (sweetcorn, bacon, some bolognase, chedder)

fishcakes can be made and frozen, tinned salmon, hm mash (no liquid in it), mixed with some fried off onions. Sometimes i breadcrumb them and sometimes just flour the outside, lay on trays and openfreeze then put into bags when frozen.

oh, honey and mustard chicken, make a flour and butter/spread roux, make to a sauce with half milk and half water and stockcube or chicken stock from the carcass. put in some honey and mustard to taste. put in some rubber chicken. serve with pasta or rice or potato. This could be frozen.

quiche or pastryless egg tart, with or without pastry case, egg and bacon and onion and cheese. i freeze in portions to go in lunchboxes.

hope one or two of these help

poppy x

squeaky

Cooking for the Freezer..

Batch cooking ideas please

If you open each of these threads and then use "search this thread" for each of the main ingredients in your list you'll get a quick list targeted at exactly what you want. Then it's up to you to decide which is nicest or which is doable

Jue'sDD

I am due to have my first baby in December. I have been thinking recently that I would like to freeze some meals in advance whilst on maternity leave so when the babe gets here we can just defrost and reheat. However I dont really have a clue as to the type of things you can freeze.

I know most meats say to freeze and defrost within a month. Is this still the same when the meat has been cooked before frozen? Will it last any longer in the freezer when already cooked? Just thinking for when I should start to cook things.

I was thinking of cooking a large batch of basic mince with onions, garlic and maybe tomatoes and then adding kidney beans or corn or whatever to them when we eat them. If I get cheapy jars of sauce for the mince do I add this before freezing or before reheating?

Can beef stew be frozen? Anything specific I need to do for this? What about chicken for pasta dishes? Do I just freeze the meat or meat and sauce? Same with lasange, do I freeze the whole thing (pasta an all?) or not?

Sorry for all the silly questions!

Any

Month is just "rough giude". I can assure you I have things in the freezer for more then month. Of course you can freeze beef stew, nothing special needed to do with it.
I freeze: soups, pasta sauces (though only the complicated ones, chorizzo prawn tomato sauce pasta is easy enough to do in 10 mins), spag bog, chilli con carne, beef mushroom stew, goulash, chicken consome soup (before the noodles go in)..
I'll think some more.

Any

Chicken for pasta-I quickly stir fry mine and then add it to the sauce, I would generally not freeze it cooked.

tracey12_2

Hi

Congrats on your pregnancy.

I make batches of spaghetti bolognese and chilli and freeze into rectangle containers into portion sizes that your family would eat for one meal. You could use old marg containers, I have a permanent black marker and I write on a freezer bag what it is and then put that around the container and when frozen take out of container so you can use again and put block of food into the labelled bag and into the freezer and it will not take up so much room in your freezer.

I make large shepherds/cottage pies and freeze into portions. Beef stew also freezes well but I don't freeze the dumplings. Lasagnes and sausage and bean bake.

Another good standby is soup. Have a look on recipe collection on first few pages of October Grocery Challenge.

I just take out the required meal the night before and put it into a dish in the fridge and by tea time it has defrosted. Then you just have to cook pasta, rice or veg to go with the meal.

HTH

Tracey

VJsmum

Spag Bol
Lasagne
Pasta sauces
shepherds pie
fish pie
Corned beef hash
shepherd LESS pie (lentils)
Soup
Stew
Casserole
pie filling and frozen pastry

There's also things like Jacket spuds, fish fingers, toasties that you can do without too much hassle.

Nicki

Try googling once a month cooking. This should give lots of ideas for meals to go in the freezer. When I was pregnant with my third I used to make marinades and freeze raw meat in the marinades from OAMC sites. On the day, all you had to do was pull out in the morning and stick in oven at night with some rice or pasta and some frozen veg for a complete delicious meal.

Picklepud

i also have a question is there any frozen meals that you can cook from frozen?