Cooking for the Freezer..

tiff

I would love to have a chest freezer to fill with bargains. I bought loads of bread at the weekend for 10p a loaf and somehow squeezed it into my little fridge/freezer and had to leave lots of bread behind. We are having electric put into one of our sheds, so maybe I might get one in the future.

Pasta and rice I know you can definitely freeze, although I tend to make say a curry and put the left over rice in with it to freeze as a portion. You can probably freeze any kind of soup too, tastes better to me after freezing.

squeaky

tiff wrote:

I would love to have a chest freezer to fill with bargains. I bought loads of bread at the weekend for 10p a loaf and somehow squeezed it into my little fridge/freezer and had to leave lots of bread behind. We are having electric put into one of our sheds, so maybe I might get one in the future.QUOTE]

Um. This is probably the first post where I've ever even slightly disagreed with you tiff...

You see, trying to stock up on bread, as you've discovered, takes up lots of freezer space. One of the best buys I ever made is a home breadmaker. For starters you can get perfectly acceptable ones for comfortably under £40.
Second - you can buy and keep six weeks worth of flour no problem at all and you don't need a freezer to do it.
Third - you make bread as and when you need it so no waste.
Finally you can make pretty much any sort of bread you like for between 30p and 40p per loaf which means that even at one loaf per week the machine pays for itself inside a year.

PS Did I mention that you just bung the ingredients in, press a button, and let the machine get on with it? Hey presto - bread!

elona

Which breadmaker do you have ,Squeaky?

Lillibet_2

My tip on coking for the freezer is not to re-heat from frozen but take it out the night before & allow it to defrost, it just tastes better & fresher to me than cooked from frozen. It easy to get into a routine with this : when putting each nights dinner on go to the freezer & remover tomorrow nights and pop into the fridge.

I too have a bread maker (morphy richards) and agree I wouldn't take up freezer space with bread, it's lovely to have cheap fresh bread on demand & it leaves room to fill my freezer with bargain priced meat & treats:D

tiff

I just think that I am a lazy so and so and that a breadmaker would end up unused after a while. I'm wary of buying kitchen gadgets, and dont have that many. I am in two minds at the moment.

Magentasue

tiff wrote:

I just think that I am a lazy so and so and that a breadmaker would end up unused after a while. I'm wary of buying kitchen gadgets, and dont have that many. I am in two minds at the moment.

Ditto. I go through phases of breadmaking. It's OK for couples and small families but there's six of us (often seven or eight) and homemade bread is gone in a flash. Plus it takes 2 or 3 hours in a bread maker so you have to be organised!

At the moment, I make bread at the weekends and school holidays. Today I don't start work until 11am so I have some about to go in the oven, tomorrow it'll be a loaf from the freezer.

squeaky

elona wrote:

Which breadmaker do you have ,Squeaky?

It's a schneider one, only available in Asda. Mine was £35 when I bought it and I've seen other makes since at £29.99.

There must have been a breadmaker hunt somewhere? No?

I do honestly count my breadmaker as one of my "best buys".

squeaky

Magentasue wrote:

Plus it takes 2 or 3 hours in a bread maker so you have to be organised!

But you don't have to stand there and watch it. Just get on with something else while it automatically does it's own thing. Most even come with a timer these days so you can set it to deliver piping hot bread for breakfast!

I can't see the problem.


Signed: Puzzled, from Sunny Suffolk

MATH

Was thinking today that when I get back after the weekend I must start cooking for the freezer cos it's looking a bit sad and I've been a bit lapse in that department. I don't do a special cook-off tho but for the next month whenever I am making something that freezes well I will make two, eat one freeze one it doesn't take long to fill it up and then no cooking for a few weeks WHOOOOOOAAAHHHH:D

Magentasue

squeaky wrote:

But you don't have to stand there and watch it. Just get on with something else while it automatically does it's own thing. Most even come with a timer these days so you can set it to deliver piping hot bread for breakfast!

I can't see the problem.


Signed: Puzzled, from Sunny Suffolk

It's a problem when your teenagers come in at night, finish off the bread and everyone wants toast in the morning! :mad: If you've got some sliced in the freezer, you can just take out what you need and put it in the toaster.