Cooking for the Freezer..

adelight

Make a huge amount of a neutral curry base (tonnes of softened onions, then add garlic, ginger & tinned toms) and freeze into portions in some cheap plastic containers from a 99p/£1 shop.
If you keep things in stock such as frozen spinach (waitrose freeze theirs in brilliant little balls so it's v easy to use), tinned chick peas, frozen portions of cooked veg/spuds/chicken. If I do a roast dinner I immediately turn the breast meat into individual portions to freeze and cook WAY too many spuds so I can freeze them(best if they're slightly undercooked so they don't smush when reheating). Freeze bags of chopped onion, pepper & carrot. I hate shop frozen peppers but peppers are expensive and go off fast so I buy in bulk at market and go pepper crazy making soup, dip and frozen portions
You can quickly add any combination of these components to the curry base whilst cooking some rice and any other spices, coconut milk, peppers, curry pastes to make different tasting dishes. You could even freeze small amounts of the curry sauce in silicone muffin cases when you only need a tiny bit to "curry" some fish, make bombay potatoes or jazz up some leftover stew.
If you freeze the curry in 2 portion pots, make 2 full portions of curry and rice and put one portion in a plastic tupperware so you have an instant ready meal available in the fridge.

You can do similar with tomato & mince, fish in sauce, meat/veg in white sauce.

I think making components is the best way to go if you are cooking for one or don't like eating the same thing often. I always have components available so if I don't fancy that frozen lentil stew, I can add tomato sauce and cook pasta for veggie spag bol or add a little curry sauce to make a lentil curry and make some quick flat breads to go with it(flour+salt+water+oil into a thick dough, flattened and cooked in the oven or right on the hob).

Those part baked bread rolls (esp lidl ones!!) are a god send if you don't usually buy bread, sometimes you just need a quick crusty roll!

attentionseeker1

Wow thanks for all the replies everyone- think I'm going to have to get quite a lot of mince in!

Think I'll do fish pie, chilli con carne, curry, HM meatballs and a chicken pie- love poppy glos' idea of cutting out the pastry ready as well!

Three questions- when you freeze pizza do you make the dough from scratch, put on toppings and then freeze? Is this after proving etc then? I make pizza dough in my breadmaker and then shape it and leave it to rise normally.

I have the Takeaway Secret book which is great- does the 'doner' meat freeze well? We use lean lamb mince to make it so it isn't too unhealthy so worried it might go dry.

Do you freeze HM meatballs raw or browned or in a tomato sauce.


Also thought I might be really brave and try to make a rabbit ragu sauce to freeze just as a variation on normal bolognese. Just need to see if the local butcher has any...

adelight

attentionseeker1 wrote: »

Also thought I might be really brave and try to make a rabbit ragu sauce to freeze just as a variation on normal bolognese. Just need to see if the local butcher has any...

Not sure where you are based put i've seen lots of rabbits in butchers in sw london lately, they were £5 each at kingston market this weekend.
Do report back on how well the rabbit ragu goes, I would love to try rabbit but no clue what to do with it.

Butterfly_Brain

Beef Stew /Hotpot
Pork and apple stew
Meatballs/burgers/meatloaf
Chilli
Beef curry
Sliced meat in gravy (Roast a joint of pork, beef, gammon or chicken) and freeze in meal sized portions then you just reaheat in gravy or a sauce for 20 -25 minutes.
Cottage Pie
Lasagne
Spaghetti bolognaise
Sausage Stew
Sausages in a spicy tomato sauce to serve with pasta
Meat pies
Pizza bases
Bacon and cheese croquettes

There are lots of good recipes here:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/collections/freezer+friendly/4

meg72

twiz21 wrote: »

These aren't all complete meals,
I did a load at a time and put 8 servings in a freezer bag. Then used a kebab stick to press on the bag to separate the portions horizontally. Just take the portion you want each time.

Fantastic idea will work for fried onions, veg mashed potato etc save a load on individual bags. Thank you very much

twiz21

meg72 wrote: »

twiz21 wrote: »

These aren't all complete meals,
I did a load at a time and put 8 servings in a freezer bag. Then used a kebab stick to press on the bag to separate the portions horizontally. Just take the portion you want each time.

Fantastic idea will work for fried onions, veg mashed potato etc save a load on individual bags. Thank you very much

I must confess I did get the original idea from this forum!
Yes, it does save on bags. I use Lidl ones they are quite thick too. I used a rolling pin to spread out the food in the bag. After making the sections I folded over the top and stuck down with a little sellotape. Then I put several of these bags on a large tray to keep them flat and into the freezer.

rising_from_the_ashes

Kaz2904 wrote: »

My main issue for things like this is the fact that I don't have enough dishes of the same size or shape that I could fit in the freezer.

I've just started using empty butter/margarine tubs for freezing meals in.

They're quite good at getting portion sizes right, and these easily tip out into a pan to heat through from frozen (tiny bit of butter, water, pop the lid on and heat on the lowest heat possible until defrosted through - then simmer as usual).

As they're the same shape it's easy to stack these in the freezer with no wasted space.:D


My top 5, I think all these have appeared elsewhere already but, here goes:

Chilli
Mince
Chicken casserole
Beef stew
Spal bol

attentionseeker1

Butterfly_Brain wrote: »

Beef Stew /Hotpot
Bacon and cheese croquettes

There are lots of good recipes here:
http://www.taste.com.au/recipes/collections/freezer+friendly/4

Do you have a recipe for bacon and cheese croquettes Butterfly Brain? Sound yummy.

Re: rabbit, I live in SE London so maybe won't be too hard to get hold of one after all. Last time I cooked one in a cider sauce but it was a bit tough. Might try to make the ragu in the slow cooker as that should tenderize it a bit.

Flibsey

attentionseeker1 wrote: »

I have the Takeaway Secret book which is great- does the 'doner' meat freeze well? We use lean lamb mince to make it so it isn't too unhealthy so worried it might go dry.

Do you freeze HM meatballs raw or browned or in a tomato sauce.

according to the author it freezes very well. I prefer to freeze in a lump rather than in slices.

and personally when making meatballs, I brown and then freeze in one layer on a baking tray. the next day you lever them off the tray and put in a bag. then you have loose, frozen, ready to reheat/cook meatballs in a bag.

hav done the same with blanched brocolli (calabrese and PSB) and brussels when i have an unfortunate garden glut.

zippychick

in addition to the links provided we have cooking for the freezer and home made ready meals

Ill merge this later on

Zip