Cooking for the Freezer..

becs

I second the comment about trying to do too much! We've got into a routine now that once a week either at the weekend or on a monday when I'm not at work, we do a big batch of one meal. One batch normally does 5 meals so if eaten once a week will be enough for 5 weeks. Each week we do something different so there's always good variety.i'm slightly more limited at the mo as have given up carbs :eek: unfortunately,so no pasta bakes, lasagnes, shepherds or cottage pies! Also hubby doesn't eat cheese so it's pretty much spag bol, chilli, casseroles and chicken dshes at the mo. We usually eat from the freezer duing the week and then buy whatever we fancy at the weekends.

tiff

We bought a secondhand freezer for our shed a few weeks ago and yesterday the electrician hooked us up with electricity so today I'm working on making things to freeze.

So far I have made 11 breakfast burritos (first time making these and loved them!) Ate 5 between us so recipe made 16

Beans in the slow cooker for refried beans and cheese burritos, makes 16

Making jam muffins so have doubled recipe and made 12 for the freezer

Thinking of cooking some rice and freezing in portions

Tomorrow will make 2 cottage pies, cook up black beans in the slow cooker and freeze in tin size portions, think this is 2 cups but will need to check

Tomorrow or Monday hoping to get some yellow stickered bargains, either meat or fruit and veg.

Anyone else doing freezer cooking at the moment?

aliasojo

Thinking about buying a job lot of veg from Morrisons depending on what veg is in their 50p offer.

But I'm struggling to come up with anything other than making soup or a vegetable curry. Even then, I don't know if I could freeze that.

Suggestions please on what meals I could make with just veg and can I freeze any of them (that's the main idea) ? If so, do I need to do anything in particular, like undercook (so they don't go mushy when defrosted and reheated for example).

I really want to reduce my food budget but OH can't eat basics like eggs or pasta, daughter is a pescatarian and eldest has health issues and is on a strict low fat diet and can't eat any meat except chicken, so it's not an easy task.

I figured loads of cheap veg would help but not sure what to do with it.

madvixen

I freeze both veggie soups and veggie curries. I cook them as normal and then just cool, portion and freeze. Roasted veg are lovely, chop them and place in a roasting tin with some oil, herbs and garlic. Roast for an hour and then place the tin on the hob on a medium heat. Add a tin of chopped toms and a tin of chickpeas and heat through. Serve with some crusty bread . I made this the other day and froze the leftovers, they seem to have frozen ok.

The BBC food sites, delicious magazine website and good food website all have some great veg recipes on. There is also the love food hate waste website which has some nice recipes on

aliasojo

madvixen wrote: »

I freeze both veggie soups and veggie curries. I cook them as normal and then just cool, portion and freeze.

Do you have the likes of cauliflower in your curry? Just wondering if that goes mushy when defrosted?

misskool

you can chop up and freeze veggies to use for whatever you're planning on cooking. You can roast and freeze some others.

It really depends what is on offer?

madvixen

aliasojo wrote: »

Do you have the likes of cauliflower in your curry? Just wondering if that goes mushy when defrosted?

I've never put cauliflower in a curry as I'm not a huge fan of it myself (unless it's covered in cheese sauce ). I think it probably would go mushy. I normally add quite hard veg to a curry, aubergines, potatoes, carrots, courgettes etc. They seem to take a long, slow cooking without disintegrating.

willow_loulou

Make a basic veg soup. blitz and freeze then you can add stuff when you defrost to eat Ie left over chicken/meat of any kind really, noodles, ham,,
(we like noodles ham and a sprinkle of cheese)
veggie burgers (chopped, mix with onion, seasoning,egg and bread crumbs then squidge in to shapes)
Saag aloo mmmmm

stiltwalker

Veggie tomato pasta sauce, veggie chilli, veggie lasagne (same as for pasta sauce but made up into lasagne), I make all of these with a similar selection of veg (ie whatever is in the fridge, generally combination of pepper, carrot, courgette, mushroom, celery just add more spice for the chilli) - all freeze well and can be done in single portions so you can take out as many or few as you need depending on who is going to be in for dinner.

ubamother

For winter veg, I tend to par-boil, then par-roast chunks of veg until cooked but not very brown. I then freeze these in batches - they can go straight in the oven from frozen with a few herbs and a bit of olive oil thrown on for a very easy veg addition to loads of meals. I also chop a load of onions/carrots/celery (and anything else you fancy), saute them, then freeze in portions as bases for casseroles, soup etc. A favourite in my house is chopped cooked veg, smothered in a cheese sauce and baked - you could prep that and cook from frozen as well.