Cooking for the Freezer..

Evie74_2

Hi tim_n - welcome back to the OS board and congratulations on the new baby!

What you have planned sounds like an excellent idea; the more you can prepare and freeze ahead in terms of meals, the more you will thank yourself in the early days with a little one at home!

With both my pregnancies I made lots of home made ready meals - lasagnes, pasta sauces, shepherds pies, casseroles, macaroni/cauliflower cheese etc - and froze them in readiness for the arrival of the baby. Every time I made a meal that would freeze, I made 2-3 times the quantity I needed and froze the surplus in appropriate portion sizes. That way it wasn't too much work when I was getting tired, and I was still preparing ahead.

When the new baby comes (especially if it's the first!) everything seems to take absolutely ages and having a home cooked, nutritious meal ready to pop in the oven or microwave was an absolute Godsend, and also meant that we didn't need to factor in any major grocery shopping for a few weeks.

Good luck with the baby - hope all goes well!

Evie xx

tim_n

Hiya, we've got loads of them through our voracious eating of takeaway during our house rennovation. They're all well and good but unless you fill them chockablock they take up a lot of room. A lot of the stuff we have is odd sizes (like beetroot) and putting them in boxes doesn't seem space efficient.

Also, in boxes you get a lot of ice crystals?

tim_n

Evie74 wrote: »

Hi tim_n - welcome back to the OS board and congratulations on the new baby!

What you have planned sounds like an excellent idea; the more you can prepare and freeze ahead in terms of meals, the more you will thank yourself in the early days with a little one at home!

<snip>

Good luck with the baby - hope all goes well!

Evie xx

That's the plan - I'm worried about how much work it's all going to be, especially as I've just started a new job! Cooking has been more and more falling on my head for the last few weeks, as well as cleaning and DIY.

I'm thinking of visiting some of the frozen food companies (like farm foods) to stock up on veg that's difficult (or space inefficient) to grow which we use often. Like Peppers - I used to buy a 2kg bag for a couple of quid, when fresh peppers cost that for three and they're fine for curries and stews.

babyshoes

Pasta freezes ok in some dishes, for example in lasagne, but other types can go a bit soggy, so for sauces like bolognese I prefer just to use the freezer space for the sauce and cook the pasta when needed - it isn't too difficult or time consuming to boil it. I regularly cook giant batches of sauce based foods for supper and freeze the excess in takeaway tubs - it isn't much more work to cook 8 portions than it is to cook 2. If you can remember to take the tub out to defrost in the morning it is easier to heat up later on, but they do heat up in the microwave from frozen - you just need to keep stirring it every few minutes.

The biggie in terms of food safety is rice - if you are cooking it to keep, either to eat the next day or to freeze, you need to cool it down as quickly as possible after cooking. A good way to do this is to run it under cold water in a sieve. This is because the bacteria which produce the botulism toxin grow in warm (room temperature) rice. While heating the rice up again will kill the bacteria, it does not get rid of the toxin they secrete, which is what causes the illness (it is an illness that has the potential to be fatal). If you have leftover rice which was NOT cooled quickly it is safest not to eat it, especially with a mum-to-be / new mum in the house. Many people do risk it and are fine afterwards, as very little rice these days contains the bacteria to start with - but it is still a gamble as you just can't tell.

Soup is another easy meal to make and freezes well, and if you have a lot of produce from the garden it will be really special. I made carrot and coriander soup the other way with a bag of yellow stickered carrots - it is really delish! I didn't blend it up too much so it is quite chunky and feels like a proper meal. There are plenty of recipes online - I just read a few then made up my own based on what I had in.

To freeze produce, chop and blanche if necessary (some things don't seem to need blanching), put them in a single layer on a tray and open freeze for a few hours first, then pack into large ziplock bags and squeeze most of the air out before putting it back in the freezer - that way they won't stick together and you can take out what you need each time. Vaccuum packing will take up slightly less space but is less flexible in terms of how much you can remove at once.

You might also want to investigate other really easy meals for days when you CBA to cook. Baked beans, for example, are surprisingly nutritious and when served on wholemeal bread apparently contain as much protein as steak, as well as fibre and plenty of other nutrients. A baked potato can easily be done in the microwave then topped with all sorts of things, and is perfectly adequate for a quick supper. Breaded fish/chicken which can be bunged in the oven from frozen and served with oven chips/ baked potato/ frozen mash and microwaved frozen veg is also adequate and easy to do. Not the healthiest option, but as an occasional meal it is fine. In hot weather, a salad with a few protein bits on top can be enough for a main meal, especially if you have something like bread on the side or a dessert afterwards.

If you have friends and family nearby offering to help, you can always take them up on that offer and ask for 'a meal or two for the freezer' (assuming of course that they are reasonable cooks!). That will give you some variety from the stuff you have frozen in bulk.

If the new mummy is going to be breastfeeding, she may well be quite hungry and thirsty a lot of the time - so easy, quick snacks and plenty of juice/cordial/squash/favourite soft drink will be appreciated. You can freeze oaty type snack bars and biscuits now for later use. You can also freeze cheese/ham sandwiches and toast them from frozen with those toastie bags you find in pound shops - you put the sandwich in them and then pop them in the toaster. The bags are re-useable and washable.

I have found that most things can be frozen with varying degrees of success. If you like something and want to freeze it but aren't sure, just ask. Between us on here I am sure we have tried to freeze most things!

tim_n

wow, good reply

I know about the rice, it's something I always preach to my scouts and my wife. My wife however rarely listens to me!

I've not seen recipes for oaty bars/biscuits that I can freeze - do you have any other info on them or are they on the recipe list?

Not a big fan of baked beans (I've not touched them since I was 7) and it's taken years to introduce beans back in to my diet - tins of baked beans however are still off the list, though I would be happy to make a tomato sauce and add beans to it fresh however!

I just read a couple of really good tips for the freezer, so I'll share them here so more people who don't want to read hundreds of pages can find them!

1.) Use a zip lock bag for liquid soups and freeze them on their side on a tray. They can then be stored upright like files!
2.) For non messy bags, put the freezer bag into a cup and roll the sides of the bag down the cup so you can fill more easily
3.) Use reuseable bags (supermarket shopping bags) in your freezer to group like foods together (chicken, beef, pork, meals, veg etc) so that you don't spend ages looking for stuff and you can easily lift a bag up to get to stuff underneath. They take the cold better than plastic boxes...
4.) Label everything!
5.) Portion everything

tim_n

Made 16 portions of chilli, 16 of spaghetti bolognase (ate two) from the frugal recipe that uses both red lentils and porridge oats, 4 of steak and ale stew and I've made 3 lots of tarqa dhal.

I also boiled up 2kg of onions, 100g of garlic and 100g of ginger ready to make curry sauce from curry queens recipe.

Got a gnat bite on Wednesday that's made my leg swell to epic proportions and yesterday standing to cook was agony, so trying to do this ASAP so I can rest!

hilstep2000

Well done you! Watch that gnat bite, they can turn manky very easily!

tim_n

Finished up with 4 portions of dansak, 2 of dopiaza, 5 of turkey curry (you'd not know the difference really) and another couple of dhal. Still have 3 x 475ml and 1x275ml of the curry sauce so I can still make a few more

debbym

1.) Use a zip lock bag for liquid soups and freeze them on their side on a tray. They can then be stored upright like files!
2.) For non messy bags, put the freezer bag into a cup and roll the sides of the bag down the cup so you can fill more easily
3.) Use reuseable bags (supermarket shopping bags) in your freezer to group like foods together (chicken, beef, pork, meals, veg etc) so that you don't spend ages looking for stuff and you can easily lift a bag up to get to stuff underneath. They take the cold better than plastic boxes...
4.) Label everything!
5.) Portion everything

I would add make some kind of list of what is in the freezer and cross stuff off as you use it - saves time and frustration in the long run as well as not standing with the freezer open as you rumage:)

chelle

Hello

When the children go back to school, I am thinking of planning the weeks meals for them, (with them) and cooking in advance if possible, to get out of freezer in the morning for dinner.

I work in a playgroup school hours (8.30-3.30) and then 3 evenings a week have a job in a SM, so am only home about 1 1/2 hours before I leave again. This does sound a long time, but I have to walk my dogs, feed myself and the children and then change/shower to go again. Some days I also collect a friends child from school, he gets collected at 430, so I have even less time!

Or do you think I should be looking at quick meals to cook when I get home, eg Tuna Pasta bake, jacket potato with .....

Or maybe doing a mixture of both?

I have 4 children (age range 8-14 years) and sometimes it is difficult to please them all!