Home made ready meals

florain

Made this last week,froze 1/2 and had yesterday. It's really nice with rice but you could do extra potato chunks(as well as sweet potato) to make a good meal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PoshPaws
Slow Cooker Paprika Pork
(feeds 4 adults, 1 child)

6-8 escalopes of Lean pork meat, cubed
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 yellow or red pepper (all of them work ok)
2 tbsp plain flour
Pinch of mixed herbs
½tsp Paprika
1tsp Smoked sweet Paprika (use 2tsp ordinary if you don’t have this)
½tsp Cinnamon
Ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Sweet Potato, cubed
Tin of Borlotti Beans
3 Carrots, chunked
Sunflower or vegetable oil
Stock

Using a wok or large saucepan, heat the oil and add the onions. Fry until starting to brown, then reduce heat and caramelise slowly. Once transparent, add the crushed and chopped garlic, plus diced peppers and continue to cook slowly. Once soft, remove from pan and set aside.

Get pan hot again and add cubed meat. Fry hard until browned, then reduce heat. There should be a little oil in the pan .. add more oil if necessary or a little water to get things steamy. Then sprinkle the flour over the meat, plus the two types of paprika, the cinnamon, the herbs and a good twist of black pepper. Fry gently, mixing all the time, until everything is combined and the flour is beginning to go gluey. Add a little stock and mix well, mobilising the flour and seasonings and adding more stock or water as the juices thicken. The ultimate aim is to have a gravy which is a fairly thick, soupy consistency.

Add the onion/garlic mixture, plus the tomatoes, sweet potato, beans and carrots. Mix well in and when bubbling hot, transfer to the Slow Cooker. When ready to serve, taste and add the pinch of salt if necessary.

I usually cook mine for some four hours on low .. but generally until the meat is tender.

Serve with rice. If you prefer, you can add a spoonful of natural yoghurt at the end. If I can't get sweet potato, I use ordinary potatoes but add an apple, peeled cored and cubed. It disintegrates, but leaves its sweetness.

Mayflower10cat

Cauliflower/Macaroni Cheese, a particular favourite of mine freezes well - add the cheesy sauce to the cooked macaroni and/or cauliflower and stir through. Freeze at that stage - it cooks through best like that. We also love to make veggie lasagne from scratch for the freezer, again portion it up before the final bake and freeze. That way it doesn't dry up too much in the oven.

daisiegg

pavlovs_dog wrote: »

can you freeze flapjacks? :think:

just thinking of ways to ensure that it's not the same thing every day.

Not sure about flapjacks but hints hints like muffins freeze really well. Banana muffins are quite filling.

Can't remember if anyone has mentioned lasagne which is 'all in one' and freezes well. You could do variations of veggie lasagnes to make it healthier.

Pooky

How about making the "building block" approach around what you like

Individual pies/quiches, baked and frozen singularly

Mashed pots in portions / jacket pots cooked so only need reheating / roast pots again in portions

Pots of frozen mixed veg that can just be whacked in the microwave whilst still in the pot.

Portions of rice / pasta

Sauces / bolognaise/curry/chilli

Pots of grated cheese for jacket pots etc

All kept in a separate portions and easy to mix and match.

I think id be tempted to start doing one thing a day now i.e. a sack of spuds cooked and frozen in portions. Next day, rice. Day after can be mince based items, pie fillings etc.

By getting into a habit of replacing the "blocks" one day a month means you can spread out the prep time and keep the freezer stocked. If that makes sense?

And yes, dumplings freeze well.

oldtractor

florain wrote: »

Made this last week,froze 1/2 and had yesterday. It's really nice with rice but you could do extra potato chunks(as well as sweet potato) to make a good meal.

Quote:
Originally Posted by PoshPaws
Slow Cooker Paprika Pork
(feeds 4 adults, 1 child)

6-8 escalopes of Lean pork meat, cubed
1 onion
3 cloves garlic
1 yellow or red pepper (all of them work ok)
2 tbsp plain flour
Pinch of mixed herbs
½tsp Paprika
1tsp Smoked sweet Paprika (use 2tsp ordinary if you don’t have this)
½tsp Cinnamon
Ground black pepper
Pinch of salt
Tin of chopped tomatoes
Sweet Potato, cubed
Tin of Borlotti Beans
3 Carrots, chunked
Sunflower or vegetable oil
Stock

Using a wok or large saucepan, heat the oil and add the onions. Fry until starting to brown, then reduce heat and caramelise slowly. Once transparent, add the crushed and chopped garlic, plus diced peppers and continue to cook slowly. Once soft, remove from pan and set aside.

Get pan hot again and add cubed meat. Fry hard until browned, then reduce heat. There should be a little oil in the pan .. add more oil if necessary or a little water to get things steamy. Then sprinkle the flour over the meat, plus the two types of paprika, the cinnamon, the herbs and a good twist of black pepper. Fry gently, mixing all the time, until everything is combined and the flour is beginning to go gluey. Add a little stock and mix well, mobilising the flour and seasonings and adding more stock or water as the juices thicken. The ultimate aim is to have a gravy which is a fairly thick, soupy consistency.

Add the onion/garlic mixture, plus the tomatoes, sweet potato, beans and carrots. Mix well in and when bubbling hot, transfer to the Slow Cooker. When ready to serve, taste and add the pinch of salt if necessary.

I usually cook mine for some four hours on low .. but generally until the meat is tender.

Serve with rice. If you prefer, you can add a spoonful of natural yoghurt at the end. If I can't get sweet potato, I use ordinary potatoes but add an apple, peeled cored and cubed. It disintegrates, but leaves its sweetness.

I have this in my slow cooker at the moment. Thanks for posting.
:T

the_cake

The Chinese Chicken recipe (originally posted by ChocClare) in the OS recipes collection (sorry, still haven't learnt how to do links) is great for batch cooking, freezing, and re-heating in a microwave. The M & S skin on chicken thighs are very meaty, and great for this. They are currently on a '3 for £10' deal - there are about 8 in a pack, so a really good deal. My OH is currently on nights, and he loves these - I batch cook and freeze rice separately. Highly recommended! HTH, the cake.

vanoonoo

oooh yeah - chicken thighs! we've started to get the flavoured wings from our butcher and they are actually pretty meaty and only 20p each! not super healthy though heeheehee

Missli

A great list so far. I'm a huge fan of my slow cooker, and love cooking huge batches of chilli, etc to freeze down, and re-heat later.

A favourite, not mentioned, is Pork, with butterbeans, leeks, and porcini, in cider. Its delicious, and I usually serve with rice, (cooked in a rice-cooker), or is equally as nice with mash potatoes, and/or crusty bread.

Ingredients vary, but usually includes: pork chops/steaks, cut into large chunks, sometimes a couple of rashers of bacon, 1 to 2 cans of canellini, or butter beans, leeks, onion, garlic, 1/2 packet dried porcini (put straight in), paprika, all-spice, seasalt, black pepper (or chilli flakes), thyme, and a good quantity of cider.

I also like pasta sauce, with chilli, and bacon. Simple to make, pack of chopped bacon, 1/2 chilli, 2 tins chopped tomatoes (or passata combi), onion, lots of garlic, black pepper, and fresh basil leaves.

The above I just chuck in, unless I'm using bacon lardons, which need to be dry-fried first.

Barbeduk

For puds I make the brownie recipe from the grocery thread which freezes really well, and have read somewhere that you can freeze Twinks hobnobs which are delish!

Have you thought about cooking a gammon in the slow cooker, freezing it in portions then adding this to your rice/potato/pasta/couscous?

daska

My slow cooker is currently full of domoda, which I think would be a near perfect recipe for you. It's a firm favorite here.

I do this by eye but today mine has
1.2kg assorted meat - I use whatever's on whoopsie which today is lamb and beef
1 can eazy onions (not the most cost effective but my hands don't work too well)
500g packet passata
a very good squeeze of tomato puree
3 loaded tablespoons of good peanut butter (meridian is my fave, 100% peanuts)
salt
plenty of pepper and lemon juice.

To this you throw in huge quantities of whatever veg you have around and cook the living daylights out of it. I often cook it without the veg and add that when I'm heating through but that's because I have a minuscule freezer - the way we were taught to cook it the veg almost disintegrated!

TBH it's a meal on it's own but for the sake of those who can't cope without something to mop up the last of the sauce I've sent it out in wide necked thermos flasks with, variously, a baguette, naan bread or a tub of couscous.