Home made ready meals

Pink.

Hi nicky,

I would cook the meals completely before freezing. Then defrost thoroughly before reheating. I find the best way to reheat meals (if using a microwave) is to turn them out of the container onto a plate. Cover loosely (I use a round plastic microwave cover with holes to let the steam escape) and heat until piping hot.

Pink

nicky_s_2

I want to recreate one of DH favourite ready meals, which is steamed salmon, new potatoes and veg in a dill sauce. Looking at recipes, the sauce will be made of cream. Can this meal be frozen, and if so, how long in the microwave to reheat?

TIA

Nicky

spike7451

nicky_s wrote: »

I want to recreate one of DH favourite ready meals, which is steamed salmon, new potatoes and veg in a dill sauce. Looking at recipes, the sauce will be made of cream. Can this meal be frozen, and if so, how long in the microwave to reheat?

TIA

Nicky

Difficult to say due to the different wattages of nukers.As for the dill sauce,I think it might split when defrosting.I'd make the sauce fresh & put it into a little tub for reheating.

SUESMITH_2

like others have said, the cream would probably split when thawed. make sure everything is cooked through (otherwise your poor oh will be a bit poorly) and cooled quickly when cooked before either being fridged or frozen.

Hannah_10

Basically anything you can cook fully just needs warming up in the microwave, so basically any dinner you can freeze (which is virtually anything) can be frozen into tupperwares, then zapped it till it's warm enough. Most microwaves have defrost settings, if (like mine) it defrosts by weight and scales aren't available then take a random guess at 300g and then after every one to two minutes give it a stir till it looks thawed. After which you apply the same method but at full power till it looks hot. With experience he'll get the hang of how long to do them for as it will mostly depend on what size you're serving up and how good his zap-cabinet is! It really is that idiot-proof.

Good freezer ping-cuisine ones are (from experience) chili's, pasta bakes, curries, stew (dumplings or not), pies... Basically hum yourself a little tune "anything Tesco can do I can do better" haha. If you can cook it and you can freeze it (and if Tesco can you can) then it's a go-er. Read the back of the packets he's currently eating, how long do they take to zap? That's your starting point for experimentation. Thanks to the wonder that is doorstep cardboard-recycling collections you may even have a pile there to read through as we speak. While you're about it look at the ingredients list, lots of chemicaly horrible things in them, then pat yourself on the back for doing so much better yourself!

Tell you another absolute beauty too which needs no freezer is jacket spuds. Simply send him off with a big spud (stabbed a few times with a fork) and a separate box containing the cheesy beans/tuna mayo/ whatever he likes best on spuds. The spud will take about 5-8 mins nuking on each side and is ready when you stick a knife in it and it feels soft. If you cut it open prematurely don't worry, you can still give it another couple of mins even halved.

With the salmon and sauce with veg I am not sure it could all be done at once because fish zaps at a lower power setting, if there's no button for it I'd say turn it down to two thirds power for fish. Then again you want full power for the veg. Single cream separates when frozen, so you'd be looking at a double cream one which would be ever so rich. In truth I doubt very much that ready meals are using a proper cream sauce on thier salmon, I think they're most likely using a white sauce as the base with a bit of flavour from lemon or herbs. The good news is white sauce definately does freeze and it's a doddle to make (easy recipe) and can be flavoured up with more or less anything you fancy (I like tarragon or parsley sauce on salmon). I can think of no reason why you could not freeze pre-grilled salmon chunks IN a white sauce based sauce and then zap that. Steaks are trickier as zappable dinners tend to be best if stirrable, but a micorwave steamer and a bit of greasproof paper will solve that (wrap it in paper and steam it).

New potatoes and other veg nuke in a steamer with a spoonful of water. The best time guide I can give you is 2-6 min it all depends on the veg, he's gonna have to have a play around and see.

Did you also know you can microwave bacon? My boyfriend does it all the time because he's too greedy to wait for the grill! It spits a bit and the fat stays soft and doesn't crisp. It also has to be watched and turned every 20-40 seconds because it doesn't cook evenly across the slice. I've never tried it but I've seen him do it often enough so I would say it's done in 2 mins, something like that? Add this to that the fact that microwave scrambled egg is simply a matter of lobbing eggs into a jug and every 30 seconds mashing them up with a fork and repeating untill they look right too and you have yourself a serious breakfast or a nice lunch!

Someone previously stated the safety issue with box lids so no need to go over that again, another thing never to nuke is whole eggs with the shell still on, unless you're using a special egg nuker thing and I'm sure you already knew you never put metal in a microwave but I'll say it again just for luck!

The fiddly instructions on ready meals about standing half way through and then removing the lid at a set point or whatever else are not because nuking food is complex, they are because Tesco (or whoever else) wants you to have your junk food exactly as thier food development team have carefully researched to be the optimum balance between bacteria-safety, convenience, not getting sued for it being scalding hot and finaly taste... If you take that over-complication out of it and go with already cooked food or food that's safe raw (anything but meat/fish is safe raw as a general rule of thumb) than no harm is going to come to him any more serious than burning it and throwing it out. Anyone whose ever eaten a ready meal does not need telling that nuked food can be surprisingly hot, so excercise caution on the first forkful!

Hannah_10

Oh and another thing I just thought of, Spike said he uses the trays to put his own portions in. This was a fab idea but not for me personally. I find these trays to be tiny, I like my dinner in twice those quantities.

Those divided trays are another complication added by the supermarkets (and other ready meal providers) for thier benefit more than ours. Sort of gives you the impression you need a divided tray doesn't it? Then you sort of panic coz you have no such thing and start wondering how to divide a box, or if you even can... Took me ages to work out I just needed two smaller straight sided tupperwares pushed up side by side on the turntable. When I finally thought of that little revelation I was like Durrrr Hannah, how did you not think of that weeks ago!!! The thing is you don't though, because we're culturally conditioned to obediently depend. So much so we start to doubt our abilities to do even simple things, like reheat a dinner without over-detailled instructions. I blame Tesco!

Nargleblast

If you just cook a meal as usual, but make double the quantity, then you can just freeze the remainder in portions - so, ready meals without having to have an extra cooking session! Plus you know what it will taste like because you have already had some for a meal.

nicky_s_2

Thank you again for all your help. The " ready meals" have been a big success so far, and I am now experimenting.

spike7451

Hannah_10 wrote: »

Oh and another thing I just thought of, Spike said he uses the trays to put his own portions in. This was a fab idea but not for me personally. I find these trays to be tiny, I like my dinner in twice those quantities.

Those divided trays are another complication added by the supermarkets (and other ready meal providers) for thier benefit more than ours. Sort of gives you the impression you need a divided tray doesn't it? Then you sort of panic coz you have no such thing and start wondering how to divide a box, or if you even can... Took me ages to work out I just needed two smaller straight sided tupperwares pushed up side by side on the turntable. When I finally thought of that little revelation I was like Durrrr Hannah, how did you not think of that weeks ago!!! The thing is you don't though, because we're culturally conditioned to obediently depend. So much so we start to doubt our abilities to do even simple things, like reheat a dinner without over-detailled instructions. I blame Tesco!

I have a couple of them two tray ones which I use when I have a glut of rice cooked ext but mostly I use the large plastic tubs you get your chinese & indian take away's in.

Hannah_10

spike7451 wrote: »

I have a couple of them two tray ones which I use when I have a glut of rice cooked ext but mostly I use the large plastic tubs you get your chinese & indian take away's in.

Now we're talking my language! :rotfl: