What is your best HM freezer or make-ahead meal?

malamay

My MIL has just been diagnosed with breast cancer. I'm trying to come up with little ways we can help, and since she makes 99% of meals in their house, the first thing I though of was to help them out here. I know she'll be tired and won't feel like cooking (or eating!) as she starts her treatment. They don't really do takeaway, and I'd hate to think of my FIL doing all the cooking...

I have bought some great freezer to oven dishes, and thought I could make some dishes for their freezer. Simplicity is best, and meals with veg included would be ideal. I don't often freeze an entire meal; it's normally bits and pieces for me to cobble something together (ie b!chamel sauce, leftover chili, Bolognese sauce, or things that need bits adding before it's a meal) so my experience here is limited.

MILs preferences are chicken, fish, pork, beef (minced beef isn't her favourite, but she often cooks with it as it's her husband's favourite) in this order. She is pretty easy to please, but I'm looking for comforting and/or healthy meals. Any suggestions are very gratefully received.

SadieO

Sorry to hear about your MIL's diagnosis, malamay. Best wishes to her. It is really nice of you to want to help, and I'm sure it will be greatly appreciated. Easy things to make in bulk and freeze could include soup, shepherd's pie, chicken casserole, curry, chilli, pasta bakes etc. They are things that are easy to pile a load of veggies in too! Or if you make the main part of a meal (e.g. bolognese) then perhaps your FIL could manage to do some pasta, boil in the bag rice or a few spuds etc to go with it if all he has to do is heat up the rest of it.

One thing it might be worth considering is freezing things in individual portions. Chemo (if your MIL is having it) can do terrible things to your taste and make you go off all sorts of foods. So if things are portioned individually your MIL won't have to have what everyone else is having if she doesn't feel like it.

Best wishes x

madnotstupid

Like you malamay I often freeze the components rather than the entire meal. It's usually the carb component that I find tricky for freezing but the most successful things for me are -
either pastry pie tops for chicken or mashed potato and neep (I think this is swede?) pie top for shepherd/cottage pies.

Dumplings to add to stews and soups freeze ok.

My most successful lasagna for freezing is if I par boil the sheets of pasta for 5 minutes then 'build' with layers of meat or veggie filling and cheese sauce.

You can buy, although they are a bit expensive, microwavable packs of rice. Sometimes frozen rice goes a bit mushy, and reheating rice can be dodgy. With easy rice in mind - sweet and sour chicken or pork, chicken in a light creamy sauce with mushrooms.

sonastin

I would second SadieO's comments. We knew my Dad's chemo was having an effect when he decided the cheapest, nastiest cup-a-soups tasted better than homemade or heinz! I would suggest you make a few bits and pieces now, ideally in single portions and then play it by ear once her treatment starts. If she knows that you'll be on hand to feed your FIL, that will be one stress off her mind and if you can work out what sorts of things she can bear to eat while she's undergoing the treatment and make sure they have a stock of those on hand I'm sure it will be a huge help.

Hope the treatment goes well...

pigpen

I cook the meat, slice it and put it in tubs in the freezer and cover with gravy.. bags of frozen veg are cheap and new potatoes go with everything.. or a handful of pasta in a pan for 10 minutes.

Savoury mince, sausage casserole (or anything casserole) Bolognese all freeze well.

I cannot stand frozen potatoes or pasta it is just revolting when defrosted. though the bags of frozen mash aren't too bad if you add milk and butter to it and mash it through.

Don't freeze too big portions, her appetite will be greatly reduced on a lot of the meds.

madmary_2

For the first time ever I froze pastry/dough. So yesterday when I took out a veggie curry from the freezer, I was able to make in a matter of minutes naan bread. I would definitely freeze dough as a favourite along with curry, bolognese sauce, chili con or not con carne.

I love cooking so I don't much like freezing stuff except for joints of meat or bargains that I know I can't use up, but freezing half of what I cook does make life easier when tired or in a rush.

Problem is always defrosting!

Mary

malamay

Thank you everyone for the suggestions. I didn't think to do individual portions, and will try to focus here. Even if I do a few single portions of the same thing, it will provide some flexibility at meal times.

I too enjoy cooking madmary. It is coming in handy, as I really don't mind doing extra meals for others.

Good idea regarding portion sizes pigpen. She can always eat more than one portion, but it would be hard to halve something and keep it frozen.

Sometimes I like the cheap cup-o-soups sonastin They seem like a naughty treat. But then I don't often have HM soups. I make them for Hubbs, but only curried carrot or a sweetcorn and potato. I do have a lovely soup cookbook that I could get more use out of. I've been on stress-control for most of the day so far!

Madnotstupid: we've only very very recently started mixing mash with other veg. I'm hoping it will freeze well, as I make a nice cottage pie My sweet and sour, however, needs a little work. I think the in laws have boil in the bag rice, so this is a great idea!

Thank you for your kind words, SadieO. I normally bulk out meals with grated veg and/or lentils. I'll definitely stick with the veg, but maybe I'll forgo the lentils.. I'm not sure how they'll freeze. FIL loves chilli, so I see making a pot of this in my future.

There is no mention of chemo yet, thankfully, and she will start radiotherapy in a few months. I'm hoping her apetite will remain!

My mum suggested I make a cake or two for their freezer, as she expects them to be receiving more visitors than normal.

Hubbs is still quite upset, and has told me he can't talk about it anymore. MIL and FIL have known for some time, and have almost made peace with it. It's an almost eerie situation

gizmo111

When my very good friend was ahving radiotherapy she found that because her mouth felt dry and sore that she liked things that she never had before - I used to make her fresh orange icecubes so she had them for a drink, she liked bananas and squirty cream as they when chopped they didnt ned much chewing.
Cucumber sandwiches on fresh bread with very soft crusts, soup was a no as she couldnt stand it hot and didn't like it lukewarm.
Scrambled eggs, homemade quiche, cold sausages, yoghurts that had been out of the fridge for a while and a good day I got demands to cook either cottage pie or cheese and onion pasties in puff pastry.
But her tastes went very bland, sweet more than savoury and small and often.
HTH

babyshoes

I buy the smallish foil containers from the pound shops for freezing individual portions of anything that can go straight from freezer to oven. Favourites here are fish pie, lasagne, fruit crumble and potato bake (very versatile - you can use a wide variety of meat / veg, PM me if you want a vague recipe!). The best part of using the foil containers is that they reduce the washing up, especially if the meal is one which leaves a tough to remove layer of slightly burnt edges...

A very easy yet tasty meal that I sometimes make involves frozen cauli cheese and small amounts of chopped up leftover roast meat with a few extra green veggies thrown in, I often use frozen peas. You could do one portion in a foil tub with a layer of meat / veg at the bottom, and a layer of frozen cauli cheese on top. It is nice with a crunchy cheese layer - cheese and crushed crisps works well but not sure how well it would freeze uncooked - perhaps just write instructions on the cardboard lid along with the name.

All these things can go straight from freezer to oven on low for a long time - an hour or more until done. A bit of foil will stop the top burning if it goes brown too quickly.

krlyr

Like you, I make parts of meals to mix and match, but I've discovered that rice freezes and microwaves quite well. The important part is to cool it down very quickly after cooking, as it's sitting out 'warm' that allows the nasty toxins to do their work towards food poisoning. With plain rice, the easiest way to do this is to put it in a collander (or seive, if collander holes are larger than rice-sized) and run cold water over the rice. Drain, portion out and freeze straight away. For flavoured rice (e.g. I do a mexican rice cooled in stock & passatta) you don't want to rinse under water, cool by increasing the surface area - I spread out on the biggest baking trays I own so it's as close to a single layer of rice as possible, put in the coldest part of the room (or in the fridge) until cool then freeze.

Reheat in a microwave from frozen, takes probably about 4 minutes. I find freezing in plastic takeaway containers works well, I just lift the corner a tad before putting directly int the microwave, this helps keep the moisture in so your rice kind of microwave-steams warm and doesn't try out - but another tip I heard was to cover the bowl you're heating it in with a kitchen towel you've got damp then wrung out, so the water in the towel keeps the rice moist.

Makes for a handy instant meal with the frozen portions of bolognese, chili, curry, etc. - I've even had it alongside sausage casserole when I needed a 5 minute meal, it was surprisingly nice!