Freezer to oven solutions?

Kaz2904

Hi, I'm venturing over here for a little advice.
I cook for myself and DH, a 5 year old and a 3 year old. 5 year old eats adult portions 3 yr old eats sparrow portions.

When I cook anything with mince it has to do 2 or 3 meals. The problem I tend to have is that we don't want the ame stuff all the time. I need some ideas for cheap, easily accessible stuff that will get me from freezer to oven.

Mil uses the trays from ready meals to store her allotment veggies in and these always seem like a flaming marvellous idea. I have used them from fridge to oven and they are dishwashable too which is fab but how can I protect the food that is in them should I decide to batch cook a load of meals and need to stack them. The wrappers I can think of are tin foil and cling film and I don't think either is a good solution as too rippable or squidgeable.

I have a small under counter height freezer with pull out drawers but it holds an enormous amount of food provided it's well packed.

My general idea is that I would like to be able to whip up a batch of meals evry time I have a spare 1/2 hour and stuff them in the freezer. This means that whenever I am working a night (so in bed at tea time) I can just whip something out of the freezer and shove it in the oven.

I would rather have light stackable items so I could potentially fill the entire freezer at one time. I have many crockery dishes but tend to need them for serving stuff in and they don't fit too well in the freezer.

Thanks so much for taking the time to mull this over. Do hope you can advise.

angchris

for chilli/spag and soups etc try using some zip lock bags...fill the bags then lay them in for eg an ice cream tub and freeze once frozen lift out of tub and you should have nice flat squareish bags of easy meals that are easily stackable in your freezer. i also went out and bought some really cheap extra dishes just so i had enough to rotate from freezer to cupboards alternatively buy a load of tin foil dishes..not very moneysaving but very time saving.

Kaz2904

Yes but I want something for my pies and things where they need to be kept in shape! I also want to be able to whip them out in the morning and shove in the oven at tea time.

odds-n-sods

you are planning on defrosting them first?? What about using cling film/foil and then laying a piece of cardboard cut to size on top??

razra

Depending on the size of the pies could you not make them all up then freeze them flat(wrapped in foil) in a drawer of their own until hard then they could be stacked on top of each other without squidging the ones underneath

Failing that I think I may have seen foil pie cases in the pound shop which I guess you could reuse if you were able to get the pie out after cooking it so that you didnt need to cut it in the dish

paddy's_mum

Why not ask around among friends and colleagues for anybody who has lots of takeaway curries and such like. The plastic takeaway boxes which come complete with a lid are ideal for projects such as yours. They are reasonably tough, stack well and when worn out, ditch as the original owner was quite likely to do.

It might be worth asking your local takeaway if you can buy some directly from them. If they are only pennies, it might be a headstart for you.

Kaz2904

Thanks for the ideas. I think I will go with odds-n-sodds or razra's ideas.
Now I just have to get off my bum and do it!

scrimpingbadger

I buy those tin trays and cardboard lid things (you get curries in them round here). Make a LOAD of mince stuff (spag bol, chilli, lasangne, pies, chicken pie, shepherds pie, cottage pie, I could go on). Sling the stuff in tin dishes, chuck in freezer. I've been known to get them straight out of freezer into over and you get quick and delicious home made fast food.
Bought some good tin things in Bookers or Asda sell them at not a bad price.