Meal building blocks for the freezer

MushyPeas

Wow Pink Numbers - I love your organised drawer

thriftlady_2

I've just uploaded a little picture tutorial showing how I make my vegetable hash on flickr. I hope it's useful to someone:)

How to Make Freezer Vegetable Hash

I've just made 18 tubs full. I can't be without it now

tenuissent

Could you remind me what you do with your vegetable hash, or tell me on which page of this thread you described it?

thriftlady_2

tenuissent wrote: »

Could you remind me what you do with your vegetable hash, or tell me on which page of this thread you described it?

Hi, I use it in any wet dish -curries, pasta sauce, cottage pie, casserole, stew, soup, wherever you would fry an onion first I use the hash. I find it makes a huge difference to the flavour of the finished dish:)

Djonma

Oh I am so envious!
My freezer is currently two TINY drawers with no room for anything!
They're so tiny a single drawer will hold a bag of frozen chips and not much else.

However... I am now on MSE, and I am working on my debts and saving, and my major goal is to refloor the house and then buy a HUGE american style fridge freezer so I have tons of space :-)
This thread is fantastic and giving me loads of brilliant ideas.

I want to start freezing things now though, even with the tiny space I have.

People have mentioned that they freeze white sauce and grated cheese.
I thought you weren't able to freeze dairy products? Can someone clarify that for me please?
If you can freeze cheese sauces and grated cheese, that would make things SO much easier for me; I'm severely disabled and can barely manage to cook each day, so I end up having food in the fridge going off because I've not been able to use it up.
If I could just cook it all up and freeze it, then that would be easier.
Especially if I can freeze grated cheese, so it's safe in the freezer and not going to go off in my fridge because I just can't manage to even slice it that day.

Thanks!!

Oh and someone mentioned about the first person to have their freezer alphebetised... when I get the full big one, I plan to have it arranged by country... so Italian sauces, East Asian sauces, Indian, etc, etc.


Nicola

hotcookie101

Djonma wrote: »

However... I am now on MSE, and I am working on my debts and saving, and my major goal is to refloor the house and then buy a HUGE american style fridge freezer so I have tons of space :-)

I have an american fridge freezer-but the freezer is NOT that big unfortunately, especially if you have an icemaker, so I also have an undercounter one. The fridge part is massive and basically serves as an extra storage place for sauces and stuff (all those jars that say refridgerate once open, are now kept in fridge whereas before I just kept them in the cupboard-have less cupboard space now, so fridge is a spare place )

Also with the american FF its quite narrow so you cant fit a 12inch pizza in it, and with shelves instead of drawers when it gets really full you have to get out of the way quickly to stop broken toes as the contents jump out at you :eek:)

I love it though-its great, but if I could-I might go for a separate tall freezer with ice/filtered water (if they do them?), and a tall fridge, but I don't really have space for what we have let alone that

Mands

thriftlady wrote: »

I've just uploaded a little picture tutorial showing how I make my vegetable hash on flickr. I hope it's useful to someone:)

How to Make Freezer Vegetable Hash

I've just made 18 tubs full. I can't be without it now

ThriftLady,

I never fail to be impressed by your building blocks!

It looks like you and PinkNumbers are both using the same small containers. Would you mind sharing where you got those from?

TIA,
Mands

Mands

Djonma wrote: »

People have mentioned that they freeze white sauce and grated cheese.
I thought you weren't able to freeze dairy products? Can someone clarify that for me please?
If you can freeze cheese sauces and grated cheese, that would make things SO much easier for me; I'm severely disabled and can barely manage to cook each day, so I end up having food in the fridge going off because I've not been able to use it up.

Nicola

Hi Nicola,

Yes, you can freeze dairy products. I'd have thought in your circumstances that would be a prudent thing to do.

* Cheese, grated or sliced or in blocks, freezes very well. I buy pre-grated when it's on sale and freeze it in the packet then decant into a container.

* Butter freezes well. Freeze a whole block or pre-cut in into useful cubes and remove as needed.

* Milk freezes. Make sure there's some space at the top of the bottle for expansion. It needs time to defrost and may need a good shake

* Cheese sauce freezes. It'll need a good stir when it's defrosted but other than that should be fine

Mands

Peartree

Djonma wrote: »

People have mentioned that they freeze white sauce and grated cheese.
I thought you weren't able to freeze dairy products? Can someone clarify that for me please? Nicola

I believe it has something to do with the fat content. I THINK that you can freeze any dairy that has more than about 40% fat - but someone can correct me as I may be wrong on the exact percentage.

thriftlady_2

Mands wrote: »

ThriftLady,

I never fail to be impressed by your building blocks!

It looks like you and PinkNumbers are both using the same small containers. Would you mind sharing where you got those from?

TIA,
Mands

Lakeland Mands;)