Meal building blocks for the freezer

thriftlady_2

Djonma you can certainly freeze cheese, milk and dishes made with them;)

Djonma

Thanks Thriftlady, I did have a hunt on Google before asking, and there was such a mixed response, that I thought I'd ask to be sure :-)

Well, I'm definitely up for buying double cheese blocks when it's 2 for whatever now, and I know none will go to waste!
Hurrah!

Nicola

PS: This saving money thing is really rather exciting!

sandraroffey

cheese and butter and milk all freeze well.

a chest freezer is a must i found. have to say i dont have one now but when the kids were all at home, it was always full; a weeks milk, grated cheese, in portions, frozen cream, everything.

Djonma

I can't use a chest freezer unfortunately, I'm a wheelchair user, and can't lean over the freezer. I have to use upright ones. I'll hopefully have a nice new big one in a few months, that will help :-)

noapron

Read the entire thread tonight. I have done the grated zests of various fruits, and the juices, breadcrumbs, fishcakes, individual portions of soup, pizzas with cheese and tom topping, and the tom puree. But I think the ideas on here have been incredibly useful. For instance, I waste loads of garlic and ginger (puts me off buying it) but now I'll have a bash at freezing. The now famous veg hash (and thanks for the picture tutorial) will def be going in - I suppose it could be the base for a veg soup if you haven't got time to make immediately.

As our area has not long started food waste collections, I'm determined not to be blase about food waste now - especially as I've def seen my food bills rise in the last 12 months.

I've thought of freezing freshly cooked and cooled rice because I know you can buy frozen rice in the supermarkets. When I'm being virtuous I freeze traybakes in portions for packed lunches.

Although I've never done it, I did read that if you make your own stock, boil it to reduce it right down, so it takes less freezer space. you can always add water on defrosting. As for freezing cheese, my mother always did without any ill effects.
I have some individual Lakeland pudding basins (plastic) and I quite often microwave sponge puddings, and then freeze. They don't take long to defrost and you can add syrup, jam etc.

Years ago, when dh used to drive about 60,000 miles a year, if I roasted, I would make up plated meals, cover in foil and cling film and freeze, as ready meals. When he phoned to say he was an hour away, I used to pop one (minus clingfilm!) in the oven and it would be ready in fifty minutes as he came in. Worked a treat.

Nothing original to add, but must say thank you to thriftlady for starting this thread. I'm all fired up now to make better use of my freezer.

jaxx46

Hi,
After watching HF-W last night in which he started his bolognese with something that looked very much like Thriftlady's veg hash I thought I'd give this thread a bump for any newbies that haven't seen it.

Alison_Funnell

Thank you for bumping this Jaxx.

Some very clever ideas here.

kochi1

thanks for all the tips - now realise you can freeze cheese, my mum always told me you couldn't! So got some today reduced and now in the freezer!!

queen_of_string

I've used a lot of tips from this thread and saved a lot of waste and time because of it.

My favourites are I think:

1) crush and bag lots of garlic at once, flatten and mark into squares with a skewer then freeze. So, so simple to just break off what you need.

2)When freezing things in bags, flatten the bag before putting it in the freezer, suddenly twice as much in your freezer.

3) always fry off giant packs of mince and freeze in family portion bags.

Combined with making a couple of dry mixes, brownies, white sauce and quick mix for certain, all brilliant helpers in the kitchen.

metherer

Was looking for this thread to show a friend of mine who is just moving into her own place.

Have reread it from the start, and was thinking ooh, I should try that. Turns out it was me, back in 2007. Oops.