Reverse Meal Planning

Frugalista

I sometimes just use the tubs as a mould - put your item in a freezer bag - cram it into the tub - leave it until frozen and then empty the tub to use as a mould again.  I have some little square tubs that I use to freeze diced bacon bits for omlettes, etc.  I freeze the bacon in sandwich bags (in the tub) and then put all the little frozen squares into a large ziplock freezer bag.  I can usually fit about 8 into a large bag.  Attempting freezer tetris is so much easier with uniform blocks rather than random, unidentifiable bags.

joedenise

We had burgers and buns from the freezer today for lunch.  Have also got out a tub of roast beef in gravy leftover from a roast dinner a few weeks ago.  So dinner tomorrow will be reheating the beef in gravy and I'll do roast potatoes in the Remoska and cook some veg to go with it - nice easy roast dinner!

rtandon27

We had our repeat favourite, use-it-up breakfast omelette, which is actually more of a frittata - made short work of a punnet of mushrooms & a large leek & a handful of cherry tomatoes.  We used up some bacon rashers from the freezer which was an experiment, but neither of us was fond of the resultant texture, so we'll be doing our (very) occasional treat fresh the next time it gets worked into a meal plan.

joedenise

Have got a couple of salmon fillets out of the freezer for dinner tomorrow night.

rtandon27

@joedenise - do you freeze them from fresh or are they the quick frozen ones?  I've never had any luck freezing fresh fish & would love some tips if you do!

joedenise

These are the ready frozen ones but I do sometimes freeze my own but have run out!  The only thing I'd say is to freeze them as quickly as you - I always open freeze them and wrap individually in freezer paper then bag up once frozen.  My main tip is to use them fairly quickly after freezing.  

I'm not overly keen on the ready frozen portions though as they are so small and they always look lost on the plate!  When I freeze my own they are definitely much bigger - no more than 6 portions from a side with the tail piece going into a bag for fish pie.

ruby_eskimo

Lunch today is some LO 3 bean chilli from the freezer with some leftover chicken from yesterday added.  Dinner tonight is a taco bowl using up some mince from the freezer and salad bits from the fridge.

rtandon27

It's the day before groceries arrive, so we are surviving on what's left in the fridge.  A satisfying bit of reverse planning happening   OH had an omlette & wraps for BF, and we both had leftover one-pot pasta for lunch topped with a dollop of ricotta.  Dinner will be cauli-cheese & lardons with an added leek thrown in just to use it up.  We will have to grate some cheese from our last block, as all the stuff from the freezer is finished (except the everlasting chunks of blue, which usually get used in a frittata or sauce for chops).

[As an aside - the pork we used the other day from the freezer was lovely, but yesterday I had to throw out 3 chicken breasts which smelled really odd once defrosted & (in my head) appeared to have a had a green tinge.  Luckily we had two more from a more recent shop that we defrosted instead.  No clue what happened to the other ones, we've never experienced that before in all our years of freezing meat.] 

joedenise

As posted yesterday I got a couple of salmon fillets out of the freezer and have decided I'm going to do a tray bake with them.  I've run out of potatoes (how did that happen!) so will open a tin to go with them plus I've got peppers, red onions and leeks to go in it.  I've got a butternut squash in my spare room overflow cupboard so will cut up some of that to go in it.  There's also a celeriac in the fridge so think I'll add half of that too.

The LO butternut squash and celeriac I'll cube and open freeze before bagging up.  Will be useful to add to traybake, roast at the weekend or even to add to curries.

joedenise

There's loads of LO roasted veg so we'll have that with some sausages for lunch tomorrow.  Had planned sausage sandwich but saves the carbs!