Monday, March 7, 2011
Freezer meals?
I’m going to try my hand at freezing some meals before the baby comes. I know this sounds dumb but our family is the WORST at eating leftovers, so the thought of freezing a meal just never appealed to our senses. But maybe if I do it right (and we’re desperate and sick of Chik fil A, we might pull something out of the freezer). I need to know it all. What can you freeze? What can’t you freeze? What are good recipes that work well? I know veggies don’t freeze well, so the less fresh stuff the better, right? The first 2 things that came to mind as something that might freeze well are:
1. Meatloaf (I know that sounds gross, but I promise my grandma’s recipe would knock your socks off). It has egg in it. Can you freeze raw egg?
2. Enchiladas. It calls for heavy whipping cream (my kind of enchiladas). Can you freeze that? And do you just throw the whole casserole dish in the freezer? Or should I buy some of those bake and toss foil casseroles? Actually, I think I’ll do that anyway. Less dishes.
Okay, what else?
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I just did this with a friend a couple months ago (cause she's a pro at freezer meals) and I was so surprised how many things freeze fine and then still taste delicious when you thaw them. I have an email with all her recipes that I'll forward to you - white chicken chili, sweet bbq chicken, cafe rio pork, tostada topping, chicken pot pie. They were all really good.
The most space efficient way to freeze the meals is to put them in large ziploc bags. Then you can just lay them down and stack them in your freezer and when you pull them out to thaw, you can just set them on your counter in the morning. It really is so convenient. Now I just need to find the time to make another batch.
Also, when I'm making soup for my family, I usually double it and freeze half (broccoli soup, cream of wild rice chicken soup, chili) since they seem to freeze so nicely. The only vegetable that I don't know about freezing is cooked potato - the chicken pot pie didn't call for potatoes, but next time I wanted to try to put some in. But the carrots and peas and broccoli do fine in my opinion.
one thing i've frozen in the past and still liked when it was reheated is lasagna. its a short list - cooking might not be my thing ;)
I've done meatloaf before, and it worked beautifully. I also recently did the filling for chicken pot pie, and it was great. Ryan doesn't do leftovers great either (is it genetic?) so I took a full recipe, put half of it in the pan (with a full crust) froze the other half and then made it later. No leftovers--two meals.
We live off of frozen bolognese sauce.
I've done enchiladas, too, and they've been fine. When I'm on the ball I freeze them in the pan they will be cooked in, then pop them out of the pan (once they are frozen) and put them in a ziplock. When I'm ready to cook them I put them back in the original pan with a perfect fit. But right now all of my pans are in my freezer because I never got to that second step...
I never froze meals until just before Miles was born. I wanted to build up a stash of good meals, though, to have after he was born. I didn't know any rules about freezing food, but I think everything we froze turned out fine.
I think just about any kind of soup freezes well. I freeze soups a lot now, and it's so nice to have no-cook nights here and there.
I've also frozen filling for stuffed peppers (rice, beans, tomatoes, onions, etc.), which would also make good quesadillas or burritos the second time around.
I think veggies freeze just fine if they are cooked (or partly cooked) before you freeze them.
And there's no harm in trial and error. If you think something will freeze well, just try it. If it doesn't taste good when you reheat it, get pizza and you know not to freeze it next time. :)
I'll email you some recipes.
I think most soups freeze well, that's what I've done the most of. With that said, I did freeze some soup that had pasta in it and it was AWFUL after it thawed. The pasta had turned to mush. I've also frozen casseroles (enchiladas, shepherds pie, etc.) and they did great. I've done lasagna before, but I'd recommend slightly undercooking the noodles since they'll be sitting in sauce longer. I put food in those gladware containers or disposable casserole dishes. The ziploc bags sound like a good idea, esp. for saucy things.
Before Afton was born, my mom and I went to town making freezer recipes, but now I can't think of most of them. I know we made chili, taco soup, chicken pot pie... One thing we did was freeze things in ziplock containers (not bags). So if you make a ton of chili and it fills 3 containers, you can just take out and thaw one (which holds about 3 servings) at a time so that you only have that meal once and then can have something else the next time. (That way you don't have to eat the same thing over and over until it's gone.)
We also prepared ground beef with onion and froze that so that I could just add a few ingredients to it later to make some other dishes like sloppy joes or stroganoff.
Sorry this is a novel!
I've frozen your meatloaf recipes plenty of times. Works like a charm! I'm bad at freezer meals too.
That's too bad that neither Greg or Ryan like leftovers. Leftovers are what Brad eats for lunch everyday and he loves leftovers.
I had a friend share this website with me a few years back and I love it for a go to guide for freezer meals.
http://www.freezehappy.com/
What I like about this blog is that this lady has already done the experimenting so she tells you what works and what doesn't. Check out the freezing guide for good and bad foods when freezing.
I have a few recipes that I like frozen so I'll try to get them emailed to you.
We have had these and they are good:
http://boiledhotdog.blogspot.com/2010/02/chicken-and-cheese-burritos.html
The other thing I like to do is buy rotisserie chickens from costco pull them off of the bone and then freeze them in sandwich bags. It makes any meal that calls for chicken a lot faster.
This is a super easy/fast recipe and is so good:
http://boiledhotdog.blogspot.com/2010/06/chicken-tostada-salad.html
this one is good too:
http://boiledhotdog.blogspot.com/2009/06/chicken-rice-and-black-bean-salad.html
(We eat this one with sour cream and tortillas.)
Hmm... I applaud your nesting instinct, but I don't really rock the freezer meal. If I did, though, I'd probably do something like a baked ziti or a hearty bean stew or something. That can't go wrong in the freezer, right?
(And when in the world can one actually get sick of Chick-Fil-A? I'm pretty sure it's an impossibility.) :-)
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