tips for freezing meals

melrrr

I really need to copy and paste the following into a word document. I post it all over the nest a lot:

Do not limit yourself to casseroles and soups/stews! Look in your grocery freezer section...just about anything will freeze. I am a personal chef so I spend all my time preparing meals that are very often frozen, and casseroles are at the very bottom of the list of what I make. As for soups and stews, those really only come out in the winter.

The things that really don't freeze well are raw mushrooms, white potatoes (unless mashed with butter; the fat helps a lot), and raw tomatoes. For me, everything else is fair game. The only thing I might do different is undercook pasta that is going in the dish or eliminate it entirely and add it when heating. The most important thing to remember is you must cool your food down properly and quickly before sticking it in the freezer. The fastest way to do this is to put the food-filled container (I use foodsaver bags most often) into an ice water bath. Steam in the freezer is bad for two reasons: 1) most important: quick cooling (to below 40F within 2 hours of finishing cooking) is necessary to prevent foodborne illness. 2) Steam=condensation=ice crystals on your food=decrease in quality of the finished product.  If I'm using a ziplock-type container, I will put a layer of wax paper over the food to help seal out more air.

To reheat, it is best to thaw the item in the fridge overnight. If you use foodsaver bags you can heat things in simmering water straight from the freezer--very convenient! Anything pre-cooked, frozen, and heated in the microwave should be heated on a lower power (50% for fish/seafood, 70% for everything else) because your food is already cooked. You don't need to destroy it with high power.

So basically, just cook a few extra servings of whatever it is you're making for dinner and freeze those. To me it gets really old to have 12 servings of lasagna or some other big casserole.

rachi

Those are some great tips, thank you.

Now, you don't happen to have some good, easy recipes do you? If so can you PM them to me? 

melrrr

rachi:

Those are some great tips, thank you.

Now, you don't happen to have some good, easy recipes do you? If so can you PM them to me? 

I have six bajillion recipes, most of which are easy, so it's really hard to suggest a few.  Just about everything I have comes from a cookbook or online, so I would just suggest finding a cookbook or two you're comfortable and going from there.