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Working Moms
Haley.Beth
member
Frozen/fast cooking meal ideas?
Haley.Beth
member
in Working Moms
So dh and I NEVER see each other anymore. I work 7 am - 5 pm, he works 1 pm - 11 pm. I put dd down at night, he gets up with her and takes her to my mom's house, where I pick her up when I get off work. I'm in bed before he gets home, he's still asleep when I leave in the morning. This is usually 4-5 days a week (I work M-F, he works 6 on 3 off). Our schedule sucks, but it's only temporary until he returns to school in the fall, then he drops down to part time.
For now, though, we have found ourselves eating out a LOT, when we used to cook at home and eat together every night. It is absolutely KILLING our budget and we can't afford to do that anymore! Do you ladies have any ideas on meals that are easy to cook separately, or meals that are easy to freeze and reheat individually?
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Re: Frozen/fast cooking meal ideas?
anything sauteed is so easy to cook. visit an asian store and stock up on oyster saud and sesame oil and youre good to go. Saute chopped breast filets with bell pepper or any veggie for that matter like brocolli of cauliflower, add in some oyster sauce and cornstarch with water...sprinkle sesame oil before turning down the heat, then serve! If you are able tio make a biug batch, you can freeze ahead and thaw.
these meals are also goof dor rice toppings so cook rice in your rice cooker and top it with these selections!
GL. sorry we asians love rice and rice toppings!
this is a good go to meal as well:
1. make a penne pasta (10-12 minutes only)
2. in a separate pan, saute canned tuna in olive oil.
3. drizzle the penne pasta with olive oil and then mix in the sauteed tuna. Add some dried basil leaves, season with some salt and pepper
My brother and SIL have crazy schedules like that, and she just cooks whatever, she eats, then my brother eats when he gets home or the next day. So there is really no need to freeze anything, he just heats it in the microwave.
I have had to come up with some fast things due to our schedule lately too. I second the meatball and stir fry suggestions from above. And I wouldn't necessarily do things in individual portions, I would just make a meal and then let DH heat up the leftovers when he was ready.
Memorial day weekend, I made and baked 70 turkey meatballs (a yummy recipe from Giada). I let them cool and used the food saver to freeze them in appropriate portions. We eat them with spaghetti and a jar of good marinara. I just cook the pasta and throw the frozen meatballs in the sauce in a pan and thaw them that way. It takes less than 20 minutes to make this meal.
I also found a orange chicken stir fry recipe that we liked. I bought a couple of family packs of chicken breasts, sliced them up into strips, froze appropriate sized portions. I then made up the sauce for 4-5 recipe's worth, froze in ice cube trays and transferred the appropriate number of cubes to food saver packs. When we use these, I just pull the chicken and sauce out to thaw the night before, come home, start some brown rice cooking, slice a red onion, stir fry the onion and chicken, throw on sauce and some fresh sugar snap peas. The stir fry part takes less than 20 minutes here. (Brown rice takes a while, you could speed this up using a faster cooking rice).
We also always have ingredients for homemade pizza. Whole wheat crust, a jar of pizza sauce, spinach, peppers, zucchini, pepperoni, mozzarella. Another under 20 minute meal.
I also use my crock pot to cook a large roast. We eat the meat with either sweet potato fries (frozen), frozen peas or corn, and/or a salad. We use the left over meat with a taco sauce mix (I love Frontera brand), just mix and heat and then make wraps with avocado and cilantro with rice, corn, and/or beans on the side.
Lastly, I am not afraid of leftovers. I actually love good leftovers. So I try to double recipes.
Good Luck and let us know if you find any additional good ones!
If you're on pinterest try searching on there & then you can have a 'board' of different ideas all stored in the same place. There are a ton of blogs out there for freezer meals and lots of ideas, etc.
The basics (from what I can tell whenever anyone posts questions about this) tend to be soups, chilis, pasta (baked ziti, lasagna, stuffed shells, etc), chicken/rice type casseroles, mexican things (like enchiladas)....
do you like slow cooker food? Might be an option for you guys also. I personally am not a fan of most of it but a lot of ppl love using their crock pots.
Also I find frozen cooked rice to be a huge time saver (I like trader joe's brown rice). If you guys like pasta, you could also make a bunch of different sauces & freeze them & then all you have to do is boil the pasta & heat up the sauce, not necessarily prep the entire meal & freeze it (saves space in the freezer too). Veggie sauces, meat sauces, meatballs, etc.
Frozen uncooked shrimp is one of my favorite things too- quick defrost and quick cook, mix w/ pasta or veggies or toss on the grill very quickly....
GL!
Anything can be a frozen meal -- well, practically. Freeze individual portions of taco meat or spaghetti sauce. Add tortillas or noodles later. Freeze batches of soups and chili. You can even freeze PB&J sandwiches. Make calzones and freeze them...just need to microwave them when ready to eat.
I like to freeze meals like this, but I also freeze components - like already browned hamburger or chicken, so that if I'm making a meal, major steps are already done. Meats already cooked, just needs added to whatever I'm making then reheated. Easy. I'll do like 5 lbs of hamburger at a time, freeze in 1 or 1/2 pound portions. Pull as needed.
crock pots work really well and ready to eat when you guys come home, just don't forget to plug it in and turn it on.
I like to prepare 2 meals for the week on the weekends. one for mon/tues and one fore wed/thurs, this works for us because mentally i only have to plan 2 vs 4 "quick" meals.
I second the crock pot idea - my husband does a roast in the crock pot, with potatoes and carrots underneath it, or sometimes leeks. You can use a pretty cheap cut and have it turn out well too. Make it even quicker if you use baby carrots and those little balls of potato.
We've sometimes made massive pots of soup (butternut squash is our favourite) and butter chicken (I think we got the recipe off the indolink.com website). Both reheat very well, and rice or bread with the butter chicken is easy. We do other Indian dishes, but butter chicken is dead easy and easily made even milder.
Chili also has a tonne of variations.
Oh, we've also cooked a tonne of meatballs, then froze them. They can just be heated and eaten with some potato and veg.
Here's a good recipe. We make about 20 of them at a time, freeze on a cookie sheet (so they don't stick together) then use the food safer. We modify it a little and use ham, cottage cheese, add mushrooms, and use the store bought pie crusts. They are delicious and you can make one at a time or a few at a time. And my daughter LOVES them, it's pretty much the only way I can get veggies in her at this point.
https://weelicious.com/2009/08/05/spinach-prosciutto-calzones/
I make these:
https://www.food.com/recipe/breakfast-burritos-once-a-month-cooking-30165
and these:
https://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Chicken-Burritos (sometimes I also do these with beef)
I do healthy versions with high-fiber tortillas, lots of veggies, and reduced-fat cheese.
As a previous posted suggested, I freeze them individually on cookie sheets and store in plastic bags. Reheat in microwave for two minutes for an individual portion, or place six in a 9x13 pan, top with enchilada sauce, and bake for a sit down meal.