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What's Cooking Wednesday! Freezer meals!
I am selfishly picking a topic that I need help on this week: freezer meals! I am planning to make a number of freezer meals to enjoy when LO comes home.
So what's your favorite freezer meal? If you have a recipe to post that's awesome, but we can all google so please join in even if you don't have one!
TTC September 2010 thru October 2011
SA February 2011: Normal
RE App. October 2011 - Recc. Clomid and IUI
Taking a break from TTC to pursue adoption
Met our 2 year old son in Russia July 2012!
Court trip October 2012
Home November 24 2012!
Back to RE Summer 2013. TTC journey continues:
Dx DOR, endometriosis, low sperm count
Clomid + IUI#1, #2 = BFN / IUI #3 = ???
Laparoscopy scheduled December 2013
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Re: What's Cooking Wednesday! Freezer meals!
I just put this link in my favs. today. I am in desperate need of meals that are super easy and will not take me a lot of time in the evening with the LO's.
I do not know how to make it clicky:
https://www.sixsistersstuff.com/2011/12/fresh-food-friday-20-tried-and-true.html
If you want really really easy freezer meals then just freeze leftovers from your regular meals that you make! I did that for almost everything before baby #2 and it was an easy way to get almost 20 meals in the freezer without the extra work.
Quite literally almost everything freezes!
Daughter #1 - February 12, 2010
natural m/c March 11, 2011 at 8 1/2 weeks
Daughter #2 - January 11, 2012
Ectopic pregnancy discovered November 6, 2012 at 6 weeks
Daughter #3 - January 19, 2014
Started our exploration into the world of international adoption June 2012. We have no idea what this is going to look like but we are excited to find out!
Another option is mac n cheese. I like to do a big batch of the basic recipe and then divide it into 2 or 3 smaller containers with different addins like ham broccoli, buffalo chicken blue cheese, and bacon, onion, Gorgonzola.
Not super healthy, I know.
Pancakes freeze well if you need a quick breakfast... Just pop them into the toaster! : I do silver dollar pancakes with fruit and veggie pure mixed in for ButterBean.
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Heading to China in November 2014 to bring our son home!
I do this with chicken patties, but your version sounds better.
My favorite is meatloaf. I make up two or three in a big bowl at once, put them in glass loaf pans, cover with foil, and freeze. Move to the refrigerator the day before you want to eat them or, if you forget, to the oven the morning you want to eat it, and let it thaw. Then cook as regular. This works for me because the prep time is what I don't have, and anyone (my son, nephew, nanny can turn it on), but I know my friend actually freezes her meatloaf fully cooked. If I tried that, I'd probably do it just a bit undercooked, so it doesn't dry out during reheating.
I also freeze the crockpot pulled pork we talked about the other day. It keeps really well.
If you like soup, anything without cream freezes well. Since cream is usually the last thing you add, you can even make and freeze cream soups, then add the cream when reheating. The best thing about frozen soups is that you don't have to wait for them to thaw/defrost. Just plunk the frozen contents of the container in a pot on low, and defrost-reheat in one easy step!
I also freeze beans for rice and beans. The way I make it, though, it should be called meat, beans, and rice:
1. Brown an onion in a little oil.
2. Add anywhere up to a pound of chop meat (I use ground beef, but my friend uses chunks of pork), and brown.
3. Add as many (equal size) cans of kidney beans as you do cans of tomato sauce. Make sure you add all the sauce/juice that's in the can with the beans; this will flavor the sauce and thicken it up. I typically make huge quantities of this, with four cans of beans (two dark and two light, if I can find both, to make it more visually appealing) and two of the double-sized cans of sauce.
4. Cook on medium/medium-low heat (should be simmering or just under) for a while, until the beans, meat, and sauce all mix evenly and start to thicken up. This isn't a dry bean mixture, it will be very saucy, but the sauce will go from a tomato sauce consistency to something more like a wet stew-type thickness.
5. Serve over rice.
Each time you chill/freeze/reheat the beans, they will get a bit thicker in consistency. You can feel free to add some water or a little tomato sauce to thin it out if you prefer.
Also, I tend to use a lot of steamer-pack vegetables to make easy sides for things. When making rice, I always make extra and use it for more than one meal. For something like rice and beans, it doesn't have to be freshly-made, and since we all love leftovers for lunch, it's great for that, too. Also, fried rice is always best when made with at least day-old rice.