Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Requesting Your Help
It is with no small amount of dread that I prepare to return to work full-time in two-and-a-half weeks. One of the ways we plan to cope with the severe time crunch that will result is to make and freeze a lot of meals in advance, so that most nights dinner is quick and easy to prepare. If any of you dear friends and family have any recipes that freeze well or any general tips or advice on freezing meals, I would be eternally grateful if you would share them. Thank you oh so much.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
12 comments:
I was going to post a request to do recipe sharing too! I'm tired of my recipes.
I'm sorry about having to go back to work. :(
I love homemade pizza. One thing I've started to do is make several pizza's, and freeze them down. That way, later on I can have a freezer pizza that is actually yummy! The key is to put the cheese on last, then stick the pizza in the oven just long enough for the cheese to slightly melt over everything and make it stick together a bit (don't cook it all the way). Then, I let it cool and put the entire thing (I do it on a greased cookie sheet) in the freezer. The next day, I pull it out of the freezer, and it is hard as a rock. With a little TLC you can coax the pizza off the cookie sheet. It will be very stiff, and you can simply wrap it in plastic wrap and store it in the freezer until you are ready to slide it back onto the cookie sheet and bake it. Yum! I also have a creamed spinach recipe that is meant to freeze down and is an excellent side. Sometimes, I simply pull a piece of meat out of the freezer (I love salmon), stick it on the Foreman Grill, microwave my veggie, and dinner is ready in under 15 min.
If you are thinking about freexing things for long periods of time (like more than a week) before you use them, you may want to invest in a FoodSaver (or other vacuum sealer). The food lasts so much longer. The containers can be a little pricey, but they are reuseable.
Erin, you and your silly food saver. ;)
I'll get you some recipes...
"My" foodsaver is actually ISAAC'S foodsaver thank you very much.
Maren!! It is Krystal, I found your blog through Morgan's, and I totally know how you feel. I just had to return to work full time too. It is hard. So what i have been doing is the night before after I put my baby to sleep, I make a crock pot meal, and put it all in the dish. Then the next morning I turn put it in the actually crock pot and just turn it on. It works great. Try the cook book Fix-it and forget it lightly. It is all recipes for crock pot and they are all low fat, the tortilla soup with chicken is my favorite. Anyways the crock pot liners are awesome. Anyways it is fun to see your blog. Hope you are well. Check ours out...
www.the-watts.blogspot.com
Krystal (Kolts) Watts
I've been thinking about this post for a while now. :) I'm a huge fan of Everyday Food magazine, because it's a lot of food that is meant to be really fresh but easy and quick. And every recipe I've tried comes out pretty well, which I mean to say that the recipes must be easy to follow. I'm signed up for the email newsletter (through marthastewart.com), but now I actually get the magazine, too. ANYWAY, they always have a "freeze it" section, which would be great for you (though honestly there are a lot of recipes, like tortilla pizzas--put whatever pizza toppings you want on tortillas on a cookie sheet and cook at 400 or 425 for 10 minutes or so--that would be easy to just do when you get home so that your food is really fresh). A recent favorite that works well for freezing (either prepared or I usually just freeze the filling and then roll them when I want to cook it) are these vegetable enchiladas.
My old roommate Kiersten told me that her sister has some book with a system where you spend one day a month preparing and freezing everything and then she just does a fresh salad or something with it. I imagine that would require an extra freezer, though, and I don't know if you have the ability to do that. It's kind of like a Dream Dinners concept or various other things like that. Even twice baked potatoes and that kind of thing work well. Sometimes I just make doubles of things and then freeze half, or even just eat it a few nights later. It works pretty well.
Good luck with everything! Sorry this is so long as a comment. :)
Maren,
I like to make chicken enchiladas, but there are always too many for Steve and I to eat. So I freeze half of them. Then when I am ready to cook them I put the enchilda/taco sauce and cheese on top and bake in the oven for a longer time. I think the key to freezing, for me anyway, is to wrap the food in plastic wrap then foil to keep it from getting all the frozen bits on it. Also, I try to make the enchiladas healthier by using whole wheat tortillas and low fat cheese and sour cream, as well as adding more veggies. Good luck! Please post what works for you once you begin this adventure!
Kathleen
I'm a big fan of the crock pot as well, you can do literally almost any meal in crock-pots.
You can also freeze ANY cassserole for up to, oh, I think six months...
if you are freezing stuff for six months, you might want to think about...oh never mind.
Maren, I didn't freeze much before for lack of freezer space but I have subscribed to a kraft foods magazine that I LOVE--it comes free in the mail every couple of months and they have given me several new recipies that I now freeze (usually cook one and freeze on same day.) I loved their suggestion to freeze it in foil in a pan and than move it to a freezer bag to keep space available as well as cooking pans.
Rebecca McKown
Hey Maren!
It's good to see your blog. I found a cookbook called "Make a Mix" where they have you make a meat mix (or any number of different mixes) and freeze it and then use it to make a number of different recipes. I think it would be great to freeze several of those mixes and then all you have to do is throw it together when you get home.
Post a Comment