I think I will be making some freezer meals soon as I make dinner - just multiply it and then freeze 1. I made lasagna and mac & cheese last week and it was great to be able to just pull out dinner and go. I'm actually concerned with lunches more than dinners - but plan on making a few dinners so we are ready to go and if I have a babysitter - boom instant HEALTHY dinner instead of ordering pizza (which is a fortune). I have an ebook from 30-Day gourmet and plan on making a couple of things from it including things like Waffle Sanwiches (cook the frozen waffles, cool, put 1/4 cup yogurt inbetween - wrap in plastic wrap and freeze). I may just make a bunch of waffles and then do it - but for this upcoming 4-H fair week I think I'll just use the frozen ones from Costco.
I also freezer cook, We make a ton of things and stack in the freezer. I read about a missionary family who only had the freezer above their fridge and she froze things in baggies inside cereal boxes to form the way of the box for easy stacking in the freezer. (works great) HTH
We sometimes get roasts buy one get one free. I'll buy four, and cook them all at once in my roaster oven. We eat one then, and then I'll pull the beef and freeze them in three or four bags. Pulled Beef Sandwiches would work well for lunches!
But then there would be no room for my ice cream! And the berries for my smoothies! I am a pregnant woman with cravings, you know. :mrgreen:
I love to cook in bulk. We only have the freezer over the fridg, so I put everything in the freezer ziplocs. My hubby is great at organizing the freezer so everything fits.:lol: I do stews, chilli, roast, homemade hot pockets( I use biscuit dough for it), the list is endless... I also do cookies in bulk to store in the freezer. I'll make them up right at the end of Spring before it gets too hot and then at some point during the summer we'll have a cooler day or two where we'll get lots of rain. So I'll make up another batch then. We can have our cookie fixes without roasting ourselves out of the house.
Oh I have made roast and mashed potatoes with corn or green beans put them in trays like tv dinner and we pull them out alot of nights they are great.
I don't know if it's really freezer cooking or just being one step ahead. If we have turkey or ham I'll cut it up into small pieces to be ready to use for soup or turkey pot pie. My gram made turkey pot pie for a bday & she made like 3 trays...needless to say we didn't eat it all so I threw one in the freezer & just heated when we wanted it.
I would love to do that but our three freezers are filled with harvest season stuff, beef, lamb, and pork and in Nov pecans and turkey. Let me know how it turns out. I do on occasion make a whole or full turkey then with left overs make chicken/turkey pot pies with some cream of chicken soup in them and veggies. I buy those premade pie shells to save time then freeze it. Sam
I always buy an extra turkey at Thanksgiving when they're real cheap to bake in January or February. WAY too much for my small family, but we freeze the meat and have it for quite a while!
That sounds like us. We get them when they are cheap here. Also hubby has been buying boneless ham (like you get at the deli) the local store will slice it however you want. He pays like 1.49-1.69 a pound (can't remember the exact figure), but much less than deli or sliced you can buy. He gets sliced into sandwich slices & then a few ham steaks. When he gets home we just throw it into baggies for easier thaw sizes!!! Just froze some blueberries my gram got for us!!! Maybe I'll have to try that box thing the next time.
We also freezer cook. This time of year, we buy meat on sale (whole chickens, pork loins, etc) and my husband will run the smoker all day and cook 2-3 chickens, pork, chops, etc. We'll eat just a small bit of all that for that day's dinner, then freeze the rest. It usually is enough for 5-6 meals. Carol
Here is a nice little site http://www.dinnersinthefreezer.com/ also I forgot I was part of this yahoogroup http://groups.yahoo.com/group/frozen-assets/ Sam
Cool sites I will check these out more. I also buy extra turkey but the past few years we end up giving them away..(to families in need) I guess either way it is a blessing. We don't do ham much it doesn't like us much. My husband read some things on pork so he want to eliminate it from our diet. Has anyone used turkey bacon before? I need to try to find an alternative for bacon (mainly) since I use that the most out of the pork family.. Thanks in advance
Really like turkey bacon some brands better than others. I still love pork bacon better but my daughter loved it so much she perfers it now. Better to digest your right. Most the pork we get around here is wild hog so they are leaner and have been out in about and not stuck in a pen getting fed slop from who knows where. I do love turkey sausage too which is a lot less expensive so we substitute it in dishes we had normally used beef. Sam
I freezer cook a bit...not as much as I should. We do have a huge freezer. I like to make up double of dinner and then I either freeze as one big thing for dinner - or I have a bunch of single meal sized containers that I freeze into for lunches or quick one person dinners.
I am going to do this when it gets closer to the baby coming. I read somewhere that you should take your 9x13 pan, line it with saran wrap, put the food in it, then once it's frozen you can just take it out and wrap with the saran wrap, then foil. They said to do that with things like lasagna. That way you don't have to buy a bunch of pans.
http://www.menus4moms.com/ Here is a site that will send you a menu with grocery list etc for each week! I'm so sick of "fast food" - not from McD's or anything (ok sick of that too).... but of burgers, hot dogs, spaghetti, etc. Things that are great last minute deals. Granted some of my freezer food is just that (mac & cheese, lasagna).... but I made it and I can always throw a salad with it. I made 3 Tater Tot Casseroles last night..... then waffle sandwiches (2 frozen waffles with yogurt inbetween and then re-frozen).... I need to make some "hot pocket" things today - and maybe some lasagna a little later.... it's raining so I'm a little free. But Costco and Sam's didn't have the crescent rolls I wanted yesterday (go figure!) or ricotta cheese so I need to run out and get some.
