Freezer Meals

[kirsey2121]

Hi. I am looking for great recipes that you can make in bulk that freeze well. I have been looking into places like Cooking Cottage where they prepare things for you and you put together meals. They are sooo expensive!! I would like to do that concept at home and I need recipes and tips from what to store the food in, recipes, how to cook it, what freezes well, pretty much as many tips, helpful hints, and recipes as I can get. I would appreciate any help.

Kirsten

[Teah]

When my kids were all home I would take one weekend a month and just cook all weekend. I would make lasagna, stuffed peppers, stuffed cabbage, Meatballs and sauce, even soups and stews.....just about anything really. I would vacuum seal it or put it in ziploc freezer bags or bowls in some cases.(you can make them whatever size you like, I split the meals into single serving sizes so they could be quickly microwaved). I never found I needed special recipes, I just cooked as I normally would and freeze it.

[rafala]

do a search for Once a month cooking, I think their is a site oamc.com, that has a board with recipes and ideas and helpful hints. one hint i remember is putting foil in a pan before freezing then you can pull foil out wiht the frozen meal still in it put it in a zip lock bag and when you are ready to cook it it fits back into the pan. that way you can reuse the pan many times and it will take up less space in your freezer. the library usually has good books also with once a month cooking menus.

good luck

karen

[kirsey2121]

If you guys have any specific recipes that freeze well that your family enjoys I'd love to have them I am specifically looking for a vegetarian lasagna with spinach and zucchini and lots of vegetables. It can include meat to. Any others would be appreciated
Kirsten

[katlnhats]

Originally Posted by kirsey2121

If you guys have any specific recipes that freeze well that your family enjoys I'd love to have them I am specifically looking for a vegetarian lasagna with spinach and zucchini and lots of vegetables. It can include meat to. Any others would be appreciated
Kirsten

Vegetarian Lasagna

Veggies: Saute' spinach (chopped), zucchini and yellow squash (sliced), 3 or more chopped cloves of garlic, chopped onion (if desired), green and red bell peppers (diced or sliced thin, as many as you want), 1-2 stalks celery (sliced or chopped), mushrooms (sliced) in extra-virgin olive oil.
Add to your sauce of choice, unless you want to make your own. Jarred sauce freezes just as well. With all the veggies, your sauce should be rich and thick.
Cook your lasagna noodles - set aside.
Simply layer your noodles with sauce (with veggies added) and cheese - repeat till you have a full pan for the oven. Bake @350 till slightly browned on the top.
Cool.
Cut into single-sized servings or family-sized servings. Freeze in a ziplock, but make sure the air is out of the bag and it can sit flat in the freezer. You can place the bags in a foil pan or even a box till frozen. Take out whenever you feel like it and defrost and reheat for about 15 minutes in a 350 oven, or microwave if you'd rather. You might want to take a day to do this or make the veggie-sauce one day and put it together the next day.

Good luck! I make and freeze a lot of things and it "is" easier!

Kat

[katlnhats]

Originally Posted by kirsey2121

If you guys have any specific recipes that freeze well that your family enjoys I'd love to have them I am specifically looking for a vegetarian lasagna with spinach and zucchini and lots of vegetables. It can include meat to. Any others would be appreciated
Kirsten

Hi Kirsten,

How about soups? You can make a huge pot up or two, and especially if you like veggies (there are so many you can put in a soup), then have it for dinner the day you make it and freeze the rest in containers.
I have off-the-top of my head recipes for some if you'd like. I've been cooking for so long I don't measure exactly, lol.

Kat

[kirsey2121]

That would be awesome kat! I have had a hard time finding recipes that are any good. I would love ANY recipe you have that freezes well and your family enjoys. Soup is good, things with lots of vegetables are good because I have to sneak them into my boyfriends diet. We eat meat to so if you want to include recipes with meat thats fine also.
Thanks so much!

P.S The Veggie Lasagna recipe sounds awesome! What type of cheese do u use? I see a lot of veggie lasagna with ricotta

[katlnhats]

Originally Posted by kirsey2121

That would be awesome kat! I have had a hard time finding recipes that are any good. I would love ANY recipe you have that freezes well and your family enjoys. Soup is good, things with lots of vegetables are good because I have to sneak them into my boyfriends diet. We eat meat to so if you want to include recipes with meat thats fine also.
Thanks so much!

P.S The Veggie Lasagna recipe sounds awesome! What type of cheese do u use? I see a lot of veggie lasagna with ricotta

Hi!

The Veggie Lasagna is actually supposed to have ricotta in it, but Mark (hubby) doesn't like ricotta (an inexpensive substitute for ricotta, which he also doesn't like is cottage cheese). I use mozzarella. He likes that... lol, but you can use just about any that your family likes.

Kat

[katlnhats]

Hi,

Here's a chicken soup recipe - leave out the veggies that your boyfriend really doesn't like and will "find" anyways! lol Too funny, I do the same thing with my husband, and he's actually started to like a LOT of veggies that he never would eat before - though there are still some that he'd find even if I chopped them so thin I'd have trouble finding them!

Chicken Soup - Freezes better in containers, rather than bags for me. This recipe is kind of a mix of ballpark measurements as I use two big pots and a crock pot when I do this.....and you'll find things you like to add more or less of as well.
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Cooked chicken, I use white meat (because I buy whole chicken breats and that's what there is), but you can use whatever, dark or white or a mix of both - this also applies to Turkey Soup - basically the same recipe.

HUGE pot, or better still, two of them!

I use chicken broth, canned, instead of chicken stock, as my son does - he's a really good cook too. For one pot:

10-12 cans of chicken broth - with chicken bouillion cubes or powder to taste, you'll be adding this all through cooking it. I also use a chicken broth powder that's made with soy and has no chicken in it at all, but tastes great.

Cut up chicken, this is better if you do it as you know how much your family likes, and I tend to put in a lot, about 3 cups or more.

2 cups of diced celery.

1 cup of diced green bell pepper, and one half a cup of red bell pepper, and 1/2 cup of yellow bell pepper (yellow's optional). I like lots of color in food for no good reason!

2 cups sliced carrots.

1/2 cup green beans - you can use canned, they freeze well.

1/4 cup of chopped garlic.

1/4 - 1/2 cup parsley (this is for the dry, it's not in season here for the fresh)

1/4 cup of Vidalia onion - this is one I hide and get away with, only because the onion is sweet!

A couple more optional veggies are sliced (into small triangles) summer and zucchini squash. Corn is also an optional veggie and you can use the canned; I tend to use it if we've had it and I have some leftover, then I throw it in w/the rest of the veggies.

1 teaspoon poultry seasoning.

1 teaspoon oregano leaves.

1 Tablespoon of black pepper

1 Tablespoon of Salt - I use Celtic salt as it's got over 80 minerals in it. It's a grey salt, not bleached, though if I was to use white salt, I'd use less than a tablespoon.

And any other veggie that you can think of that you all like

Take 2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil and saute' the veggies in the bottom of your pot in it. Add your chicken, spices and herbs and broth and simmer till done to your taste - add water if it's too spicy/salty/whatevery, lol. The slower you cook it and you can use a crockpot, after you saute' the veggies, the more flavor you'll get.

For noodles and such, I either use the Yolk Free soup noodles that come in various sizes as they seem to stay firmer and freeze better or instead of rice, I use Orzo pasta. Looks like rice, but keeps its texture and shape. Freezes good too. Or you can also use Wild Rice as it tends to stay together also - my hubby doesn't like it though! lol I "KNOW" where you're coming from - so this is a very basic recipe, add only what you like - leave out what you don't, everyone adds different things as everyones tastes are different.

Freeze when cooled completely.

Variations:

Substitute turkey for the chicken for turkey soup.
Substitute leftover roast beef for the chicken and if you want a thick stew, use beef broth and before you heat the broth, add some cornstarch to a cup of water - it's a natural thickener, start with a tablespoon to one cup of water and stir in with the broth - but keep your heat off - you'll see how thick it'll get - too thick, add more water or broth, too thin, add more cornstarch, but make sure it's stirred in completely.
Vegetable soup - leave out the meat! And you can use vegetable broth or bouillion.
*Always add more of the veggies that your family likes the most and cut down on any they'll just tolerate! (that way you can still get some into them)

Hope this helps

Kat

PS - Another good thing that I "always" make and freeze is spagetti sauce and marinara. Those I freeze in bags and they come out great. More recipes to come............do you like sweets? <grin> Cookies and things?

[kirsey2121]

Thanks for another good recipe. As soon as things settle down around my house I am going to get cooking...both recipes sound awesome! I will be sure and give feedback after I make them. I would love to hear your marinara sauce recipe. I get so sick of all the added sugar and sodium in the canned at the store. I saw a recipe once that was like the "chunky garden" variety w/ lots of cooked, diced veggies. I'd love whatever recipes you have for pasta sauce (On oprah her said it is one of the BEST things you can eat besides spinach and salmon to help stop aging) Speaking of seafood I would also love any seafood recipes you have. It seems to me like you enjoy cooking and are good at it. So as you have time I would love any recipes you want to share. I am trying to focus on healthy, dishes with vegetables, etc. I really appreciate you sharing whenever you have time

[kirsey2121]

Also I really like things my grandparents used to make like cabbage rolls, ham balls, ham loaf, I would love any of those recipes if you make them also

[katlnhats]

Hi,

Cabbage Rolls or as we call them - Stuffed Cabbage
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1 large head of cabbage - the larger the better
4 cups of cooked rice
3 lbs. of ground sirloin or other 90% hamburger (less grease)
1 lb. of ground salt pork
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pepper

The night before:
Cook the cabbage whole in a large pot; not cooked enough so it's falling apart, but cooked enough so you can work with the leaves. Lots of water in the pot so it won't burn - after you finish that, drain and cool - then stick in the fridge.
Next day:
Cook the rice.
Saute' the salt pork.
Mix the ground hamburger, the rice and the salt & pepper.

Take one cabbage leaf at a time - fill 1/2 - 3/4 of the way full with the mixture, leaving enough room for the cabbage leaf to be folded around the mixture and the ends tucked under it. Repeat till you're done. Put in your choice of cooking pan/pot (see below), and pour the salt pork over and around it. If that's too much fat for you, leave the salt pork out - that's the way I was brought up making it.

There are two ways to cook these, in the oven or on the stovetop - either cooks well. If you're doing oven cooking, cover w/foil and check in an hour or so, oven temp @ 325 degrees.
In a large stove pot, place salt pork and a little bit of water on the bottom, layer cabbage till done - cook on medium (check to make sure it's not boiling, but just simmering), turn it down if you need to - takes about an hour.

Variations:
You can also put marinara in w/the cabbage, adding chunked veggies to it.
Make a mixed-dish, I've done stuffed cabbage, stuffed peppers (red and green bell, stuffed tomatoes (just hollow out the middle) and stuffed squash (zucchini and summer), all at the same time. For that I definitely use sauce. And leave out the salt pork. I actually usually do it this way, but I was brought up with just the stuffed cabbage. I just added to it. For that, you'll have to increase the hamburger and rice mixture, a LOT, depending on how much you're making, but if you have some leftover - just roll it by itself into balls and stick it in w/the rest.

I hope this is what you meant. Not sure about the ham rolls - can you describe them?

Hugs,

Kat

PS: OK, now I'm hungry!!!!!!!!!! lol

[katlnhats]

That's where I got the recipe, my Grandma Course back then, nobody really measured and it always came out great

Kat

[katlnhats]

Hi,

On the marinara, even if you make it totally from scratch; with 'everything' fresh - you'll still probably have to use some kind of sugar as you'll end up adding (and this is canned), tomato paste. Thick and really NOT sweet! lol
Lots of times when I don't feel like getting all the tomatoes and washing, then putting them in the sink, putting boiling water over them, then peeling.......I start out w/a jarred sauce and just add the things we like to it. It still takes a few hours to make, but the other way took me two days. And you can find sauces that aren't too bad (to the point of being safe for diabetics) on the sugar - I add raw sugar instead of the white refined.
Gee, I had a question in here somewhere - do you want to make it totally from the tomatoes up, or would you use (as a starter), things like crushed, stewed, whole roma/plum peeled tomatoes, or even some sauce that's already made (grocery store). I can do the recipe either way - figured I'd ask!

Kat

And we like ours really chunky too - lots and lots of veggies!