Freezable Meals

Meatloaf, barbecue, soup (all different kinds), spagetti sauce, chilli, fruit cut up (peaches are my favorite), chicken breast cooked in any spices or cream of mush soup and rice, roasts, I'll keep thinking. If you want to avoid a little shopping, bread, cheese, milk, lunchmeat (not the shaved stuff from the deli), and most non-watery vegetables.

Ok I don't cook very often, so in a pinch have hubby hit up the Trader Joes frozen food section. Their fetticini alfredo is awesome as well as the gnocchi, mac n' cheese, vegetable melange, quiche, and pesto tortillini bowls. Really I will vouche for the whole store. The things listed above have a couple things that are "single" serving. We just make two for my family of four and we make sure we have plenty of fruits, vegggies, and/or salad to make the meal an event with awesome variety.

Anyway if Trader Joes can freeze it so can you!! Also grilled chicken tossed into one meal portions in the freezer makes a great standby. You can put it on salad, make quesadillas, chicken salad sandwiches, paired with pita bread and lettuce it makes a great "wrap".

We also love hummus (totally freezable) with a little cut up veggies, rustic bread and hey why not the grilled chicken.

Pesto sauce is also very freezable and goes well on pasta, chicken, bread, pizza.

Another thing that we eat around here is ham and cheese rolls. Winco sells the Figaros pizza dough (near the cheese $1.48). We divide the dough into about eight sections, flatten it out and fill it with sandwich-y things and then pinch it shut into a ball shape. Our favorite flavors are ham and cheese, chicken pesto, and chicken/bacon/artichoke/alfredo. These sandwich pockets make great breakfasts to go, keep well in the fridge for several days, and I haven't tried to freeze them, but I suspect they will survive.

Best of luck Momma in the weeks to come!! I hope that you are able to get the rest that you need and that new baby pops out exactly right ;)!!!

Dream Dinners...a place that provides you with the ingredients to put together dishes that are as good as home made is actually designed around freezing meals. You may let friends and family know you'd like a "Dinner Shower" and you could all go together before the baby comes. Of course you do need a good sized freezer!

S.,

It may just be as easy to put up spaghetti sauce and chili and other soups...easy crock pot meals that can be bagged and put into the pot on the stove or in an oven proof dish for reheating. I am sure your husband can put together biscuits, salad, cornbread...etc. to fill out the meal.

Another easy meal to fix and have ready is TACO MEAT. you can fix in a jif, or bring from freezer and reheat to make salads, burritos...etc.

Good luck,
T.

I have never frozen this meal... but it would totally work.

Shepherd's Pie

1 lb ground beef
1 can cream of mushroom soup (or cream of mushroom with garlic soup, then omit garlic below.)
2 cups frozen mixed veggies
3 cups mashed potatoes
1 tbsp worstershire sauce
1 tsp minced garlic

Boil potatoes and mash with 1/2 can of cream of mushroom soup and whatever else you typically use. (We like to add sour cream, too.)

Brown the beef (remove from heat), add garlic, worstershire sauce, veggies and 1/2 can of soup.

Put beef mixture in a 2 quart baking dish (for you, maybe in a mid-size aluminum pan). Spread the potatoes over the top.

When not frozen, you bake for 20 minutes at 375. I would say to dethaw and then cook until heated.

This is one of our favorite meals, and I think it'd totally work for you. (To be fair, I got this recipe out of the Campbell's Soup Cookbook; I am going from memory and hoping that I'm not leaving anything out.) It is really easy to make and very quick. You could substitue potato flakes (but I don't like it nearly as much.)

Good luck!

We still freeze meals once a month, so I hear you when you say you want variety. Here's what we have in the freezer right now:

Use the speghetti sauce (make up a big pot) to ensure you have calzones, speghetti casarole, "meat bake," pizza as well as the lasagna.

mixed vegies with chicken. It is all cooked up and ready to defrost and go. You can add cooked shrimp for a more exotic flavor.

Taco meat, onion, refried beans/referitos, can all be put together and frozen. Even the tomatoes if you want to go that far before freezing, but I would rather have fresh tomatoes.

Chicken a la king.

Chinese Fried Rice is easy to make.

I have hot and sour soup in the freezer right now, but the nutritional content is pretty low.

Thai foods like Tom Gai or another coconut milk based soup with vegis and chicken and/or shrimp.

Indian sambar, chickpea curry (tomato based), black bean curry are all freezable.

And the best thing we have in the freezer right now: Fruits. We put strawberries, raspberries, mangoes, peaches, etc. into the blender and puree it, then put the fruit into ziplock bags. Lay the bags on their side to freeze. Just break off a chunk when you need it. They can store upright, and the fruit can go on oatmeal or into smoothies all winter long without the bother of peeling and cutting them up.

Edit: I forgot two meals ready to go in the freezer right now.

Fajitas (without the tortilla), just chicken with bell peppers, spices, and cooked up onions.

Curry Vegitables: Once a month or every other month I cook up a bag of each of the following vegis: spinach, coliflower, broccoli, peas and carrots. Put them together with cooked onion, some mustard seed and curry powder. Add 1.5 cups of cheese or so, and three cups of rice. Put into the oven at 425 for 45 min. in a cassarole dishes, freeze in meal size containers or bags.

I can't wait to see what other people are freezing...I could use some variety, too.

S.,

I have a little boy the same age as Aaron and to save time, I've started doing Dinners Done Right off of Scholls Ferry in Beaverton/Tigard. I usually buy at least a dozen meals at a time (4 servings) and the cost breaks out to $10-13 a meal with a big order discount. You can order online and pick it up the next day. They don't offer prepping it yourself. You can also swing in and just pick up one meal for dinner that night-think of it as Papa Murphy style.

My husband doesn't mind cooking meals this way either. I just grab something out of the freezer the night before to let it defrost. This has eliminated the "what are we having" discussion more than once. The meals also have direct instructions on them and are easy to prepare. You may still need to add a side like rice, potatoes, veggies, etc. but that has been a lot easier to handle for our family. Just thought this might be something you'd want to look into!

I make pulled pork sandwich meat in my crockpot. Then freeze the meat in meal containers. Then all I need is some rolls and I can heat the meat up in the microvave. Just chop up some onions and peppers, put those in the bottom of the crock pot. Then take a large pork shoulder and stick it in too. Cover with some barbeque sauce and cook on high 6-7 hours or until it is falling off the bone. Then shread it and enjoy.

I also do something similar to make burrito filling only I use enchillada sauce instead of barbeque sauce.

I have had good luck freezing soup (minus the noodles, they tend to fall apart later).