Does anyone here freeze extra meals? I need some advice.

[seaglass]

I'm going to be starting a new job and will not be home at dinner time. I have never frozen meals before (well except left over spaghetti sauce).

How long does a frozen meal last? If the meal is already fully cooked how do I know what temperature and for how long to cook a meal that's been in the freezer without ruining it?

Can I freeze everything? Even mashed potatoes?

I really don't want to be cooking every morning so I would rather cook extra food and freeze it.

Thanks for any advice.

[trotsky]

1. Invest in a vacuum sealer.

Seriously. The food will keep in the freezer for at least a year that way, plus you can put it all on the plate and seal the whole plate. Then just unwrap, microwave, and eat.

Getting that vacuum sealer means we can finally go to town at Costco and load up on stuff without fear of it going bad.

[seaglass]

10. That definitely sounds like a good idea. Thanks. n/t

[OldLeftieLawyer]

2. In my experience ..........

.......... the most important aspects of freezing are:

1. make sure you wrap things securely so they're airtight;

2. label them with a Sharpie so they're easy to identify;

3. never freeze stuff with dairy in it - like, leave the butter and milk out of the mashed potatoes until you reheat them;

4. invest in some good freezer-to-microwave-to-table items, like the kind they sell at Target.

I've frozen everything, including two of my kids (they escaped, though), and, really, there's very little you can do to screw it up.

Good luck with the new job, and Happy New Year.

[seaglass]

9. Yeah, I once mistook ground pork for ground hamburger.

Wasn't good.

Thanks for your input and Happy New Year to you too.:party:

[amazona]

3. I do lots of frozen meals

I'm sorry, I think that once potatoes have been frozen they are NASTY. I won't even eat a frozen french fry.

Learn to love pasta and rice, they are your friends. But the taste of anything with potatoes in it is just wrong after being frozens.

The frozen meal pretty much lasts forever in the freezer. Take it out and defrost in the fridge the day before you plan to eat it. Then you can just nuke it a couple minutes, stir, nuke another couple minutes per serving.

Nothing to it really.

Soup, chili, pasta sauce, meat balls all freeze and defrost very well.

[seaglass]

6. My kids love pasta, it's one of the only things they agree on

so that works for me. I wonder if even a casserole with potatoes in it would be bad - is it the taste or the texture?

Thanks for your reply.

[Habibi]

4. The vacuum idea sounds good, also try

a crockpot, if you haven't already. You don't have to "cook," exactly, you just throw some meat and vegetables and a liquid of some kind (sauce, broth, etc) into the pot before you go to work, and you have a hot meal waiting for you when you get home.

I know that doesn't address your freezer question, but I wanted to plug the crockpot because it really does help you save time.

I'm not sure how long frozen meals are officially, erm, *viable*, but I try to use everything up in my freezer within six months of putting it there. Just my thing. There are books out there about putting food "by," and have good advice on freezing foods. Also, your local extension service will be able to give you some great tips--for free! Google your area and "extension service" to find one near you.

Cooking a meal already frozen is a puzzler, and I'm always experimenting with that. Are you going to nuke the meals? Put them in the oven?

[seaglass]

5. I forgot all about a crockpot, that's a great idea. I was actually

thinking about heating up the meal in the oven instead of the microwave. The only thing I use the microwave for is bacon and popcorn and when we have canned vegetables.

Thanks for your help.

[NMDemDist2]

7. all the above, let me emphasis the "airtight" part. I freeze a lot of

uncooked meals or entrees IE meatloaf (I make em 6 at a time), put them in foil loaf pans with a foil cover all inside a zip lock bag. I can take them out of the freezer, remove the foil cover, put in the oven in the morning and set the oven to start an hour before I get home. That way the meatloaf is half done when I walk in the door and all I have to do is whip up some instant mashed potatoes and a veggie in the microwave

casseroles are the same, I make them up and freeze them, then let them defrost in the oven that is set to start before I get home (you can do the same for the family)

the crockpot is totally my friend also

probably shouldn't let anything go longer than 6 months as a general rule.

[seaglass]

8. Do you freeze casseroles uncooked too? Does it really only

take 2 hrs to defrost and cook an uncooked meatloaf? I'm not being a smart ass, I've never cooked a frozen item, especially an uncooked frozen item before.

I guess I'll need to get an oven with a working timer.:-)

Thanks.

[Aunt Anti-bush]

13. With things like meatloaf...

and larger meals, you should cut them down into portions. I have a lot of flat containers that I can put a couple of slices of meatloaf, a lump of mashed potatoes and green beans on the side. Then, freeze a bunch of those. Make sure you label everything!

When you're ready to eat it, heat it up similar to the way you'd heat up a hungry man dinner. That way, rather than a couple of hours for cooking, it's only a few minutes. That is assuming you have a microwave.

[NMDemDist2]

14. yes, and no

yes I freeze them uncooked and no it takes all day to defrost

I take a frozen casserole out of the freezer and put it in the cold oven where it defrosts for 6 hours or so until the oven timer switches on the oven. The casserole or meatloaf is now pretty much defrosted and it starts cooking, but it isn't so defrosted that it's a health hazard :)

a working timer is kinda important tho........

[seaglass]

18. Oops that was really stupid of me. You can tell I'm a great

cook, huh?

Thanks. I'd probably have one of my kids or my husband start the meal, I'm sure they could manage to turn the stove on:-)

[kitchen girl]

11. Potatoes get really gross.

Mushy, and starchy - I think it ruins the flavor of the whole meal. I freeze a lot of foods successfully, and the two things I will not include in a meal to be frozen are potatoes and greens (spinach, etc.). Greens get black and slimy. :puke:

[UncleSepp]

12. A rice cooker is a good thing too

You can put the rice cooker on, put the frozen whatever in the microwave, and have stuff on rice pretty easy. If you have a little bit more time and energy, you can put frozen whatever in a wok and fry it while the rice is cooking, and get a nicer taste and texture than out of the microwave.

There's a non frozen mashed potato product, Simply Potatoes, I think. It is in the refrigerated case at the grocery, and comes in a wedge shaped plastic container. The whole thing goes in the microwave, and it keeps in the fridge for a week or so.

Raw stuff like carrots and beets get really floppy and funny when you freeze them. If you want to make fast soup, you can wash, peel, cut, and then freeze all the soup veggies. Then you can just throw the frozen veggies in the pot with the broth, heat it up, and as soon as everything's hot, it's tender enough to eat with out having to cook a really long time.

Outside of the freezer, one nice thing you can do is to cook a big batch of pasta and put the pasta in the cold part of the fridge in a sealed plastic bag. It will keep for 5 days or so if it's drained first. Then you can just match a frozen sauce to the pasta and bing! it's dinner. Not that pasta takes that long to cook, but you only have to wash the pasta pot and strainer once for a week of noodles :-)

[seaglass]

16. Unfortunately I will not be able to do the final putting together

of the meal because I'll be working 4p-1230a. I'm sure there are some last minute things I could have my husband do though.

I never knew that about pasta. I wonder if I could make buttered noodles and put those in a plastic bag in the fridge and then just reheat.

I have a feeling this will be experimental for a while.

[LeftyMom]

15. There's a book called Once a Month Cooking

that should help. If you google you should be able to find sites with OAMC boards and recipes, as well.

[seaglass]

17. Great, thanks I'll look for that, I really need recipes. n/t