I received this post on freezer cooking on another group and thought that some moms might be interested in this lady's tips. I LOVE to freeze meals! It ultimately saves so much time!
Lisa Metzger
Hi Ladies. As a former owner of a Super Suppers, a meal assembly store, I wanted to jump in on the discussion of freezer friendly meals.
- I would suggest you go online and search out Super Suppers, Dream Dinners, My Girl friends kitchen and many more. The corporate office will post a monthly menu and you can see for yourself all the different ideas to make ahead and freeze.As a rule of thumb, we would guarantee everything in a freezer for at least 2 months. If you use freezer bags, just double bag and you have over 3 months worth of time. You can use regular weight bags but always double bag those.We always got our meat in frozen and had to thaw hamburger and flank steak in order to rebag it for the customer. This is perfectly fine as long as you only do it one time. So, store to freezer, to thaw, to make up, to freezer, to thaw and cook. That is allowed by the health dept. as long as you thaw in the fridge.
- Meatloaf is easy to make in mass quantities. You can make meatloaf balls, meatloaf in into muffin tins, meatloaf in loaf pans. We would 30lbs of meat in a dish tub and just mix it with our hands (in gloves). This is something the kids would love to do.
- Bag cheap red meat with a marinade and freeze. It will marinade as it thaws and be delicious. It can be served with a potato or sliced on a salad. Or used in a stir fry.
- All chicken meals were done with frozen chicken, just add them on top of a casserole. Rice was always precooked and mixed in or frozen in a baggie to be microwaved.
- Raw potatoes can be frozen but our meals only used them in the crockpot but that means you could pre-mix stew and have a child throw it into the crockpot. Just let thaw in the fridge over night (check the bag seals to make sure they are closed.)
- Egg casseroles were packaged with the egg mixture in a baggie, to be thawed and poured at the time of cooking.
- Premake pizza or calzones...let thaw and rise before baking.
- Anything calling for cream sauce will be using a combination of cream of mushroom and cream of chicken soup.
- Keep in mind that things like spaghetti sauce can be made by just dumping the ingredients into bags, mashing with your fingers and freezing. For example, ravioli with tomato cream sauce would be packaged as a bag of ravioli, a bag that had sour cream, tomato sauce, red wine or broth, Italian spices. That is it. You fry the ravioli, thaw the sauce and warm up.. Easy, served with parmesan cheese and a salad.
- Shrimp scampi is just shrimp frozen in a bag with white wine or chicken broth, garlic, salt and butter. You sauté it from frozen and boil the noodles. Easy.
- Make egg burritos and freeze in wax paper for a microwave breakfast.
- When making something like chili, if you use canned beans just dump in a bag with the tomato sauce and spices. Brown meat before adding and than seal. Or, make up a big batch of ground meat and freeze in qt. baggies.. Than you just have meat to use for anything.
- If there is a sale on canned apples buy them! Put in baggies with cinnamon and sugar and freeze. Heat in crock pot for a hot applesauce or serve over ice cream. Use the apples to make cobbler or pie ( uncooked pies freeze great!)
- I do not think there is anything we did not freeze at my store.. That was the beauty in it. Freeze cinnamon rolls, punch, cookie batter, veggies, fruit.
- We told everyone that you can cook from frozen, just add 30min for every 6 servings and check before serving.
A lot of folks would come into my store who have no time to cook for their families. I would always tell them that having pre made food in the freezer frees us up to be a blessing to others. When you hear a friend is sick or a baby is born or whatever, you just have to go to your freezer and pull out a meal and drive over.
For what it is worth, these are a few tips from the professional side of the meal assembly business.
Bethel, mom to 14
|
Feb. 22, 2009 - Freezer Friendly Meals
Teisha Havnaer-midtownnc@dreamdinners.com