GF meals I can freeze - ??

[rachie]

I don't have much experience freezing meals to start. In addition I don't have any experience freezing gluten-free meals. (recently learned my son must be on a gluten-free diet)

I'm 34 weeks pregnant and do NOT want to end up on fast food all of post-partum like the last two times. Plus ds can't have that stuff anymore anyways.

My main concern was how brown rice pasta will freeze?

Also - can I have dh BBQ a bunch of chicken and freeze that or will it freezer burn really quick?

Oh - and how 'bout a gluten-free quiche (will that freeze ya think?).

I'm also wondering if I can make a big batch of GF waffles and freeze those so they can be popped into the toaster. Just not sure if I'll end up with yucky-soggy waffles??

[BetsyS]

I don't freeze pasta. Just the sauce, then make fresh pasta.

The one exception is chicken tettrazini (one of my favorites). But, I'm not sure about the rice pasta and texture.

Some things I recently froze after a new baby. My goal was 25 meals or mostly meals, and I did that:
vegetable soup
gumbo (then made fresh rice to eat it)
spaghetti sauce
tettrazini
smoked chicken
smoked pork (to use for burritos, nachos, salads, whatever)
waffles and pancakes (I reheat in the toaster oven; not perfect, but good enough)
red beans (then made rice fresh)
taco meat and refried beans (will make the rest of the meal fresh)
fried chicken (reheat in the oven to make it crispy)
tortilla soup
meatloaf
mashed potatoes (just made, froze in ice cream scoop sizes on a cookie sheet, store in ziplocs, reheat as many as I need into mashed pot or with extra milk, into potato soup)
marinated chicken (for dh to grill)

Since it's summer, I wanted to go lighter on the casseroles this time. It's worked very well for us.

[damona]

i have no idea about the waffles or quiche... maybe do a small batch as a trial run? i have a recipe for buckwheat pancakes that do freeze pretty well, if you want you can pm me for it.

about the pasta, my suggestion to you is to freeze the sauces, but not the pasta. it's easy enough to boil up a big pot of pasta and it will keep in the fridge for a couple days, just dunk it in boiling water for a minute or 2 to freshen it and heat it.

i sometimes make big batches of spaghetti sauce or soup and freeze it, then add the noodles when i thaw it.

i make bacon cheeseburger pasta where i cook the ground beef and chopped up bacon with garlic and onion, then stir in a carton of gf tomato soup. you can freeze it at that point. then when you thaw it out, put it in a skillet and heat it up, then add cooked pasta and top with shredded cheese, if you do dairy. it's just as good without.

cooked meats freeze well, as long as they're wrapped carefully.

potatoes don't freeze well, in my experience. if they're only in for a short time they're ok, but longer than a couple weeks and they get a weird texture.

rice freezes ok as long as it's in some kind of sauce.

hth!

[rachie]

Thanks :)

Thanks - you're giving me some great ideas

I wish ds would eat the buckwheat pancakes. He's not a big fan of the bw - but sometimes I sneak a little bw flour in with the others anyways

I wish my family was bigger on soups, chili, etc... (I am )

I just have to make sure I have QUICK and EASY stuff ready as possible to go for when dh is doing the meals (depending on how fast I recover I'll be OK with some prep but the easier I can make it on me the better, kwim?). Dh is used to something that is low or no prep (grew up on microwave dinners - just stick it in there and it's done- and pre-made/packaged foods/snacks - EH!!). He swore he'd be cooking with the first baby - didn't happen - it was "you want Del Taco, Burger, etc.. I'll go GET it" - I started cooking WAY before I was feeling better because I couldn't stand any more fast food!!

I need at LEAST a week of EASY FAST meals he can pull out and heat up - he is NOT used to cooking or handing out snacks. Me - I'll dice fruits, blend avocado, mix batter, etc.... him - not so much or at least not very often and not when we have a newborn and he'll be taking over the kids for me a lot and helping me with the baby (so I'm thinking).

I feel like I'm gearing up for battle - survival - LOL! I've just GOT to have this stuff in order so we won't all starve or end up on nasty greasy fast food for the first week or two!

[kjbrown92]

Things I've frozen:
chili
chicken broth (quick soups, and onhand for gravy)
meatloaf
meatballs (then I can make them into Swedish meatballs, throw them in soup, or make spaghetti and meatballs)
chicken mirabella (slow cooker)
chicken marsala (slow cooker)
pulled pork (slow cooker or oven)
pork and kraut (slow cooker)
curried fruit (as a side dish to serve with meats)
salisbury steak with gravy
enchiladas (I use sorghum and tapioca starch to make tortillas; if you can do corn, then you can get them easily enough probably)

We do buckwheat pancakes or waffles and freeze the leftovers. To me, the waffles taste a little better when they're thawed (in the toaster), but my kids will eat either. I use light buckwheat (Bouchard Family Farms). I'm not a fan of the regular buckwheat. We've also frozen blueberry muffins (I usually use sorghum flour for those). I freeze cupcakes (no frosting) in singles so that whenever there's a special occasion I can just take one out and whip up a little frosting and we're good to go. And chocolate chip cookies.

[cristeen]

For my pp period, I froze raw meatloaves, pan and all.
Enchiladas without the sauce (I use jarred sauce, so I just made sure to have 1 jar per pan of enchiladas in the pantry)
Pumpkin Moussaka
2 kinds of soup
Corn on the cob
I also had several whole chickens in the freezer that could have gone directly into the crockpot, but we wound up not using them.

[BetsyS]

I do increase my grocery budget for the weeks immediately before and after a baby. My dh is not a good cook. And, I relax my standards A LOT.

I made a list of easy meals and snacks for him, prominently posted on the fridge. He was actually very thankful for that. I needed a Rx after the baby, and our pharmacy is in the grocery store, so I sent him with a short list right as we got home. (He also took our oldest, so it was a good outing for him as well).

Snacks:
-bananas
-blueberries (these just happened to be in season as I got home)
-yogurt. Normally, I feed them homemade yogurt with jam. For this season, I bought the lowest sugar prepared, individual cups of yogurt I could find. Daddy is happy, boys are happy, mama is happy.
-cheese and crackers. I even bought Kraft "cracker cuts". :roll
-pickles
-chips and salsa
--there were others as well. I actually sat down and figured out 14 different snacks that dh could easily serve.

Lunches/easy meals:
--quesadillas
-leftovers
-mini pizzas
--and then I thought of 7-10 easy meals (beyond our frozen meals) that he could make. Some of it is stuff we don't normally eat, but it's better than Taco bell, you knwo? (and I totally understand--I came home with #1, dh left, and he went and got us TB; I was like--dude, I need REAL food).

[rachie]

list for dh

Originally Posted by BetsyS

I do increase my grocery budget for the weeks immediately before and after a baby. My dh is not a good cook. And, I relax my standards A LOT.

I made a list of easy meals and snacks for him, prominently posted on the fridge. He was actually very thankful for that. I needed a Rx after the baby, and our pharmacy is in the grocery store, so I sent him with a short list right as we got home. (He also took our oldest, so it was a good outing for him as well).

I think I will do this - post it on the fridge and all too for dh and if my mom or mil comes to help/visit the new baby and kids.