Feeding the freezer ideas « Back to Group Discussions

[LightForest]

I'm beginning to think about foods I'd like to make for the first few weeks postpartum. I'm due the 9th, DH will take 2 weeks off work, then my in-laws arrive in town to help out on the 20th. That means that if the baby is born at all early, I may be on my own with DD and the baby for a few days (or, omg, weeks) before reinforcements arrive to rescue me!

I've gotta figure out some really really easy meal ideas!!! I'll share some of my thoughts below (not that I plan to make all of these things, but this is the list I will be working from), and I'd love to hear what you're all planning to make. I need inspiration!!!

For the freezer:

Tamales (cheese, seitan, mushroom)

Lasagna (spinach)

Enchiladas (kale, potato)

Black beans

Chili

Pot pie (vegetables, seitan)

Tofu burgers

Baked seasoned tofu

Mung bean salad

Lentil soup

Tempeh bacon

Seitan loaf

Cooked brown rice, barley, quinoa, millet

For the fridge:

Peanut sauce

Soy/sesame sauce

For the pantry:

Granola

[withlittlelungs]

Yay! I need more ideas as well!

Freezer: 

Turkey Chili

Shepherd's pie

calzones

Lasagna (one meat, one spinach)
broccoli cheese chowder

meatloaf

meatballs

stew

muffins (banana, blueberry)

waffles

quinoa pancakes

crepes

Pantry:

lactation cookies

chex mix
 

[LightForest]

withlittlelungs, calzones is a great idea!!! seems like a great alternative to frozen pizzas, which tend to take up too much space in the freezer! do you cook them at all before freezing, or do you just do all the prep and freeze them raw?

i've also not though about freezing muffins - that sounds awesome too. yummm...

[jodieanneanton]

Calzones!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Now I am hungry!!!!!!!!!!! :D  Love all the ideas so far!

WLL- What are lactation cookies? (Although I may not need them if they increase supply considering I always have TOO much milk!) They sound so interesting!

[withlittlelungs]

Cook and then freeze, according to the website. I haven't tried yet! http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-calzones-and-freez-151276
 

[LightForest]

Originally Posted by withlittlelungs 

Cook and then freeze, according to the website. I haven't tried yet! http://www.thekitchn.com/how-to-make-calzones-and-freez-151276
 

I'm for sure bookmarking this recipe. I'm excited to try my favorite pizza as a calzone: BBQ sauce, chicken (I use a fake chicken or seitan cause I'm veg), sharp cheddar, and caramelized onions!!! I'm torn on whether to include the sauce inside or to freeze it separately (then reheat the sauce for dipping while the calzones heat). I love a lot of sauce so freezing it separately might be best, even though it means that much more work to reheat.

[Melany]

I've already done a few things since we have a deep freezer and you can put stuff in there for up to a year. We bought a side of beef a while back and that is taking up A LOT of space with the 3 whole turkeys we have in there, so I'm getting nervous that I may not be able to plan too far ahead. So far I have 1 big gallon ziplocs ready with a turkey with wild rice soup from Thanksgiving. I also have 2 casseroles in there. Pete asked me not to fill it, which is problematic with the "nesting/planing" stage I appear to be in. I also froze a ton of fresh corn this summer and then partitions that into 1 cup servings, but it looks like we've eaten a lot of that, oops!

What I did last time was to make a HUGE batch of meatballs, bake them and then freeze them on cookies sheets. Then you can put the frozen meatballs into a big ziploc and only take out what you need because they are not frozen as a giant mass.

I make homemade tomato sauce and there is always a little extra. So, I freeze the extra in a freezer jam jar. The smaller jars seem to make a 1/2 serving for our family. Since I've been freezing that every time I make the sauce, I have about 1/2 dozen of those. Meatball sandwiches are very tasty, for some reason I liked those postpartum.

Meatloafs in a muffin tin. Line the tin with parchment, freeze it uncooked and then pop them out like ice cubes. When you want to make them, you pop them back into the muffin tin to defrost and then cook. This one assumes you are buying non-frozen meat, though. If I use what we have, mine will need to be cooked before I freeze them since our beef is frozen. 

I am tempted to try the parchment/pop it out frozen on some pot pies. My MIL apparently used to make regular pies and freeze then, pop them out of the pie plate and wrap and store frozen solid. Then when she wanted a pie, you can bake from frozen, so she would just pop it into her pie plate and bake one. With my glass pie plates, I think I'd either have to grease it or use parchment to get it out of the plate once it is frozen solid, but I think that has got to work for some pot pies.

I am tempted to pick up some larger freezer jars and go soup crazy. Those are easy to reheat during the day.

Calzones.... Mmmm.... I may have to do that one. 

[cabbitdancer]

I wish we had more space in our freezer. My mom has talked about picking up a storage freezer for us when she comes to visit before the baby, so maybe I'll have a freezer to feed. :D

Otherwise, I'm all over freezing crockpot meals in a ziploc and then dumping them into the crockpot when it comes time to cook them.

[cocoanib]

This all sounds so good! I wish it could magically appear in my freezer :)

Originally Posted by LightForest 

I'm beginning to think about foods I'd like to make for the first few weeks postpartum. I'm due the 9th, DH will take 2 weeks off work, then my in-laws arrive in town to help out on the 20th. That means that if the baby is born at all early, I may be on my own with DD and the baby for a few days (or, omg, weeks) before reinforcements arrive to rescue me!

I've gotta figure out some really really easy meal ideas!!! I'll share some of my thoughts below (not that I plan to make all of these things, but this is the list I will be working from), and I'd love to hear what you're all planning to make. I need inspiration!!!

For the freezer:

Tamales (cheese, seitan, mushroom)

Lasagna (spinach)

Enchiladas (kale, potato)

Black beans

Chili

Pot pie (vegetables, seitan)

Tofu burgers

Baked seasoned tofu

Mung bean salad

Lentil soup

Tempeh bacon

Seitan loaf

Cooked brown rice, barley, quinoa, millet

For the fridge:

Peanut sauce

Soy/sesame sauce

For the pantry:

Granola

[Melany]

Originally Posted by cabbitdancer 

I wish we had more space in our freezer. My mom has talked about picking up a storage freezer for us when she comes to visit before the baby, so maybe I'll have a freezer to feed. :D

Otherwise, I'm all over freezing crockpot meals in a ziploc and then dumping them into the crockpot when it comes time to cook them.

The original reason we purchased a deep freeze was for breast milk back in 2006. :) I've come to find out that I really appreciate having the long term freezer storage. When the turkeys are on sale at Thanksgiving, we always buy extras and it's nice to know they don't go bad. And, when I was pumping a ton at work and my daughter was reverse cycling, I ended up freezing enough milk in the deep freeze to donate to a milk bank. That made up for (mentally) the supply issues I had gone through with my son.

The crock pot isn't a bad option, if you like soups. 
 

I'd love to hear some tried and true crock pot options that aren't just soups/chilis that I could ziploc and freeze.

[withlittlelungs]

Originally Posted by jodieanneanton 
WLL- What are lactation cookies? (Although I may not need them if they increase supply considering I always have TOO much milk!) They sound so interesting!

Jodie- http://leakyboob.blogspot.com/2010/04/lactation-cookies-recipe.html
They are supposed to help boost your supply. I had no supply issues with DS, but I am a little worried about feeding 2. 

[jodieanneanton]

Can I say I LOVE that there is a blog called "The Leaky Boob"????   :D

Thanks, WLL!

[spughy]

Oh, this is something I need to do more of...

I already have a couple meatloaves frozen and some soup canned.  DH wants lasagna (which will be challenging given that he's not eating dairy or wheat ) - I'm inclined to just make and freeze a bunch of spaghetti sauce portions.  I made a delicious moroccan beef stew last week which was *intended* for the freezer but we accidentally ate it all because it was so yummy.  Oops.

I might pre-make bases for things that we all like so that DH can throw them together (or I can do with a minimum of effort) - like the vegetable mix for rice pilaf,  some more bone broths for the rice or for soups that DH or I can just throw vegetables into... I guess I could also make some chili, that's easy enough to freeze - and some more stew, if it makes it to the freezer this time!

Melany, your freezer sounds like ours.  Except mine is actually 2 freezers since I inherited one from my sister when she left town last month.  There's a significant portion of a cow, lots of frozen fruit, some lamb, chicken and pork, two ducks and various odds and ends.  Which reminds me, I need to make headcheese...I got the bulk pork delivery when I was in my first trimester and the thought of boiling a pig head for hours - in the summer - just did not work for me.  Now though, I figure if I can watch an episode of Bones AND eat dinner at the same time, I obviously don't have any kind of nausea issues.    But I've been going through the freezer stuff at a pretty good clip so both freezers are about half full.  DH would of course prefer that I get rid of one of them at this point (like, maybe the ugly one parked outside our kitchen? lol) but I am seduced by the space.  I don't want to give the extra freezer up.  I am a bad, bad person.  But when the apocalypse hits, a whole lot of people are going to be my friends because of those freezers.

[Melany]

spoughy: You can't get rid of the spare, where would you put the breast milk? ;)

During my first pregnancy, I made a ton of freezer meals at about this point. Then, I got really tired during the last month and we ate every single one. I figured, I'd make some more in the last couple weeks, but baby had other plans and decided to show up a few weeks early. It was amusing after the fact. 

[spughy]

Originally Posted by Melany 

spoughy: You can't get rid of the spare, where would you put the breast milk? ;)

During my first pregnancy, I made a ton of freezer meals at about this point. Then, I got really tired during the last month and we ate every single one. I figured, I'd make some more in the last couple weeks, but baby had other plans and decided to show up a few weeks early. It was amusing after the fact. 

LOL.  I'm not actually planning to freeze any breastmilk - I don't have to work until baby is old enough to eat people food so there's no real reason to.  With DD I pumped a bit and saved some for a friend but it wasn't much and fit easily in the freezer above the fridge.

And that is exactly what I foresee happening if I freeze meals now - I mean, really - the stew I made for the freezer was just so good and so already made that it turned into dinner...then lunch...then another dinner... then some more lunch... didn't even make it to the freezer, never mind stay there until the birth!

[maydaymom10]

Originally Posted by withlittlelungs 

Jodie- http://leakyboob.blogspot.com/2010/04/lactation-cookies-recipe.html
They are supposed to help boost your supply. I had no supply issues with DS, but I am a little worried about feeding 2. 

OMG - I lived on lactation cookies with DS. I swear that they did help my supply. And now they are one of DH's favorite. 

I'm starting my freezer cooking tomorrow. I definitely need to get stocked up. Also, a site that I go to is posting a mini-menu of easy assembly foods - it's called Once a Month Mom.  I'm planning to check it out and see if it might work for me. I think I will use a lot of the ideas that you all have posted as well -- Thanks!

[cabbitdancer]

Melany, http://www.crockpot365.blogspot.com/ has a number of pretty good crockpot recipes that aren't soup. Our favorite in this house is the enchilada casserole. Of course, we add a ton more cheese and a couple of other extras, but it's still very good as is. I can post more in the recipes discussion, too...

[chocolatechip]

All of these ideas sound delicious! I don't do a lot of cooking of things that go to the freezer, so inspiration helps a lot. My husband and I have also been paying attention to what meals we make that are just ridiculously easy, so we have some meals we know can be thrown together quickly as long as we have things in the house (baked chicken, baked winter squash, and steamed greens, for example).

cabbit, would love to see your recipes!

I don't really understand why those lactation cookies help with supply - they just look like delicious cookies! So, great excuse to eat delicious cookies. ;)  (maybe I should make some of those to put in the freezer, except that cookies in the freezer don't ever last long for me...)

[spughy]

Originally Posted by chocolatechip 

I don't really understand why those lactation cookies help with supply - they just look like delicious cookies! So, great excuse to eat delicious cookies. ;)  (maybe I should make some of those to put in the freezer, except that cookies in the freezer don't ever last long for me...)

The oatmeal and the brewer's yeast are both good for milk supply.  But you could also just have oatmeal for breakfast and a pint of guiness for lunch, that would work too.  

[SamSarah]

I love this post - thank you

- Spagetti Sauce

- Mac and Cheese - made where half the bulk is whole wheat pasta and the second half is steamed mixed root vegetables - a perfect winter comfort food.

- Soups in large canning jars

- cashew cream lasagna

I'm noticing a trend of too much pasta in the freezer.  I'm excited by the enchilada idea I read  - will go that root. 

Thanks!