Feed the freezer recipes

[Amys1st]

Now that the weather is autumn approaching, I need to stock my freezer with extra meals. During the summer, we eat so much fresh meals it dosent make sense, never mind not using the oven if need be.

I;m pretty sure we all know how much time and money can be saved by feeding the freezer. Now that school started up again, we have meetings etc during the week as well as other things that come up, it makes more sense to take something out of the freezer than taking out from a restaurant. So I am done preaching to the choir,

Share with me your best feed the freezer meals. I have about a dozen or so that I already do, but I am interested what else is out there for some variety...

[moms3kids]

I just did my shoping for the next 4-6 weeks (depending on when we eat other places Family/friends not mc'd's LOL) I'll be feeding my freezer tomorrow some fried chicken legs, chicken casserole, chicken pot pies, twiced backed potatos, mashed potatos, and a few other things but not sure yet...
AMY please share you meals, i may want recipes!!!

[Amys1st]

I feed the freezer w/:

Chicken Dumplings (minus dumplings make those fresh when eating defrosted chicken part)
Beef strognaoff
chicken, bean, beef enchiladas
pizza dough
chickn parmesion
beef stew minus pototoes
chili
lasagna
ckn ad mushroom lasagna
mannitcottis
thai stir fry beef
swedish and regular meatballs frozen into balls ready to fry
cookie dough made into cookies
turkey meatballs
crab cakes
pulled pork bbq

also:
shredded cheese
chopped up veggies to cook w
pesto sauce from our garden
sauce from our garden
peppers chopped from our garden
chicken breasts
beef patties


whats in the chickn casserole?? I can share any recipe here...

[mmgarda]

Oh wow

I WISH I had a big enough freezer to do that! If we ever move into a house with an attached garage, I definitely will get an extra freezer!

Right now, I feed my freezer:

broth
leftovers if I make a big batch of chili or soup
frozen veggies
frozen fruit (I've been slowly buying, chopping, freezing and bagging all summer)
meat
bread

Occasionally I do pizza dough, gravy, casseroles, muffins. And when I HAD a garden (I let it die this year - too hectic w/ FT work and the baby. . .) I always did as much pasta sauce loaded with veggies as I could.

[mamanurse]

Cheeseburger Pie
Browned Ground Sirloin (95% lean)
Frozen Peas and Carrots
Mashed Potatoes

Top with cheese after baking at 350 for ~40 minutes. Can also be served with sour cream and chives.

Gyros
Whole Wheat Pita Bread
Extra Fine Ground Lamb
Mint
Garlic Salt
Tzatziki Sauce
Feta Cheese
Red Onion
Tomato
Cucumber

Make the gyro loaf ahead of time and freeze. Other ingredients are easy to stock and prepare. Combine lamb with chopped mint. Mix with garlic salt and place in a loaf pan. Bake loaf on 400 for ~30 minutes. Slice thinly and lay back in pan. Broil until ends of pieces are slightly crispy.

I also keep homemade:
lasagna (meat & vegetarian)
tomales
black beanenchiladas
vegetables
mashed potatoes
squash
chicken soup
creamed spinach
meatloaf
gravy
tomato soup
stuffed pasta shells
ravioli (not homemade)

[famousmockngbrd]

Subbing in hopes of getting some recipes for stocking the freezers of new mamas. Especially vegetarians!

[ozzyemm]

subbing also!

There is a chili recipe (veggie) I found thru google. http://vegetarian.allrecipes.com/az/...gtrinChili.asp

This is great for getting rid of very ripe veggies. I add extra carrots, and DH doesn't even notioce there are carrot
s in this recipe!!!

[Amys1st]

So far these are great ideas! BTW- I dont have all that stuff at one time!! Thats just my repetiore and its getting boring. Sometimes though when the freezer is stuffed, we need to eat the meals down or if someone needs a dinner delivery, I take them one.

[moms3kids]

The chicken casserole is ...
1 # speghetti noodles
2 can (or home made usally) cream of chicken
1 can cream of celery soup
3-4 c. chicken broth or stock
1 c. butter
1 c. sour cream
2-3 c. cooked cubed or shredded chicken
2 c. shredded cheese

Mix all, separate into 2 pans and freezer ....

cook at 350 about 45 min or so

[Anguschick1]

Amy:

Can I have your Ckn & Dumplings recipe? I want to take a couple of frozen meals w/us on vacation - doing all the prep work here and just defrosting and eating while we're on the road.

I feed the freezer;

Pesto (except this year the *#@$#$ squirrels and rabbits ate all my basil)
Minestrone
Meatloaf
Shredded Beef BBQ
Italian Beef
Chili
Spaghetti Sauce
Meatballs
Cabbage Soup
Taco Meat (Freeze the spiced ground beef, then just reheat while chopping lettuce for taco salads)
Oatmeal Raisin Chocolate Chip Cookies (Freeze spoonfuls of dough - just pull out and bake what I need)
Apple Pie Filling

I normally can Butternut Squash Soup, Apple Butter & Apple Sauce, but we'll have to see if I can get apples this year. Also - those same *#@$#$ squirrels and rabbits ate my squash, so I'll have to look into buying some of that.

I have a new Mac & Cheese recipe I want to try - think I can freeze it?

[Lilcrunchie]

enjoying this thread...i'm getting ready to compile my list of things to feed the freezer before i give birth to DC2.

I did a lot of freezer cooking before DS was born and quite a bit while he was an infant. It made dinner much easier.

So far for this time, i'm thinking:
Sloppy Joe meat mixture
Lasagne roll ups (easier to pull out as many as needed vs. a whole tray of lasagne for just DH and I and the toddler)
Meatballs (flash frozen). Can be used w/ spaghetti or eaten on a roll as a sandwich.
Bean/rice/cheese wraps on tortillas (handy for quick lunches)
Chili
possibly roast beef?
shredded bbq chicken from crockpot?
Quiche and strata
Lots of quickbreads and muffins and granola bars (I'm always famished nursing in the early weeks)

ETA: meatloaves

Definitely looking for some other ideas and will use this thread to help me plan

[CryPixie83]

Does anyone know if you can freeze chicken salad? It's just cubed chicken, mayo, grapes, nuts, maybe some celery...

[Amys1st]

IM experience, I have had trouble with freezing:

potatoes
rice
mac n cheese

I made up meatballs raw and frooze them individually before putting in a bag. This way we just take out how many we need and cook them.

Em- I will give you the recipe tomorrow at LLL if you're still in town

[Anguschick1]

Yep, I'll be there...I'm thinking about bring the boys too... Can I have your manicotti recipe too? :

This week I grilled a whole chicken on Sunday, so Tuesday I made chicken soup. After we ate what we wanted, I kept out a bit for lunch this week & froze 3 bags in individual servings. Let it cool off in the pan, spooned into quart freezer bags, laid flat to freeze...easy peesy.

Lilcrunchie: What's a lasagna roll-up?

CryPixie83: You probably can freeze ckn salad, but I'm not sure I would. When I freeze celery it always becomes very mushy and watery, fine for soup, I wouldn't think so good in ckn salad. I'm not sure how grapes and mayo would work either. Sorry, that's probably not what you wanted to hear.

I googled "chicken salad freeze" and 3 different places said, "it is not a good idea to freeze chicken salad" (or some variant of that phrase.) Here is a pdf doc that discusses how to treat chicken;http://www.uwex.edu/ces/wnep/teach/n...ad%20freeze%22

Tonight we had beef stroganoff...hmmm I probably could have frozen it if I didn't add sour cream to the whole batch...that's ok though, the fam LOVES their stroganoff, so the leftovers will be gone before the weekend.

[Lilcrunchie]

lasange roll up

A lasagne roll up (in our house anyway LOL) means that I just take the cooked noodle, and lay it vertically in front of me. I take a spoon of filling (ricotta, mozzerella, egg, and seasonings, sometimes finely chopped chicken or ground meat too), and spread it along the length of the noodle. I then roll it up, jelly roll style I guess.

I take these and flash freeze on a cookie sheet until firm...about an hour, and put into a freezer container. THen I can pull out as many or few as I want at a time. Top with sauce and bake. For DH, DS and I, I'll pull out 6-7 rolls. THat way i don't have a huge pan of lasagne to use up since there are only 2.5 of us to eat it. For us, it works out better if I'm looking to make bigger quanities but in smaller serving sizes.

Does that make sense at all? :

[Anguschick1]

It makes sense to someone who makes lasagna...

Can I have your recipe for the meat, cheese, egg, seasonings? I've only ever made barilla no-cook lasagna before, so I'm not familiar w/the how "real" lasagna is made.

[Lilcrunchie]

I usually just follow what's on the box (bag over head), or wing it.

It is ricotta, mozzerella, 4 eggs, salt, pepper, basil/italian seasoning, and I put in a little garlic powder. If I have chicken or ground meat (cooked), I might layer that. I did chicken recently (finely chopped and tossed into the ricotta/mozz mixture), made the rollups, and topped with a white sauce. It was good

[Amys1st]

Hey Em, we need to have a cook off or something. I never knew there was a recipe for lasagna (italians have their own recipes for everything) and I just always made it on auto pilot since I watched my grandmothers and mom make it so many years :


For chicken and Dumplings:

I make it w chicken breasts just for sake of easy but some use whole chickens.

I cut up the chicken into chunks, bread it w some flour(mixed w salt pepper a bit of seasonings). Then brown it in some olive oil on low to mid heat. After browning it lightly I put the chicken aside and add a cup of finely chopped onion, celery, and carrot to the pan. Add a bit more oil and fry it until the onion is slightly browned. Add 8 oz of sliced up mushrooms. Sautee them and then add a 1/2 cup of flour to the mixture. Then add a cup of stock. Mix into a nice sauce adding spices that your family will enjoy. Then add the chicken back in and cover and cook on low until chicken is cooked thru.

For dumplings- I make from scratch w flour, baking powder and milk and butter. I add some greens to it to see them in the pot.
Take a half stick or less of butter, melt in a small pot. Add 1 cup of milk.
After butter melts, add flour mixture of
2 cups flour
1 T baking powder
1 t salt
a samll handful of green herbs for flavor/texture
Mix into a dough, let cool a bit and roll out. Cut up dumpling and put on top of chicken mixture. Cover and let them cook. Serve after.

Remember- this recipe makes lots of dumplings! I put the greens so I make sure that my family also eats the meat and not just the dumplings!!

For freezing- I will divide the batch in half before adding the dumplings. Freeze half like it is (after cooling). When its time in a few weeks to eat the other half, defrost and make fresh dumplings (takes 5 minutes). When the chicken mixture is simmering, add the dumplings and done!

[Amys1st]

Originally Posted by famousmockngbrd

Subbing in hopes of getting some recipes for stocking the freezers of new mamas. Especially vegetarians!

I make eggplant or zuccinni parmagion. Also most curry dishes can be frozen and made ahead of time. Also bean burritos or enchiladas.

[mamadege5]

Amy1st~ I am SO trying that chik/dumpling recipe. thanks for sharing.

Anguschick~ I make my lasagna no-bake also. I double the ingredients and freeze one pan. You can freeze before baking, and bake partly frozen, (it takes a little longer) or bake part of the time, thaw and finish cooking time.

mamanurse~ (or anyone) WHERE do you find ground lamb? mmmm I love gyros and that sounds e-a-s-y!!