The Freezer–Your Fast Food Friend
By special request, this week’s pointer is all about making your freezer the go-to-spot for Fast Food. We all have days when we cannot or do not want to cook a meal for our families or our selves. On those days, it is tempting to drive through the closest over-priced, over-processed, calorie laden ‘dining’ establishment or pick up the phone to order in. With current price increases, a ‘dinner’ at most fast food restaurants (which will lack balance but be calorie, fat and sugar laden) will cost the equivalent of 3 or 4 healthy dinners at home. Instead, why not have on hand meals that you have prepared with fresh, healthy and economical ingredients?
Freeze-ahead meals are also ideal for those times when you know you will be preoccupied or unable to cook–a new baby, an upcoming move, surgery, house guests, vacations, extra commitments, celebrations, etc.
In addition to saving time and energy prepping and cleaning up, freezing meals ahead allows you to take advantage of grocery store sales, stick to a budget, reduce waste, cut your utility bills AND have a variety of dishes for every meal available at a moment’s notice.
I first learned the joy of freezing ahead soon after marrying. Growing up, I was accustomed to cooking for as many as 14 people every night. Even without guests, our dining room table always had a minimum of 8 people around it. The first few times I cooked for my new husband and myself, we had such a large number of leftovers that I was forced to package the food into meal-size portions and freeze it. There was no way we were going to waste the food or eat spaghetti for 6 nights in a row. I felt foolish until I realized that coming home from work at the end of a long day, dinner was in the freezer! A few messes and cooking sessions yielded us dinner for weeks.
Since those early days, I have continued to cook ahead and freeze entrees, breakfast items, sandwiches, baked goods (cakes are better if frozen while warm), lunch-sized portions of leftovers, cheese, baby food, diced onions and even chopped garlic. Items that are much cheaper in bulk (like chopped garlic) can easily be divided down into smaller portions and frozen.
There are multiple methods for freeze-ahead cooking. Whichever methods you choose, there are some fundamentals that you should adhere to:
- 1. Review the information found at the National Center For Home Food Preservation, found at http://www.uga.edu/nchfp This site is well researched, easy to use and scientifically sound.
2. Label your food with contents & date prepared!
3. It can also be helpful to keep a list of what you have ready in the freezer.
4. Always practice safe food handling! Thaw your food in the refrigerator, cool in the refrigerator before cooking or cook directly from the frozen state. Keep your hands and work surfaces spotlessly clean during all prep work, cooking and clean up.
5. Don’t hesitate to save a single portion of food. Wrap it, label it and put it in your freezer. These are great for off-schedule dinners, lunches and meals in a hurry. It can also be fun to have a ‘cafeteria’ night when you heat up all of the small portions and everyone gets to have their favorite. We used to play restaurant with one child taking orders from the available meals.
6. You don’t have to start with ‘once a month’ cooking. Simply double a recipe and freeze half. If you do this a few times a week for a month, you will soon have a great treasure in your freezer.
7. Simplify your clean up by using disposable pans or lining baking dishes with a layer or two of foil. Once your food is frozen, you can remove the foil ‘packet’ from the pan, ensure that it is well wrapped, label it and freeze. When it is time to thaw, simply place the packet back into the pan for baking!
8. Don’t mass-produce a recipe you haven’t tried.
9. You can cook and freeze just the meat of a recipe, such as hamburger, chicken, etc. This is a great way to take advantage of sales (especially marked down items nearing their expiration date), while cutting down on prep and clean up. I can cook 30 pounds of hamburger, seasoning with the ‘basic’ seasonings I use in nearly everything, divide it into meal size portions, package it and have it ready for the freezer in less than an hour. When it is time to prepare a meal, having the meat cooked cuts cooking time and mess by at least half. For meats such as pork chops, cook the meat until it is just barely done. Cool and freeze quickly. By doing so, you won’t over cook the meat or cause it to dry out.
10. Nearly any meat that is served in a gravy or sauce does well in the freezer. One exception is a sauce heavy in sour cream, which might separate when frozen.
11. Freeze small amounts of left over vegetables and meat trimmings in a bag. When you have a bagful, boil into a stock that can be used to flavor rice, make soup, gravy or added to recipes calling for stock.
12. Most cookie dough and bread dough can be frozen. Many baked goods freeze beautifully!
As with most things having to do with living providently, freezing ahead conserves your resources today and prepares you for whatever tomorrow brings. To find more information, helpful hints, recipes and even message forums, check out these websites:
http://members.tripod.com/~lotsofinfo/index.html
http://www.once-a-month-cookingworld.com/
http://snider.mardox.com/OAMC.htm
http://busycooks.about.com/od/makeaheadrecipes/a/cookOAMC.htm
There are tons of great sites out there devoted to this topic, so do a google search if you don’t find what you want here!
