My Cooking Blog

For more easy and great meal ideas, whether for freezing or for easy meals to make after the baby comes, check out my cooking blog:

http://www.disfordinner.blogspot.com/

Frozen Meal Ideas

I found the book Frozen Assets Lite & Easy: How to cook for a day and eat for a month, by Deborah Taylor-Hough, to be very helpful with ideas, planning, recipes and how-tos. I got it at my local library and highly recommend you see if your library carries it! Many of the following meals come from this book. (Amazon link)

What I made

Chicken:

• Cranberry chicken (Crock Pot)
• Chicken soup (Crock Pot)
• Chicken broccoli Noodle Bake
• Old Fashioned Chicken and Rice
• Spanish Chicken and Rice
• Chicken Pasta Italiano
• Creamy chicken casserole (Campbell's recipe)
  
• chicken in a pot, no pie (RR recipe, see left)
• Chicken Enchiladas
• Chicken Vegetable Skillet
• Chicken Tortilla Casserole

Ground Beef:

• Beef macaroni and cheese casserole
• lasagna
• baked ziti
• easy shepherd's pie
• Taco bake (crock pot)
• Pasta sauce
• Stuffed Green Peppers (crock pot)
• Taco casserole

Beef:

• Beef stew (crock pot)
• Beef Stroganoff (both prepped for crock pot and some precooked)

Other:

• Tomato tortillini soup
• BBQ Pork Roast (crock pot)
• Mexican Noodle Bake
• Couscous Bean Paella

Breakfasts:

• Streusel Bread
• Struesel Muffins
• Pumpkin Muffins
• Cinnamon Rolls

Other frozen items to keep stocked:

• Costco sized bag of frozen mixed veggies
• Costco sized bag of frozen mixed berries. Great for fruit smoothies I make w/ soy milk!
• Costco sells individually wrapped chicken breasts (both seasoned or not) that freeze and cook wonderfully!
• Costco also sells really really delicious thin pizzas (boxed packs of 3)
• Smart Ones lasagna (delicious!)
• whole wheat waffles
• whole wheat bread
  

Pantry items to keep stocked for quick meals:

• pasta and rice
  
• cream of chicken/mushroom soup
• canned tomatoes (diced or stewed are my favorites. crushed are good to have around too)
• canned peas (or frozen ~ less sodium)
• Pasta sauce
• Boxed soy milk (from Costco)
• cereal (I like Special K Red Berries)
  

Frozen Meals - Rachel Ray

Rachael Ray's Frozen Meal advice and recipes:

http://tinyurl.com/2fmuqz

If you are motivated, make enough meals to freeze. After doing this once, you will want to do it again because it will save you so much time and energy for busy weeknights. If you want to save the day for a friend about to have a baby or who needs an extra hand with their family, deliver a basket of meals - to be frozen or eaten later in the week. Make sure to have everything ready to be frozen and labeled with re-heating instructions. My friends and I refer to this batch cooking as a "cook off" and we have in the past set aside an afternoon where we will cook double or triple batches of 3 or 4 items and freeze into family size meals. When my daughter was born, my husband and I managed to eat out of the freezer for two months. It was a lifesaver. Some go-tos for cook offs are pounded, breaded chicken cutlets that can be eaten on their own, in sandwiches, or on top of salads. Double wrap in plastic wrap and throw in freezer bags. We always pick one soup and then two dinners - with 4 meals of each. It is also nice to freeze a breakfast bread (pumpkin, banana) or muffins.

Soups and chilis freeze well in freezer bags - just portion out into 4 portions or however many suits your family (do not freeze cream-based soups or stews however - dairy desn't seem to do well after freezing in my experience). I usually use 2 1/2 ladles per serving. Be sure to write the name of the soup or chili on the bag and the date - it's amazing how chili can look like pasta sauce and I've learned the hard way - I am psyched for some soup and end up with sauce with no pasta in the house.

I always try to have some foil square casserole containers in the house for lasagnas and baked pastas which also freeze well. Again, be sure to label the meal and write reheating instructions. These types of dishes take longer than you think - from the frozen state, think 2 hours sometimes, so you probably don't want to eat at 10 o'clock!

Here are some good make ahead dishes from the site, all good candidates for freezing:

Soups and Chilis (be sure to cool completely before putting in freezer bags. Thaw and reheat on stove):

Veg-Head Three Bean Chili

Buffalo Chicken Chili

Chili Con Carne

Chicken Noodle Soup

B, L, T & P (Bacon, Leek, Tomato & Potato) Soup

Mini Chicken Meatball and Orzo Soup

Casseroles/Main Dishes (again, let cool before freezing. Use a disposable foil pan, wrap in saran wrap, then foil. Defrost before reheating at 375 degrees with foil on (take off saran) for 30 minutes or so, take off foil and continue for another 30 minutes or until heated throughout.):

Tomato, Basil and Cheese Baked Pasta

Ravioli Lasagna

Lasagna Casserole

Sausage, Mushroom and Polenta Lasagna

Chicken in a Pot, No Pie

Crispy Chicken Cutlets (just make the chicken, not the sauce)