The joys of freezer cooking

[Mtngrl]

We just spent 11 days out of town visiting my husband's parents. After a two-day drive we got home about 6 last night. Instead of going for take out, we had homemade tomato soup and grilled cheese sandwiches on homemade bread. Breakfast this morning was blueberry muffins. Dinner tonight is pulled pork.

All this was stuff that was in my freezer -- all I had to do was pull it out and thaw. Faster, cheaper and better than any take-out.

To stock my freezer I use a combination of days devoted to cooking stuff to freeze, and doubling whatever I am cooking for dinner and freezing half.

[Heckler]

My lovely better half cooks up a storm and freezes ready to go "tv dinners".  As in 5 lasagnas take just as much effort as one.  20 burritos rolled up and frozen are immediate lunches.  Turkey soup after thanksgiving isn't a leftover - it's 12 lunches frozen, ready to go!

[dougules]

Yes, good thread.  We make homemade soup by the gallon and freeze it, nothing like that nasty canned shit. 

A freezer really goes well with a garden, though.  My grandmother gave us her old freezer, and we filled it full of pizza sauce, veg gumbo, fried okra, squash wedges, eggplant stirfry, etc. all from homegrown vegetables.   

[Rosy]

It is nice to have dinner ready to be thawed:)
Whenever it is harvest time - my freezer is stacked. It is full now.

[iris lily]

My lovely better half cooks up a storm and freezes ready to go "tv dinners".  As in 5 lasagnas take just as much effort as one.  20 burritos rolled up and frozen are immediate lunches.  Turkey soup after thanksgiving isn't a leftover - it's 12 lunches frozen, ready to go!

Thats funny because the first two things on your list are exactly the things ive got in our freezer.we finished all of the turkey soup weeks ago.

[jkitiara]

How do you freeze individual servings of things? Everything I freeze gets freezer burn if I don't use it within 30 days or so. Any tricks?

Also, how do you thaw? I know things like lasagna can go right into the oven and soup into a pot, but I don't have a microwave so thawing other things can be time consuming or dry out the food horribly.

[bobechs]

Also, road-kill is much more harvestable in the winter.  Plus the coats of furbearers are at their best.

In the summer it can go bad in what seems like minutes, and the speed within which it becomes subject to insect or scavenger attack makes it almost not worth stopping.

Best to grab all you can in the cold months and freeze the excess for later and just don't even try when the daily high is above about eighty-five degrees.

[Kitsune]

How do you freeze individual servings of things? Everything I freeze gets freezer burn if I don't use it within 30 days or so. Any tricks?

Also, how do you thaw? I know things like lasagna can go right into the oven and soup into a pot, but I don't have a microwave so thawing other things can be time consuming or dry out the food horribly.

You want to reduce air contact with food... So, a sealer, or a ziplock Baggie with a straw to get air out, or something like that. Also, "frost-free" freezers have slightly fluctuating temps (the freezers on top of fridges, especially) which seems to aggravate the issue.

Thawing... Don't? Straight into the pot/oven/toaster oven. Or stick it in the fridge to thaw the night before, and it should be mostly thawed by dinner,

[RedmondStash]

I do a lot of big-batch cooking too, and freeze, typically individual servings for lunches. I find freezer burn's effects can be ameliorated somewhat by putting that stuff into soup.

It took some persuading of spouse to get the big standalone freezer, but now we are both glad we have it, and it's full pretty much all the time.

My coworkers buy lunches from take-out restaurants and food trucks almost every day. I generally bring in something I cooked and froze. Not as tasty sometimes :), but definitely healthier.