*Not AIBU but wanted the traffic* Healthy, homemade freezer meals you can bung in the oven

[sirlee66]

Hi everyone! Apologies for posting on AIBU! Really need the traffic because preggers hormones are making me anxious and if I don't sort out these freezer meals soon I feel like I'm going to crumble into a giant mess!!!

DS1 isn't due until April but I keep reading that you should want to fill your freezer with a load of portioned freezer meals because you won't want to cook.

I know what I'm like and if I don't sort something out.. it will be take aways and ready meals pretty much every night leaving me feeling shit and, as we are on a budget, it's not something we can afford unless it's a real special treat.

Trying to think of dinners and lunches that I can make, freeze in those individual aluminium trays (like from the takeaway) then, when needed, bung straight into the oven.

Also fairly healthy... like SW friendly stuff as I'm planning on breast feeding. (Don't actually follow SW but I know they're food is lower % mince and hidden veggies etc)

I can think of:

Shepard's pie
Bolognese (boil pasta on the day)

And now my mind's gone blank!!!!
Any help/suggestions would be hugely appreciated! TY!

Curry
Chilli con carne
Soup
Chicken in sauce - white, tomato, take your pick!
Pasta sauces that you can just defrost and pour over.

I make:

Fish tagine from BBC good food
Chicken Korma from the hairy dieters book
Lots of soups
Bolognese with extra grated carrot or lentils. Can be used in wraps, or throw a tin of chilli beans in it and make it into a chilli
Fish pie
Lasagne
Fish cakes or bean burgers

Also I always put mine in plastic tubs. Then I can microwave them from frozen.

Fillings for pies, i do cheese pie, spinach pie, leek and Stilton pie, then defrost and use shop bought pastry.
Mousaka works well just like lasagna.

Ratatouille. It freezes really well. Heat it up and just cook some pasta/rice/ jacket potato to go with it.

What does "posting for traffic" mean?

There's a selection of freezer meal recipes here that you may like to try

www.buzzfeed.com/melissaharrison/freezer-friendly-meals?utm_term=.tl719AxzV6#.obWnb0B2Kr

Also I'd get some snacks in for when you're breast feeding as you do get hungry, also bottles of water for me to stop me getting dehydrated . Lunchtimes food that you can prepare quickly and eat with one hand would be good too.

If you're making anything like Bolognese, chilli, lasagne, add in some red lentils. You'll get more protein and a bit of an iron boost and use less mince - bulks it out without making it bland.

If you're making soups, use the little plastic freezer boxes (you can get them in Poundland or Wilko) - you won't want to bake soup and if you're a bit brain-fogged and very tired it's worryingly easy to put a metal takeaway container in the microwave to defrost

There's also these batch freeze recipes

realfood.tesco.com/recipes/collections/freezable-recipes.html#1IRWpJZMJ4dtlOZM.97

Thank you so much!!!! Some amazing recipes! Especially adding the red lentils in - never thought to do that! Thank you!!

Cottage pie, shepherds pie, Aubergine parmigiana, moussaka, fish pie, sweet potatoes topped with taco mince (sweet potatoes can be baked and then frozen they're v handy).

NewPage

'post for traffic' means OP put this in AIBU as it a is busier topic than say, Food. More traffic, as in people are likely to look at AIBU.

We've just filled our freezer for this very situation. We did:

Chicken curry
Veggie chilli
Goulash
Beef and cranberry stew
Beef bourgingon
Bolognese
Vegetable soup

We filled all the sauces with fresh veggies and will chuck in some fresh spinach etc when reheating, and have bought microwaveable bags of veg and rice to go with it.

I make spaghetti bolognaiss sauce and the mince for shepherds pie (cottage pie? Mince beef basis) using a lid of veg blitzed into it other than the onion and garlic - a couple of carrots, a half a pepper, couple of handfuls of mushrooms, for bolognaise there's more tomato and pepper; for sheep pie there is often a bunch of broccoli as well as a good handful or 2 of peas (peas are left whole).

Smoked fish (cod or haddock) poached in milk. Make a white sauce using that milk. Flake the fish into chunks. Chop broccoli in to small florets and lay across base of the tinfoil tray, put fish on top and pour over sauce. Top With mashed potato, a thin scattering of breadcrumbs and a good handful of grated strong cheddar. Really quite nice.

Chicken cooked with some onion and a loaf of mushrooms. Add a dash of white wine (alcohol burns off, don't worry), and reduce a little bit, add some chickens stock and some cream. Season with tarragon or them if you like. Can be served with rice (best with tarragon) or pasta (best with thyme as seasoning) or as a pie under pastry or mash. Basic mix with less liquid also works well on toast - or do just a mix of mushrooms and no chick, but to use thyme and some Parmesan to season as a veggie option.

Chilli - beef or veggie
Curries - loads of chicken ones, lamb rogan josh is great for freezer, or veggie ones.

Mince and onion gravy (with added carrot and/or peas) to serve wit boiled or mashed potatoes.

Cauliflower in cheese sauce freezes well, to have with a grilled chip and boiled spuds, or throw some potatoes in to bake while reheating caulk in oven.

Sorry for this on phone, hope they help a bit.

Things in sauces so they aren't dry

I’ve got one! Kebab - get thin slices of beef and marinade overnight in grated onion, turmeric, olive oil and any herbs you fancy. Wipe off the onion and freeze the pieces individually.

Because it’s thin it defrosts quickly and cooks fast on a griddle (you can grill it too).

Meatballs
Tomato sauce to add whatever you want into
Curry

Just sandwiches for lunch with a baby I’d have thought? Toastie if you’re feeling posh!

Not freezer meals but make sure you have plenty of potatoes in. When all else fails, baked potato with tuna and sweetcorn or beans and cheese is a guilt free emergency meal.

Same as scrambled eggs on toast or beans on toast.

Be kind to yourself in those first few weeks and remember that you don't have to make, or eat, a full blown meal if you don't want. Many bf new mums want little and often just like their babies.

I have the sainsbury book of freezing (amazon second hand 3 quid) which has loads of different foods with recipes designed for freezing. It's a great book because it has bog standard ingredients and doesn't have a lot of fiddly nonsense - great for me now (DD is 6 months) and great for the newborn stage.

One other great thing for my freezer (following on from the great tip about plain tomato sauce - I completely forgot how great that is for just adding leftover cooked chicken, some fried bacon lardons or grilled sausages or rashers chopped up, or just sliced and fried mushrooms!) is roast veg.

I often make a batch if I am doing a roast anyway, freeze some uncooked for easy "midweek" roasts (or post-baby) with a couple of baked potatoes (or roast if you can be bothered to peel), and a lamb chop/shank or chicken joints (drumsticks, oyster thighs or part boned breasts) in particular as the meat part. Or alongside a larger joint to get leftovers - but everything just slides into the oven to be ignored. And cooked leftovers are great to freeze too, to either have as the veg alongside a grilled chop, sausage, chicken, or steak with some potato (plain boiled, baked, mashed - anytype!).

Dice your veg into similar sized chunks - about 1-2 cm is great. You need onion and garlic, and then whatever you have: peppers, mushrooms, courgette, aubergine, tomatoes are great in it. Season with salt, pepper, dried thyme or dried oregano or dried basil (or a combination), a slug of balsamic vinegar and some olive oil. Leave at least 20 minutes (can keep in a Ziploc bag in the fridge for 2-3 days, or as I said, freeze some still raw). Roast at 180 for roughly 20-30 minutes, until nice and soft and cooked through. I tend to cook a large tray with my roast, as the oven is on anyway, and freeze a few single person/meal portions to add to tomato sauce and some meat/mushrooms or alongside another meat and potatoes type meal.

Another veg thing I have prepped in the freezer is roasted root veg. LArger chunks of red onion, carrot and parsnip, with some butternut squash or similar if you have it. Season with salt, pepper, thyme, rosemary and olive oil. Again, leave at least 20 minutes before cooking - it freezes great uncooked, but once cooked I tend to make any leftovers into soup with some veg stock and just blitz - but that soup does freeze well too.

When b'fing, I found I needed to sit with a few things in easy reach. Muslin. Sudoku book, pencil, tv remote. A large mug of tea, a pint of water, and a stack of 3 fig rolls. (The liquids were always much needed, you get quite thirsty - but I found I needed some food too and fig rolls were a little bit treat-ish but not as bad as chocolate biscuits and had the added benefit of improving my fibre intake (quite important!) and counting towards my fruit/veg intake too).

OMG - please excuse all the typos in my first post - I just hope you can understand what I was trying to say. I really hate my phone and its' predictive text choices when I am slightly fat fingered!0

Noodles are great- may not be the authentic thing to have with a pasta sauce, but fine egg noodles cook in 3 mins (in fact they're passable if you pour boiling water on and let them stand)

It's useful to have lots of boxes of cooked meat, chicken cubes and the like, so you can add a sauce according to how you feel when you come to eat it.

Remember to label everything accurately, not just the main ingredient but how you've cooked it and what you've added to it.

Agree with using plastic boxes - it's easier to tip something into an ovenproof dish than it is to defrost in the microwave something that's in a foil container! Don't rely on your ability to think ahead when sleep deprived.

We always make extra and freeze in plastic tubs to heat up in the microwave. Ours are mostly "Bolognaise" (any meat and vegetables in tomato based sauce) various meat and vegetable curries, chili, goulash, stew and dumplings, casseroles.

We re use Chinese takeaway containers which we know hold enough for one family meal, we just put on rice, pasta or couscous to go with them, or just nice bread if we can't be arsed to cook at all. All the above foods taste just as good reheated in the microwave, it is not like eating mass produced microwavable foods which generally taste shit.

I wouldn't bother with foil containers and ovens. If you have the oven on anyway for e.g., baked potatoes, then just empty the plastic container into an oven proof dish with lid to stop it drying out

Zucchini (courgette) zoodles in a tomato based mince sauce. Carb free(ish)!