bulk cooking/freezing food

[mrsSmurf]

Hi I'm looking for ideas/recioes of foods that I can cook up and just bung in the freezer.

We will eat most things except lamb and fish.

Any ideas? Fed up of cooking every night but don't want to rely on ready meals and takes aways.

I have in my freezer portions of chilli, stew, sausage casserole, savoury mince, rice pudding, plain sponge puddings (to add jam/fruit or syrup when serving) Portions of sliced beef/lamb/chicken in gravy, roast potatoes, home made soups

I love my pressure cooker/slow cooker !!!

You see, I love the idea of cooking once, eating twice but when you cook for 6 (2 adults, 3 teenagers and a 7yo) plus odd friends it starts to get a bit like bulk catering to double up!

notapizzaeater...thanks thats the type of things i want to do. at the risk of sounding a bit thick with the chilli etc do you have to defrost it first?

goingmadinthecountry...can see why it wouldn't work for you, there is only 2 and a bit of us.

Shephards pie, fish cakes??

I have a huge 6.5 litre slow cooker, if you just managed one extra portion each time eventually you'd have a meal for you all.

If I think on I pop it in the fridge to defrost but if not then I just zap it in the microwave for about 6 mins .... I freeze shepherds pie/fish pie in "pot" or foil dishes and reheat them in the oven (prefer the topping oven baked)

what are you best slow cooker recipes notapizza, I seem to always cook the same lamb stew...

For savoury mince, (used as a base for shepherds pie) I brown the mince, pour off fat, add onions then empty the fridge of all the dieing veg (carrots/leeks/parsnips/celery/toms) chop into small pieces add, lob in a tin of chopped toms add about another tin of water (sometimes add red lentils - in which case add more water) add herbs, pepper (no salt as DH and DS are salt addicts) pop lid on and cook for hours. I thicken with cornflour as DS coeliac but you could use gravy granules.

Chilli - same but kidney beans, baked beans & peppers for veg and tom puree & dried chillis to suit

Sponge pudding I make a big maderia cake then cut into squares and freeze.

I do a chicken and mushroom casserole adding chicken pieces, tons of mushrooms, onions and cooking - sometimes add dried chicken soup/mushroom soup to it.

I make stock in mine by cooking the bones off the chicken with bay leaves, herbs, onions and cooking for hours.

Rice pudd in slow cooker is fab.

I also do a chicken korma in mine with a pataks korma paste and freeze the extras and a beef bourgioff (sp ???) - brown cubes of stewing steak or braising steak, add tons od onions or shallots, mushrooms, lardons lob in a whole bottle of red wine (hate the stuff unless its cooked so whatever is on offer at supermarket) and cook.

thank you so much notapizza, shall be trying these out soon..big shop tomorrow so going to try out the casserole and korma...I'm a coeliac too so good tip for me

I made some meatballs the other day - I had to cook them cause I'd got a huge pack of mince out of the freezer. I froze them then just reheated them from frozen (when I spent too long at a friend's house ) with some frozen tomato sauce.

I did the tomato sauce with all the veg left in the freezer and a tin of kidney beans. I blended most it smooth but left a batch to add mince to make chilli. If you put a freezer bag in a mug, it makes it easy to fill and is a good portion size. Uses less space in the freezer than tubs or boxes.