What are your stand-by freezer/ quick/ minimal prep meals?

[Grockle]

I'm ill. I need food that I can shove in the oven & forget. And, stuff that DS can put in the oven if I am too unwell. Needs to be appealing to a7 yr old & a foreign 11 yr old. I don't eat hot food so it's not for me. DS loves pasta but I don't want him to eat it every day.

We have:
Pizza
Chicken (well, fake meat) nuggets & chips

Erm, that's it. What else can I whip out of the freezer & serve as a vaguely nutritious meal?

Chilli
Spag Bol
I make nuggets by getting chicken and doing egg and bread crumbs. Freeze between sheets of baking sheet stuff. Make spicy ones for dh. Much better than shop ones if you have the time to prepare in the future.
Fish cakes

Thanks.

I should have said, we rarely have meat in the house & don't eat chicken at all (hence, fake chicken nuggets).

I can do spag bol but it's not a quick, straight out of the freezer... I'd have to make it first then freeze which I'm not always able to do.

I know you said not too much pasta...

these 2 are not bung in the oven ones, but they are fast and simple.

Boil water, add pasta, a few minutes before the end, add frozen peas and frozen green beans. Boil until all cooked. Strain, pour in serving bowl, dump pesto from a jar on top, stir and stick some cheese on top. Takes 15 minutes max, including waiting for water to boil.

Boil water, add pasta, when cooked, strain and put back in pan. Add passatta from a jar and mini mozzarella balls from a bag and heat for a moment or two until warm, but moz balls not completely melted. Tip in serving bowl with a few fresh basil leaves on top. Again 15 minutes max.

Fish fingers, beans and chips! Bung in the oven / microwave

Jacket potato with beans and cheese, tuna mayo and sweencorn, or whatever you fancy. I always find as long as you put a bit of salad on the plate, it looks more like a main meal. I microwave potatoes, and oven at the end to make them a bit crispy. You can buy the toppings as sandwich fillers if you do not think you are well enough to prepare.

You said not much meat in the house, but ham egg and chips makes a good meal, and you could use fake ham instead. Its a bung in the oven one, bar the fried egg.

Sausage and yorkshire puds (bung both in the oven) for a deconstructed toad in the hole, served with whatever veg you have in the freezer which can be nuked in the microwave. Gravy can also be brought!

Thats off the top of my head...

Oh yes, jacket spuds! Of course, thank you. Egg & chips is a meal in itself... I should have thought of that!

And, whilst I don't want to cook more pasta, I'm always happy to have new suggestions of how to serve it. We often have pasta/ tortellini with peas/ beans & cheese. Always goes down well & requires no preparation at all.

Thank you.

The GoodLife nut cutlets are really nice (from the freezer section in Waitrose or Sainsbo's)

Big pan of roast vege? Lovely with bought yorkies and gravy, and maybe some frozen peas.

Sweet potatoes as a change from normal baked, but put them on a baking sheet as they ooze stuff out that drips and burns in lumps in the oven!

Do you really mean that you don't eat hot food, ever?

Oh and hope you feel better soon.

Thanks Remus - I will stop at Waitrose tomorrow to look for nut cutlets.

I currently don't eat hot food except porridge (rarely) and toast (a few times a week). I don't know why I can't eat anything else, I just can't! I think once I start to get better, I'll be back to eating most things. I hope. A diet of cereal & toast gets a bit dull & children demand proper meals.

Oh you poor thing. At times like that, I always think jelly is a good option. Hope you're finding lots of lovely cold things to eat - fresh mango maybe, or a lovely salad? I had a nice one in a pub today that had pomegranate seeds and edamame beans amongst other stuff.

I have a grocery delivery tomorrow afternoon so have just added mangoes & pomegranate. I love both of them. It's hard for me to peel & prep food so I cheated & ordered the pomegranate seeds rather than the whole fruit

Don't blame you - they don't half make a mess! Love them though - and v good for you too. :)

Huevos Rancheros. Pan top dinner. Takes about 10 mins - ish
In a deep frying pan fry onion and any other veg you fancy chopped small with garlic and mixed herbs. When soft add a carton of pasata and tom puree. I add bacon, hot dogs chopped up, or chorizo/salami at this point. I've even made it with tinned tuna or left over chicken. You can leave the meat out but I don't eat the egg bit so I have the meat. When bubbling plop an egg in for each person and cover with a lid so the eggs poach. Serve with bread. (and lots of chilli sauce in my case)

Sounds really good, merly thanks. I made ratatouille with an egg in it last year - DS loved it. I guess it's more or less the same thing. This thread has really helped me sort out my grocery order for tomorrow. Thank you

I also do pasta with smoked salmon and cream. Fry smoked salmon sliced into bits for 2 min, add precooked pasta and cream. Fry spring onions too if you can be bothered. Salad on the side.

Soup also good. Pea soup is super easy...fry some onions, add a load of frozen peas and stock, boil for about 3 min, whizz up, add mint if you want. Serve w rolls and cheese.

Grockle, I also have beans and couscous as a super quick meal. Pasta sauce, add a tin of three beans mix, heat. Pour boiling water over couscous, leave for one minute. Serve.

Thank you. I'm really fussy about fish as well as meat & Dc won't eat cream cheese, so can't do the smoked salmon thing but sounds lovely. This thread has been really helpful & I've used it to plan the rest of this month's meals. I remembered that I used to make things like Spanish Tortilla, gnocchi, quiche etc all without too much effort so I am trying to include things like that too.

Still, I have no idea what to do for DD's dinner tonight.

A variation on the salmon suggestion above.
Pasta, cream, frozen peas, smoked salmon (Waitrose sells trimmings, so you don't even need to cut them.)
Boil pasta, towards end add a ton of frozen peas. Drain but leave in/return to pan. Pour in cream and smoked salmon, warm a couple of minutes in the pan.

An absolute favourite here (in a very meat eating family) is River Cottage Veg's Chickpeas with spinach and cumin.

Made with passata (instead of fresh tomatoes) tinned chickpeas and frozen spinach it's ready in minutes

Sweat a chopped onion for a few minutes, add teaspoon ground cumin and pinch of chilli flakes and cook a minute more. Add carton of passata, drained tin of chickpeas and 5/6 "cubes" of frozen spinach. Simmer until spinach heated through. Serve with pitta bread or couscous.

will they eat soup? we had soup prepared almost entirely with frozen veg last night - chopped onion coooked in olive oil (we have chopped onion in freezer, but you could use fresh). Add the same amount each of frozen spinach and frozen peas. Cover generously with vegetable stock (powdered and dissolved with hot water from kettle).

Cook for about 10 - 15 minutes.

Then blitz with a handblender, ground nutmeg, squirt of lemon (from lemon juice stored in fridge) and salt.

Pour into bowls and top each with a generous dollop of greek yoghurt. Delicious. easy. Serve with bread/toast.

Polliadh - I used to do a mushroomy version of that. I bought some tinned mushrooms (I'm so embarrassed - I used to be a real foodie, cooking everything from scratch using quality ingredients ) so could do that.

The chickpeas with spinach & cumin sounds lovely. I love both. Thank you - I will add to my menu plan.

And yes, they eat soup - I have done a 'what's left in the freezer' soup and they loved it! Thank you for the suggestion.

Gnocchi is quick and can be cooked from the freezer.
My mind is blank apart from that right now!

Yes, gnocchi! DS loves it. I didn't know it could be frozen.

I now have pies, mash, stirfry, assorted veg etc in my freezer. And some ready meals

Ready meals! That's the spirit, Grockle.