Freezer friendly recipes for young toddler please :o)

[WSM]

Helloooo, only me.

Am currently experiencing my bi-monthly SAHM/ready made food paranoia. Her menu seems to be soooo repetitive at the moment, due to my laziness in the kitchen rather than her fussiness TBH. It seems to consist of boiled eggs & soldiers, fish fingers and alphabites (her absolute favourite), jacket spuds with cheese, ham & cheese toasted sandwiches and a few other freezer/convenience bits and bobs.

When I was weaning her I would have freezer full of bags of ice-cube baby food made by my own fair hands, but I seem to have run out of steam/ideas/knowledge now that she is a toddler eating pretty much what we eat. In theory making her food now should be more straight-forward than it was when I was making purees but I'm finding it increasingly difficult to come up with anything other than shepherds or fish pie !

Anyway, I've rambled on more than I intended to here so here is a brief round up...

** DD is nearly 18 months
** Is not vegetarian and has no allergies (that we are aware of yet)
** Eats pretty much everything including red meat and fish, pasta and rice (so sauces for these are welcomed !)

Ideally these recipes will be suitable for microwave reheating.

Thanks for listening !
WSM

spag bog sauce

chicken casserol
ceheese and bacons auce

Homemade burgers go down well, there is actually a recipe for them in this months Prima Baby mag. bolognaise sauce, - you then just need to cook the pasta. Cauliflower cheese.
Cook mini sausages and then freeze them. Hope this helps!

Any kind of pasta bake, eg: veggie, tuna, bol, ham you get the idea!!
Shepherds / cottage/veggie mince pie.
Fish pie.
Sausage and baked bean casserole.
Mash with veg or ham or cheese in.
Basic sauces for pasta frozen in little pots.
Homemade chicken nuggets or burgers or fish cakes.
If only my DD would eat this kind of food!!!!!

Lr how is life in devizes?

oooh wsm - i will post later with some ideas....off to make ds's tea now but will come back later....

Trowbridge, Coddy!!!
It's fine here. Have you seen the thread for Cribbs meet-up?

WSM - I have had the 'urge' this week to fill my lovely new US - style massive freezer with home - made goodies for my ickle Ela too!

I have made:

Chicken Fingers (cut up breast of chicken into strips, shake ina bag which has a bit of flour, paprika and pepper, roll in a bit of oil and bake until golden)

Potato & veg pie (layer slices of potato in a dish, put a layer of, say, tomato then peas then broccoli or other veg, another layer of potato, layer of cheese, then pour a couple of eggs beaten with milk to cover the wholle thing and bake in the oven)

Mashed potato and carrot (self explanatory - but can add parsnips etc.)

Sauce with 'hidden' veg (tin of choppen toms, in saucepan with any veg you can find, liquidise and pour into ice cube trays) - good or mixing into pasts or (dd's fave) mashed into a jacket pot.

Hope the above help. They all freeze really well and the mashed pot is esp good I think cos I always fall into the trap of giving DD potato waffles and similar, but this is better.

x

Hi WSM

I do this quite a lot, in fact I often make double of stuff when I am cooking for dh and I and freeze the rest in little pots (I use the plastic kid's party pudding bowls from waitrose, then dip them in hot water to get the contents out and defrost/reheat in microwave)

Egs of this are

Chili Con Carne - make separate for dd with less chili powder, also cook lots of brown rice and freeze a layer of rice with layer of chili on top)

Any pasta sauce, freeze with wholemeal pasta all mixed in.

Tuna mix - ie white sauce with tin of tuna and tin of tomatoes stirred in, add peas/sweetcorn/any cooked veggies chopped small. For us I add tabasco etc, but for dd just freeze with rice or on it's ow and cook a jacket potato.

Mini fish pies

Also a really good quickie, if I have rice left over I freeze that in little pots and then just defrost in microwave and stir fry with any bits of meat/bacon/fish and veggies that I have handy, also chop in a tomato.

Sausage casserole

Can't think of more at the moment!

It is hard to be inventive isn't it?
I do often make or buy pancakes and stuff them with different things and bake in the oven eg cheese, ham and mushroom; Tuna, cheese and veggies etc.

ps Mum2Ela very jealous of your FF

Cd - my FF does crushed ice as well as cubed - I sit at home all day eating slush puppies!

Moussaka - with the aubergines/potatoes chopped smaller than normal

Lamb/tomatoes/red pepper casserole

Like CD I usually make sure there are leftovers of anything I am cooking and freeze a couple of toddler sized portions. A v. quick and easy snack which dd loves at the moment is warmed pitta bread with houmous
(And not to ignite the debate on how to say/spell it again, but she gets in from nursery, runs to the fridge and shouts um-us, um-us until we get it down for her)

CD - I do that too!

Dd's faves are: stew and mash and thai fish curry. But I also freeze portions of things like pork chops (cut up into little bits) with whatever we're having with them. Plus roasted vegetables go down well (again, cut up into little bits - the crispy bits go soft, but dd likes it anyway).