DC3 due on Sunday and need some freezable meal ideas, please

[WinkyWinkola]

Every week, what standard meals do you cook?

We're all getting tired of shepherd's pie, meatballs, lasagne etc.

Anyone got like five or six easy meals they could recommend me, please?

I'm due dc3 on Sunday so I can't think straight and could do with stocking up the freezer pdq.

TIA.

I love to browse through recipezaar.com. Look here Its the sifter - under preparation, select Equipment > Freezer, then under Course, select Main. Over 2000 recipies there.

Other than that, pies, burgers, pizza, calzone.

Also make frozen mash and buy frozen veg. Freeze some milk and grated cheese. Stock up on pasta sauce.

Hand your OH the apron and list of recipies, then put your feet up with a cup of tea and a good book.

This takes me back to when I was nesting furiously with ds1 but didn?t know- I now realise that spending three days in the kitchen slaving over bubbling pots of various meals to be frozen is not rational behaviour (I even had to go out to buy more food as I had cooked literally everything in the cupboards). I don?t think we had to cook for about 2 months.

Cook a load of rice, and freeze 1 person portion sizes in bags. Same for pasta, to prepare either simply take out of freezer, add a couple of tablespoons of water to the bag and bang on high setting in micro for 2 minutes per portion.

If I?m baking chicken portions in the oven (prob with a tomatoey garlicky coriandery sauce, consisting of um? tomatoes garlic and coriander!) I try to cook too much and freeze what I don?t need in portion sizes, again whack it in the micro but for longer to defrost and reheat properly. Served with the rice it?s v easy and doing it in single portion sizes means you get to eat at lunchtime if you are the only one in the house without feeling the need to polish the other half off too! This works with anything cooked in a sauce, reheats much better.

Also salmon portions done in the micro are v easy- not quite as nice as in the oven but still perfectly acceptable and if you bung on a sprinkle of water/white wine, a lemon slice and some parsley before covering and nuking its really surprisingly good. Can be done straight from frozen too.

Cheese sauce is also easy to do ? the standard bung all in a saucepan and stir well until cooked then add grated cheese variety- and freezes well on its own, do portion sizes then you can just bung in some nuked steamed cauliflower/broccoli and voila

Good luck with no3! I am v impressed you are even thinking about feeding the rest of your family, you sound very organised!

The Jamie Oliver beef pie with cheese - you can add the pastry topping last. I know what you mean about mince but lamb mince is very tasty - I use Rick steins Mousakka. I make a few up and freeze them - delicious.

Fish pies also work well but you must make lots of sauce and perhaps obmit the mashed potato top and freeze seperatly as I find it absorbs the sauce and makes it dry.
Mashed potato freezes very well.

Cubed lamb (buy whole shoulder and do it yourself - its cheaper) lamb tangine or lamb in preserved lemons freezes fantastic and servce with coucous (makes a change from pasta and spuds)

Any type of chicken curry I avoid the jars I hate that taste.

Sweet and sour pork using shoulder instead of loin. Slow cooked

Easy meals are usually the ones you can put in the oven/slow cooker and forget about and its ready once cooked. The advantage to this is that it also uses cheaper cuts. You dont have to stand over the cooker for hours but the prep time can be longer.

Pretty much any meal can be frozen, or parts of it can anyway.

Make food your family are already used to, rather than unfamiliar new dishes.

Fish pie is a favourite freezer staple of rDS and I.

As are pancakes stuffed with spinach and covered in cheese sauce.

if you get tired of cooking you can buy a couple of jars of frankfurter sausages and packets of potato rosti and a jar of pickled red cabbage / tins of sweetcorn etc - keeps in a cupboard for a year and handy for emergencies.

also make pints of pasta sauce for freezer - i do tomato and veg - can be defrosted as is or make the base for loads of things, not least add aforementioned frankfurters and little potatoes for easy sausage casserole you can make whilst holding baby