freezing meals

[Rothwellmummy]

I have heard of people cooking meals in advance and freezing them and wanted some advice from some experts out there!!

I've never tried cooking in bulk and freezing, didn't know how safe etc it was

I am planning to cook a couple of moussakas. Do i cook them 'oven ready'. white sauce and all?

How do i freeze them? I have the cooking dishes i would use for the oven but don't know what i would cover them with! Sorry for all the questions, complete novice here!

I will be watching this thread, I want to make 2 lasagnes at the same time, one to eat now the other to freeze.

Can I cook it from frozen or do I defrost it in the fridge first then cook it?

I have lots of recipes that say you can freeze them but then no details of how you reheat it grrrrrr.

Fizzy

I would defrost first only because it can burn before being heated through properly.

what i sometimes do is

line the dish i want to serve it in strong foil
freeze it
then remove the frozen meal from the dish (so the dish is avaliable) and wrap the lasagne or what ever it happens to be in the foil and put it in freezer like that

(somtimes i sit the dish in warm water for a minute or 2 to help it come out)

then when i want it, take the foil off, put it back in the dish it was cooked it, and
cook it.

hope that makes sense
or just use dispoable foil trays and freeze on there and cook on same foil tray later.

when i reheat things normally i stick them in for an hour at 170 /180, make sure they are piping hot (normally are) and the just eat them as usual

not had a problem yet

typically if using a frozen meal its because we are out all day, so i stick it in the oven on timer so it cooks for an hour and is ready for tea time, but has several hours defrosting in the oven first

nannyL the lining the dish with foil thing is the best idea I've ever heard. I could never work out how to fit everything in the freezer and also have enough dishes left.

For re-heating - best is to try to get in to the habit of checking what's for dinner first thing in the morning (or night before) and getting the frozen stuff out then to sit around and defrost. If this goes wrong you could either defrost in microwave (though takes quite a while and don't get even temperature if it's a big thing like lasagna) or cover with foil and put in the oven at low temp for an hour then remove foil and turn up temp for 20 mins to finish it off. Obviously will have to adjust this to size of whatever you're cooking.

thanks