My DH and I like to eat main meal at lunchtime (a remnant of our life in Spain I think) so when he is working normal office hours (sometimes he works 3-11 so we get to have meal together) he takes his meal to work and heats in microwave. He is very organised (it scares me!) and cooks up loads of meals and puts in the freezer ready. I get a bit concerned his diet isn't varied enough (he prob has four dishes he has, spag bol, bean chilli, sweet sour chicken, and something else) so am always looking for new dishes. I got a book out of the library about freezing food but most of it is not suitable for a simple microwave reheat - anyone got any good recipes (or know of a good book) for food that can be frozen and then just heated up in microwave (or even stuff I can make day before and put in fridge overnight for next day) - particularly interested in any recipes with fish?
no idea re fish based meals, but you can do almost anything in the slow cooker with a saucy/gravyish base and reheat in the microwave. DH does it all the time - faves are braised lamb/beef (with lotsa veg), spag bol, chooken bol, sweet and sour chicken, curried chicken... ummmm any pasta/sauce dish will generally heat well. most stuff, as long as high in moisture, will reheat well from freezing.
we make a mean chicken vegie/pasta bake - lotsa veg, chicken, white/cheese sauce. doesn't have to be baked, can be frozen as is and reheated - tastes awesome - if it's baked, it's just a little yummier. had it without baking last night - tonight i'm baking it. droool!
We freeze this Moroccan fish stew, by Bill Grainger - it is light and yummy. Sometimes I just freeze the base and add the fish on the day or freeze the whole lot.
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 large onion, thinly sliced
1 garlic clove, crushed
2 teaspoons grated fresh ginger
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon turmeric
1 cinnamon stick
pinch of cayenne pepper
400g tin chopped tomatoes
pinch of sea salt
500g firm white fish fillets (such as cod, snapper or ling), cut into chunks
400 g (14 oz) tin chickpeas, rinsed
2 teaspoons honey
freshly ground black pepper
To serve
fresh coriander leaves
flaked almonds, lightly toasted
Serving Suggestion:
Serve garnished with coriander and flaked almonds
Method:
Heat the olive oil in a large heavy-based pan over medium-low heat. Add the onion and cook, stirring occasionally, for 5 minutes, or until the onion is translucent. Add the garlic, ginger, cumin, turmeric and cinnamon and cook, stirring, for 2 minutes more, or until fragrant.
Add the cayenne, tomatoes, salt and 250 ml (1 cup) of water and cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes.
Add the fish and simmer for 5 minutes, or until the fish is just tender. Add the chickpeas and honey and cook for a further 2-3 minutes. Season to taste.
fish curry - you can look up goan fish curry or do this quick one i do when i dont have time to do the whole shebang...
cut up some firm white fish (ling or snapper is great)
toss in garam masala and turmeric
cut up a white oniona nd some garlic, fry in a little olive oil with some sea salt until soft. add fish and spices
add some more indian spices such as curry leaves, mustard seeds, cardamon, cloves (whatever you have) and some cut up red chillis (to taste)
pout in a tin of lite coconut creama nd some tamarind paste - bring to simmer...
simmer about 10-15 mins until fish cooked through - may want to add more spices depending on taste
add some spinach or bok choy leaves and cover - simmer 5 mins and wilt greens
serve with rice
i sometimes also chop up some corriander and sprinkle on top.
delicious (kids also love this)
I also make a fish and preserved lemon tagine which freezes well.
you can freeze portions of the curry with rice and the tagine with cous cous
I want to start making DH's lunches in batches and freezing them (hes more of a meal person than a sandwich person) I dont mind making his lunches as i love cooking. They have fridges and microwaves at his work which is a new thing for us we are used to having to find lunches that are ok to sit in a warm truck all day.
So does anyone have any suggestions on what i can make fairly cheaply in bulk for DH's lunchs
TIA
Pasta sauce
Macaroni Cheese
Lasagna (but I guess that can get expensive)
Curried Sausages
Chicken Casserole
Beef Casserole
Soups
Fried Rice
Risottos
Quiche
These are some meals I make & freeze for our dinner.
If you get a vac sealer & freeze in portions the meals will last for months.
Well potato and couscous do not freeze well as sides, but potato is ok in casseroles for some reason. Rice and pasta freeze and thaw well. Gravy won't do the freeze/thaw process either.
Theres' heaps we do
stirfries
apricot chicken
savoury mince
bolognese
curries
rissoles
meatballs in sauce with spaghetti
stoganoff
salmon/tuna mornay...
Just depends on what he likes.
Get him to make a list.
we tend to look at what you can have in a sauce/gravy sort of base and use that - it generally freezes and reheats well... we do things like cottage/shepherds pie, pasta (with any number of sauces), vegie bakes etc... basically anything we can make in a saucy base we'll freeze. we mix rice into the meal rather than having it seperate - it seems to reheat better (IMO)
thanks heaps! for some reason (dont know why!) i thought you werent allowed to freeze pastas and rices etc and that the sauces would go funny if creamy
excess tomato and zucchini (for a start) - the weather here has the plants going insane! we're averaging about a kilo a day of tomato and heaps to go (dropped tomatos have self seeded and newplants coming on!). and the zucchinis are just insane! there is at least 5kg of lrge zuc's to pic, and the plants have a huge number of flowers still!
we dont want to waste any of it obviously, and have already given away zuc's to everyone we can think of - so, spam me with suggestions for freezable recipes... would love some tried and tested spag bol sauces etc if you have them
ooh, also uses for excess snow peas (the bubba is eating them flat out but we can't keep up with the plants)... beans are going to get blanched and frozen...
I've just dug out my 'bible' for you again LOL. I hope you have loads of jars...
Tomato Paste
Makes 9 x 250ml jars
8 litres peeled, cored and chopped tomatos (about 4 dozen large tomatoes)
1 1/2 cups chopped sweet red peppers (about 3)
2 bay leaves
1tsp salt
1 clove garlic whole (if desired)
Hot Pack: Combine first 4 ingredients and cook slowly for 1hr. Remove bay leaves and press through a fine seive and return bay leaves to mix and add garlic clove if desired. Continue cooking slowly until thick enough to round up on a spoon, about 2 1/2 hours. Stir frequently to prevent sticking. Remove garlic and bayleaves. Our boiling hot paste into hot 250ml jars levaing a 7mm head space. Remove air bubbles, wipe jar rims, adjust lids and process in boiling water bath for 45 minutes (250ml jars)
Combine all ingredients i na large saucepan and bring to a boil. Cook 20 minutes or until all vegetables are tender but still crisp. Pat hot relish into hot clean jars leaving 13mm head space, remove air bubbles, wipe rims adjust lids and process in boiling water bath for 20 minutes (500ml jars)
Mixed vegetable leather (like fruit leathers)
2 cups chopped cored tomatoes
1/4 cup chopped celery
1 small onion, chopped
salt to taste
cook over low heat in a covered saucepan 15-20 minutes. Puree and then cook till thickened. Spread on a tray covered with plastic wrap and dry at 60degrees.
Freezing Zucchini
Choose young vegetables with tender skin. Wash and cut into 13mm thick slices. Water blache 3 minutes, cool promptly, drain and pack leaving 13mm head space, seal and freeze (I just used snaplock bags and made sure I got all the extra air out.
I have a few more different recipes if you want them. We had a bumper crop of zucchini too this year and we only had two plants! We found it best to pick them when they were only about 3/4 inch in diameter as we used them quicker. A few grew really large really quick after we had rain so I made a meat and vegetable stuffing for those ones and baked them.
Oh and you can freeze the snow peas too - do the same as for beans.
i think i'm going to go and harvest all the zuc's - there are a few bumper ones out there that we'll have to use up at hte moment, then we'll try keeping on top of picking and blanching them for freezing.
don't have any jars, so everything will have to go into containers for freezing - will that stuff freeze ok? we have a spare freezer and a heap of containers, just no jars (was on the "to get organised" list before DH lost his job - and then fell by the wayside)
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