<p>Pasta freezes amazingly well. Mac N Cheese, chicken alfredo, spaghetti
Frozen lasagne.
Crockpot recipes–pulled pork, beef–all good</p>
<p>Look at sides–the grocery is full of them–ready made potatoes, rolls, steamed veggies (throw in the MW). Ready to go salads.</p>
<p>You can pre-bake potatoes–REALLY good! Just throw in the MW for a minute when ready to eat. Split in two-cut some slits and apply butter/cheese. Reheat.</p>
<p>Pre-baking potatoes! Freeze? Or just keep in fridge?</p>
<p>Love, love, love me some taters.</p>
<p>When I bake potatoes (either in oven or MW) I always make extras for lunch.
After they cool, I wrap them in plastic wrap and refrigerate them. *Good for about a week.</p>
<p>To reheat: unwrap, cut in half. Cut some slits in the top and put butter/cheese on.
MW about one minute (butter melts, cheese gets gooey). YUMMY! </p>
<p>They make GREAT hash browns–dice them up, throw in a ton of onion, peppers, cheese or whatever you love most. super for breakfast or dinner side dish.</p>
<p>how about twice baked potatos? we always make extra and freeze some for later.</p>
<p>I like to make fish tacos.
You can either use fresh halibut or cod or frozen fish fillets.</p>
<p>What I do with potatoes is put them in the microwave for a couple minutes while the oven is heating up, then put them in the oven for 20-30 minutes to finish cooking.
It seems to taste better than the other way around.</p>
<p>Buy a spiral ham. You can make scalloped potatoes in advance and freeze. Make the spiral ham on a weekend day. You will have at least two meals from it when you cook it. Cut the rest of the meat off the bone. Keep some for sandwiches that week, and freeze the rest. Divide into meal size portions. Ham freezes well. Toss in the freezer. Toss the ham BONE in the freezer too.</p>
<p>At some point your family can defrost the game and eat again. AND you can make split pea soup using the hambone (just use your favorite split pea soup recipe but toss in the crock pot in the morning on low).</p>
<p>You can do,the same with a turkey breast.</p>
<p>I’m kind of with EK. I can’t think of a single make ahead meal I’d freeze. I do have lots of frozen stock, and a bunch of frozen beans, but that’s about it.</p>
<p>If you google once a month cooking or OAMC, there are entire websites dedicated to make ahead and freeze-- in massive quantities since the idea is to cook enough for a month not two weeks, but some sites have two week meal plans instead and you can reduce them yourself or just get better ideas about what freezes nicely. I have like ten OAMC cookbooks.</p>
<p>Mathmom…I always make stock from the costco rotisserie chickens we buy weekly. Makes the most delicious stock. Of course I just used the last of the containers to make chicken tortilla soup, so my stockpile is depleted. The good news is, my family likes canned soup, so I assume we will make do until I can build up my stock reserve. </p>
<p>I like the OAMC recipes. Gonna scale a couple down and get cooking tomorrow and Tuesday!</p>
<p>I make and freeze all types of vegetable quiche. Serve with soup, salad, a crusty bread and fruit salad/melon/apple sauce.</p>
<p>shellz, dh often uses rotisserie chicken for his lunches and I always snag the leavings for stock. I love the smell of stock cooking on the stove.</p>
<p>I add leftover carrots/celery/onions and a pinch of herbs d’provence. Yummm! Best “free” stock ever!</p>
<p>We use the gas grill year round, except when covered with snow (which melts quickly in CO). If you can do that there, freeze some meat/fish to have on hand. We like salmon, boneless chicken breast (marinated or with bbq sauce), steaks, BBQ. </p>
<p>Personally I have never learned to use our grill … it made no sense when I already carried the lion share of the indoor cooking workload. DH is a champ, and he taught both kids to bbq while they were in hs.</p>
<p>My favorite healthy freezer meal is hickory smoked baby back ribs. I freeze individual protions (half rack). Just pull it out, defrost in the fridge, and nuke 'em in the microwave.</p>
<p>Also, a terrific Mediterranean Seafood Stew (veggies, white wine, saffron, fish stock etc.). I make a double portion right up to the point of adding the seafood and freeze half of it. Pull it out, heat it up on the stove, and dump in fresh seafood for the second half.</p>
<p>interesteddad, I’d love your seafood stew recipe!!!</p>
<p>I freeze: chicken tenderloins with onions and peppers for tortillios, meatloaf, lasagna, stew, chilli, chicken soup, turkey breast, pork chops, roasted veggies, baked ziti, pork tenderloin, Italian sauce, ground turkey that is browned and cooked with fresh tomato and onions and peppers. Except for the lasagna, I use heavy duty freezer bags for everything including the soup and sauce. They defrost faster when you set the bag in a pan of warm water. Good luck with your surgery.</p>
<p>EC, what’s your secret to freezing roasted veggies without them getting soggy? Have you found that certain veggies do better than others?</p>
<p>When freezing soups/stews I put (generous) individual servings in quart size freezer bags, making sure to get all the air out. I lay them flat on cookie sheets to freeze. Then remove the cookie sheets and they store very easily and compactly. Servings can be pulled out for as many as needed, defrosted in the refrigerator, or run warm water over them in the sink. I’ve sent soup back to school with my son like this for several years and it’s a big hit. We also grill marinated chicken breasts and cut them up, placing in freezer bags. These get put into salads, stir fry, pastas, quesadillas/fajitas/tacos, etc. It’s a great base for a quick meal. We buy ground beef in family packs, brown, and freeze in 1lb increments (again in freezer bags). These defrost very quickly and can be added to sauce or taco seasoning. </p>
<p>There’s another thread here in the cafe with great crockpot recipies that would probably freeze well and might add some variety. Best of luck with your surgery. I understand the instinct to have things taken care of so you can relax. Your family will probably step up more then you think. </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1604925-favorite-crockpot-recipes-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parent-cafe/1604925-favorite-crockpot-recipes-2.html</a></p>
<p>We just froze pasta fagioli made with lots of cheese tortellini, an easy one pot meal with a healthy dose of vegetables. Put the vegetables in right before it comes off the stove so they aren’t overcooked. If he eats it out of the pot there is only one dish to wash.</p>
<p>Pasta fagioli! I had totally forgotten about that recipe. Adding to the grocery list. Also going to grill some meats today, for salads/paninis. </p>
<p>ECmotherx2…great list. What are tortillios? Love anything mexican!!</p>
<p>And the seafood stew recipe…I’d love it too!</p>
<p>I know my boys will step up. I hate being down and out, and am a lousy patient…hubby gave me a bell to ring last time. I used it a couple times but hated it. A friend put it in perspective for me, though, when she said I needed to let them help me for THEIR sakes, not mine. Letting them feel useful and helpful was a way for them to cope with my recovery. Doing it all myself implies I don’t think they can hack it…or that I don’t trust them. I would have never thought of that!</p>