I did make ahead meals again

I usually have a stash of homemade frozen meals in my freezer, but because all of the packing and moving, unpacking, packing, and unpacking, I haven't really had the time nor inclination to do any real cooking. As a result I've been falling into bad habits and eating junk food, or ordering in, which is not only expensive, but not good for my diabetes.

This weekend I finally got down to some serious cooking! And freezing!

I cooked diabetic friendly recipes and froze them into individual "TV Dinners."  All I need to do is pull one out and microwave and I have a complete, nutritious meal.

I made:

Maple Balsamic Pork Chops with mashed potatoes and green beans (7 servings)

Lime Chili Lamb Chops with mashed potatoes and corn (6 servings)

Orange Chicken with rice (4 servings)

I also packaged up the left over rice into 1/2 cup frozen portions (15 portions)

I browned stewing meat to make 4 portions of beef stew tomorrow

And I plan on making 4 portions of Lemon Chicken tomorrow.

Wednesday I plan on making Stir Fried Beef with Rice, 4 servings.

And maybe 4 servings of Shrimp Creole with rice. If I don't do that on Wednesday, I'll do it on Thursday.  Then I'm done!

And my brother gave me a whole bunch of tomatoes, so I plan on making some tomato sauce, crushed tomatoes and diced tomatoes for future use.

Grocery shopping is so much easier when I have a stash of frozen meals. I just basically have to buy perishables such as fruit, lettuce, milk eggs, and cat stuff.

I also reorganized my freezer and found some breakfast items that I had forgotten about like: Bran muffins, corn meal muffins, french toast.... all diabetic friendly items.

Yup... I wish I knew how to cook.

Minka said:

Yup... I wish I knew how to cook.

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It isn't hard.  Just use recipes.  The meals I cooked started from recipes, and over time I reworked some a little.

For example, the maple balsamic pork was supposed to be a pork loin that was marinated and then grilled. I just changed it to pork butt steaks and cooked it in the marinade and then reduced the liquid to a thick sauce and put a couple of teaspoons on the cooked meat before freezing it.

The lamb was supposed to be done the same way, but I cooked the lamb in the marinade and then reduced the sauce and put it over the lamb and potatoes.

Natalie_ca said:

It isn't hard.  Just use recipes.  

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Yes, cooking is easy when you just follow the instructions.

I also make up meals and freeze them, I hate having to cook when I get home from work so I love just pulling something out the freezer, makes me eat healthier too since I'm not going for fast food.

Cooking IS hard when you don't even know what "reduced" (or other cooking terms) means or how to do it :tongue2: (and, yes, I do know what it means, no need to explain. Though I don't know if I could do it). So I'd never say it's easy for people who don't know how to do it. . .I suppose calculus is easy for people who know how to do it, too . And some people just don't have a talent for pulling a white sauce off the stove before it burns :lol3:.

But, yeah, I think it's worth trying if you've never done it before. If you stick to the recipe exactly, use your timer, and Google unfamiliar terms, it ought to turn out OK. But don't try a white sauce for your first time. . .

A link to cooking terminology:

http://www.keep-your-home-cooking.com/cooking-terminology.html

One where you can search the word:

http://www.epicurious.com/tools/fooddictionary

Minka said:

Yup... I wish I knew how to cook.

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 I have tried and followed recipes and I just can't cook. Something always goes wrong somewhere. There are a few things I can make (lasagna, stuffed cannelloni, homemade pasta sauce, turkey and rice soup, beef stew, cabbage rolls). Thankfully, my husband can cook or we would be eating the same few things all the time.

I just love to cook. And bake, too. I cook for relaxation and have always said that I'm happiest when I'm messing around in the kitchen. When I got married, I could burn water. But I was so lucky. Thinking that her poor son would soon starve to death, my blessed MIL took me under her wing and away we went. She taught me how to work with yeast dough, she taught me how to make pie crust, she taught me how to organize my kitchen, she taught me how to have patience....and I really do think that, in a lot of ways, patience is the key to cooking. You are not going to be perfect overnight; it's just not going to happen. But you keep trying and you keep trying and it will work out.

My sister, OTOH, says that she loves any food she doesn't have to cook. So I really didn't come from a cooking family and I credit my MIL with everything. To this day, since she knows that I'm still not comfortable with deep fat frying, when it comes to our annual doughtnut, she has me fry the doughnuts....while she sits in the living room and reads the newspaper! We've been doing it this way for well over 30 years now.

So while yes, cooking is following recipes, I think it's also learning from somebody else and watching people. My MIL was my cooking mentor and, believe me, that woman had the patience of a saint when it came to teaching me.

A really good way to learn is to just do it. Find some recipes that you want to make, read those recipes until you know them by heart. Get everything ready, your utensils, your ingredients. And then do it. Step by step. And keep doing it. And when you're done, find more recipes and try those. And keep working with it.

I'm not a great cook by any stretch. But I would love to have some of you in my kitchen to help and to learn things. I love to teach cooking and baking and I think we'd have so much fun together.

So....sorry for the off-track post. Linda, where do you get your dishes that you use to freeze your meals? Are they divided dishes, a space for the entree, spaces for sides, etc? I freeze a lot of soups, stews, pasta sauces, and casseroles. In ziploc freezer bags and in freezer containers. I don't have dishes like that and I haven't seen anything like that around here. Is that what you use? Where did you get them?

I use mostly Ziplock Freezer Containers.  I also save the plastic dishes from Lean Cuisine meals.  For those I usually put things like stuffed shells or Lasagna, and then I use my vacuum sealer.

I also use freezer bags for various things such as precooked chops, chicken breasts, portions of rice, portions of mashed potatoes etc.
 

Those all sound great! I'm glad to see I'm not the only one who freezes meals ahead! (Every time I make meals in my crock pot, I always freeze a few servings for days when I don't feel like cooking!)

How do you like your vacuum sealer? I've been thinking about investing in one if I find a good deal. (I've noticed I have issues with freezer burn with the freezer bags I'm currently using.

My vacuum sealer is on the older side, but it still works. I think it's a Phillips.  I pull out the bag and use the heating coil to seal the edge of the bag to separate it from the roll.  Basically, I can determine the size of the bag I want.  I put the food inside, then place it over the bottom edge and put the little vacuum "nozzel" into the bag and press the lid partially down.  Doing that allows the vacuum to suck out the air.  Once the air is sucked out, I press the lid harder and the 2 heating coils connect and it seals the bag.  I can open the bag as I need to and just do the same process to reseal it again.

it looks kind of like this one.  The thing in the middle on the bottom portion is the "Vacuum"

http://images04.olx.com.ph/ui/18/46/47/1325580549_296123947_3-Vacuum-Sealer-for-Sale-Electronics.jpg

Tonight I'm making beef stew. I didn't feel like cooking yesterday when I got home because I was too tired. And I had left over chicken for dinner.  I'm also braising some chicken breasts in the oven so I can make Lemon Chicken.  I don't usually do it this way, but the chicken was defrosted on Saturday and I had to cook it or it would spoil.  Now at least I have a couple days to put the rest of the dish together.  Cooking and freezing beef stew tonight is my limit, because I also have to do some laundry.

On the weekend I want to make stuffed pasta shells.  That takes me pretty much the whole afternoon because I absolutely hate making dishes like that because they are too tedious for me!  So I tend to do a few shells, take a break and do other things and then go and do a few more shells.  lol

Natalie_ca said:

On the weekend I want to make stuffed pasta shells.  That takes me pretty much the whole afternoon because I absolutely hate making dishes like that because they are too tedious for me!  So I tend to do a few shells, take a break and do other things and then go and do a few more shells.  lol

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That's a dish I'm always going to make but never have, I make lasagne instead. But the stuffed shells always look so good in photos, one day I'll actually get around to making them.