What is Going in Your Freezer

[Palooka]

Trying to get back to cooking ahead and freezing for healthy, convenient meals.

Today I made 18 low-fat twice baked potatoes
Garbanzo soup (4 servings)

Easy to just grab and nuke for lunches or dinners.

Still have more planned for another day to make. Some bean and pasta soups and muffins.

So what are you feeding your freezer?

[mndtrp]

Vegetable stock
raw chicken

Nothing really exciting in the way of pre-made meals, but we do have a large selection of stuff already in place.

[NikoSan999]

Is this just for from scratch or anything and everything like the old thread?

[Ramona]

Made broccoli with pasta and froze two portions for no cooking days.

[Shelli_wnj]

2 servings of beef stew, and some pasta sauce

[Palooka]

Made 26 freezer burritos
blueberry muffins

[Keildra]

I made 24 twice baked potatoes and 3 sandwich bags full of cooked potatoes

[zakity]

Two containers of ham meat to use as a basis for meals.

[frugalwarrior2]

5# grated cheese
3 kind lunchmeat
muenster cheese
provalone
frozen strawberries
huge bag mixed veg
chicken breasts cut smaller
prob. nothing else for a while thanks to GFS and their $5. coupon w/ sale.

[Spirit Deer]

Way too much frozen cookie dough.

Four close-out raspberry pies, $1 per.

Next week, I plan to do some batch cooking for my elderly mom and hold it in our freezer till Mother's Day.

[Luckybustert]

Way too much frozen cookie dough.

Four close-out raspberry pies, $1 per.

Next week, I plan to do some batch cooking for my elderly mom and hold it in our freezer till Mother's Day.

Sounds yummy! What kind of frozen cookie dough? I've read this is a great way to have cookies anytime you want them, but have not tried making the cookie dough ahead and freezing it yet. Any tips?

[Spirit Deer]

Most cookie doughs can be frozen if they're not a really soft, runny dough or something delicate. I just make logs of them using plastic wrap and freeze them. That way, my husband can slice off a few at a time, bake them in the toaster oven, and have fresh cookies neither of us has to mix and bake in a big batch or make a big mess for. He can also bake a few of two or more kinds to have some variety without having to make multiple batches. It helps me a lot, weight-wise, not to have a large batch of temptation cookies sitting around. Plus, for two people, a regular batch gets stale, although of course finished cookies can be frozen, too. But those are also a temptation.

Because they're wrapped tightly in plastic wrap and therefore have very little air around them, the cookie logs keep a very long time in the freezer. I just roll them up and leave extra-long ends, then tuck them under, freeze on a cookie sheet so they don't freeze in weird shapes, and then usually set them in one of the baskets at the top of our freezer, minus the cookie sheet. If you're hung up on having perfectly round cookies, then you might not be happy with the freezer method because the bottoms of the rolls tend to flatten, so the cookies are often shaped more like a slice of bread. But of course they taste just as good.

Currently, there's a quadruple batch of dreamsicle cookies (taste like orange sherbet) in there, some chocolate chip, oatmeal scotchies, white chocolate almond, gingersnaps, and maybe some kind of peanut butter cookies, too. I'm not sure, offhand.

For a dough that calls for pressing the cookie down, like peanut butter cookies, we just slice them and let them sit on the pans for a few minutes, then press them down after they've thawed a little. Much easier.

We prefer using an ulu to slice them, but a traditional knife will work too.

For cookies with larger pieces in them such as chips or nuts, we cut the slices about an inch thick and then cut into two or four, depending on how large the log is.

I never made gingersnap dough for the freezer before because the recipe calls for them to be made into balls and rolled in sugar, and I'm far too lazy to do that, especially for a food I'm not supposed to eat in the first place. But it finally occurred to me (DUH!) when you buy gingersnaps in a box from the store (ick) they don't have sugar crystals on them. So I figured I'd just make up some non-sugared gingersnaps (AKA nekkid). As I was making up the logs, I thought about some raw sugar I had lurking in the pantry, so I rolled them in that. I need to perfect that technique but it worked well enough to see it's a good idea. So that's worked out nicely. It pays to try new stuff!

Next up to try for the freezer, snickerdoodles.

It still completely amazes me people will actually pay ridiculous prices in the store for little cookie dough logs, when it's so easy to DIY. What a great marketing plan, but as a consumer that one ranks right up there with the shake and pour pancakes that make me just scratch my head in wonder.

Maybe I'm not really that lazy after all!

[MsMarieH]

Lasagna Mix (about 5 pounds individually bagged of cooked hamburger/italian sausage/onions/mushrooms/peppers)

hamburger crumbles (two pounds)

[piney]

2 tubs cookie dough went in freezer today i would of never paid that price for cookie doug except great grand daughter was selling it for some fun raiser at school or church and i do like the cookies.

[frugalfranny]

So what are you feeding your freezer?

NOTHING...........until I start making my freezer FEED ME a little more.

I have hit too many sales in the last few months and probably couldn't get a toothpick in there! Also, I haven't been too big on the cooking thing for about two to three weeks!

I AM IN BIG TROUBLE COME SUMMER GARDEN TIME!!!

(would hate to have to admit that I had to buy ANOTHER FREEZER cause I am too much of a hoarder, er----I mean stockpiler!!)