Pre-Made Freezer Food | Chefs At Heart

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Pre-Made Freezer Food

It’s a ritual that

  • was discovered back in our student years – I was the student that was making pasticcio and stuffed vine leaves along with some other delicious foods, in advance in order to have supplies in my highly demanding examination seasons.
  • kept us going in our highly demanding cooperate jobs career years
  • kept us going in the new highly demanding chapter of our lives that has the title Hurricane Faye – this is how we call our little one as her intensity can sometimes reach Cat 5 strength.

So if you are blessed to be able to see patterns, you will notice that all the statements above have two words in common: highly demanding. Therefore, some of the benefits of having premade freezer food is that you can save time operationally and some brain cells of not having to think to much for what to cook – as you already have some options waiting for you in your freezer.

However, one of the most important benefits is that frozen food maintains its nutritional value almost fully and can be equivalent or then next best option other than the real fresh. This is why one of the best options for when making baby food is premade freezer food, rather than ready made food store shelf food.

Why Pre-Making Freezer Food?

Because you can eat clean food of great quality in an a few minutes and in parallel

  • you can save time
  • you can save brain cells
  • you can save money
  • you can be cautious for what you are eating, calories and nutritional value wise

1 | Save Time

Why? For a number of reasons…

You devote about an hour to prepare about 10 meals or more depending of what you are making. In this way you are saving time from preparing them individually in a different OK.

How? Saving time can be in gathering ingredients, gathering utensils, post cooking cleaning, cutting that onion, making bigger portions in one go etc. So if we assume that the latter takes about 10 mins that instantly wins you at least 10 meals x 10 mins – 10 mins overlap = 90 mins.

2 | Save Brain Cells

Why? For a number of reasons…

You have premade food waiting for you in the freezer that will only take some brain cells to defrost it, rewarm it/cook it and combine it with a nice salad. It’s far less demanding that redoing the whole cooking selection process from scratch.

3 | Save Money

Why? For a number of reasons…

  • You get ingredients in bulk, so the potential to use most of them is high. We barely throw away food, but some people do so as they cannot project fully what they need and for how long.

  • You are more likely to get seasonal ingredients, that are priced better/lower than those that are not.

  • You are less likely to have a take away or go out for dinner, if you have something waiting for you in the freezer.

  • You are less likely to cook something random that sometimes can end up being more expensive when visiting the food store in that being hungry mode.

4 | Cautious For What You Are Eating

Why? For a number of reasons…

  • You have full control of how the dish is made.
  • You have full control into how many portions to split that dish – I am always tempted to eat all the food placed in my plate so if you give me more, and that is the case with the take away and restaurant food, I will most likely have more.
  • You have full control to know when that food was made.

Some Examples Of Premade Food | timing varies depending on selection and availability

The below are some of our usual suspects when premaking our food. We/I usually devote around 1 hour to premade some dishes for the week or month to come. If we are both available, and Faye is not, we work really good together and concurrently i.e. Soteris might be making pasta/meat sauces while I might be making the rest. In addition, if it happen to cook a lasagna tray I will try to save at least 50% of it in the freezer.

1 | One Pot Lentils

Get the recipe – to be updated.

2 | Baked Carrots & Sweet Potatoes

Get the recipe – to be updated.

3 | Bolognese Sauce

Get the recipe – to be updated.

Can be used in

  • pasta dishes
  • lasagna/pasticcio
  • filled in vegetable dishes such as baked potatoes, zucchinis etc

4 | Turkey & Spinach Lasagna

Get the recipe here.

5 | Oriental Style Chicken Breast

Get the recipe – to be updated.

6 | One Pot Mixed Vegetables & Chicken

Get the recipe – to be updated.

7 | Vegetable Sauce

Get the recipe – to be updated.

Can be used in

  • pasta dishes
  • meat dishes

8 | Baby/Toddler Food

Get the recipe – to be updated.

Items Needed When Premaking Freezer Food

1 | Food Bags

When I fist started making freezer food, I used to have an array of storage solutions: from foil trays to tappers etc. However, as the years went by food bags became the main players. Why? because food bags

  • come in so many different sizes
  • consume less space in the fridge – can be piled up
  • food can unstuck easily
  • can be put straight into the microwave if needed whereas foils trays do not
  • food bags consume less space in your cupboards than tappers etc

2 | A Marker

It’s a suggested good practice habit, to write info on your food bags such as

  • Name of the food contained and description i.e. marinate
  • Made date
  • Estimated expiry date
  • items missing to make the recipe complete, in case you can remember i.e. spices, chopped tomatoes etc.

3 | Have an understanding of the lifespan of the item

Different items can have different lifespan.

As a general rule of thumb, food can be stored for more than 3 months in the freezer. I do remember that when visiting at some point the renowned Smithfield Meat Market in London, a butcher told me that some people do their meat shopping once a year! They do tend to go around Xmas time and store some huge quantities of it in a dedicated extra meat freezer at theirs premises.

However, the earlier you consume them the less vague and ambiguous that will be. And the less prone the item/dish will be to freezer burn. We do tend to consume most of our premade items if not within 4 weeks time within 8 the maximum.