I do the same also. :p

When I was little my Gran and one of the Aunties had ice cube trays in the shape of little pink elephants. I used to love them!

Curried Sausages

Pilaf freezes well, as does Risotto

I made a HUGE batch of Salmon patties (well I make fingers), then freeze them. I cooked too many once and froze them..they thawed well and I just whacked them in the oven for a bit to heat them through.

Ali, when the boys were little, I used to use the slow cooker everyday (then freeze the leftovers). I would get organised about lunchtime, by dinnertime all I had to do was dish it up.

Besides raw ingredients like meat or fish I freeze lots of other things; I grew up in a multi generational family and have memories of my grandmother cooking and freezing things as well as canning which people don't do as much anymore.

Recently we had a big cookout for a pre-wedding dinner and had lots of chicken left over. I made Chicken Enchiladas Verde and froze a few cassarole dishes for later use. I routinely make savory pies out of left overs and freeze them. In the summer I make apple pies and put them up as well.

Lots of stocks for soups and cooking although finding veal bones in Texas is near impossible so it's mostly chicken, beef and vegetable stock.

Duck fat. Comes in handy for frying potatoes!

I might add that being here in the Texas gulf coast area is a challenge for freezing things as we have these things called huricanes that cause us to loose power for long periods. I lost a whole freezer full after the last one. :greenface

I am at war with my parents re freezing. Okay- slight exaggeration.
But I always use up leftovers and buy sale items to freeze.
They bin leftovers, but buy full price items for the freezer that they know they won't eat for months.

I cringe at the waste - esp now when I can't eat their leftovers - and at them filling up the freezer with things that could easily be bought on a weekly basis. Of course it is their freezer and their money to spend as they choose. It's just weird coming back home with thrifty habits I learned from them, and realising that 30 years on, they don't have to adhere to them any more!

My items in freezer at present - from the BBQ last week uncooked sausages, 1 pork chop, half a loaf of bread, box of kebabs (ie skewered meat) that I held back until I gauged whether they were needed. Unlike all the burgers defrosted and/or cooked that ended up in the bin (despite my attempt to save them for making a version of Shepherds Pie! There was too much else to eat) Also chopped onions and peppers - frozen food but less wasteful when cooking for one than the real thing. Frozen chicken wings for Diz. Mackerel, cod and salmon.

Damn - I gotta hit the freezer for meals again!

Oh, and 2 pizzas. They were on sale and on sale in Sainsburys today. Buy One Get One Free AND in the reduced cabinet. £3.04 for two Spicy Meat Feast pizzas - bargain! Er, no. I read the colour wheel in the corner too quickly. I thought it was 18g of fat per pizza. Not ridiculous - we had one last night that was 24g in total. Shared between the three of us that's reasonable. So I thought I was paying Mum and Dad back with a real treat that we can have in a couple weeks time. But they are 18g fat PER THIRD! Gutted. I can't have it. And if Mum & Dad have it they'll have to pick the jalapenos off anyway, so they would be better off buying one for themselves. :mecry:

Tiki--I got mine at Macy's in the Martha Stewart section. They have little inserts to make two-color popsicles.

I admit I am a bit OCD about my fridge and freezer. I clean it out every Tuesday, no lie.

Leftovers are probably one of the biggest reasons I am overweight. Here's the story -- my family loves to "graze" and it's hard sometimes to get them to eat a regular meal. So if they had their way they would eat nothing but convenience foods: Hot Pockets, pot pies, microwave pizza, etc. This is not healthy or cheap, so I try to make big batches of yummy stuff like soup, chili, pasta, casseroles, things that taste great re-heated. I even package them in small 1- or 2-serving containers in the fridge.

But apparently the other three people in my house feel like Tiki. If it isn't freshly prepared, or doesn't come in a disposable tray and plastic wrap, they don't seem to believe it is edible food.

So I end up eating it, because I cannot stand to waste all that food.

I do freeze some of it though, if only so I won't feel compelled to eat chili for nine meals in a row. I use bags and freeze flat, and also sometimes one of those vacuum sealers. You can use them for liquid stuff if you first freeze it in a bowl then pop it out. I do that all the time with chicken/turkey broth.

Note: if the broth is in the freezer too long and you feel funny about using it, dogs really love crunching on broth-sicles on a hot day. ;)

I don't have an extra freezer right now, but I want one. Actually I lied; I do have one but I'm not sure it works. It's ancient and I inherited it from my mom. It's an upright and I want a chest freezer. No, I do not wish to freeze my chest. :)

I also do the home canning and dehydrating thing because I am paranoid about losing all my stored goodies if the power goes out. I grow a big garden every year and I just LOVE home-canned tomatoes and green beans. I also make zucchini relish, better than any pickle relish I've ever had. I have a sour cherry tree and so I usually can about 12 pints of those each year, and about six pints of peach preserves from the peach tree.

I have two pears and an apple tree too, but they haven't done very well yet. Maybe this year will be better. I am trying to grow blackberries and blueberries too, but I'm not having much luck with them.

This is me. As a kid I was quite happy to eat stew that'd been added to since its first cookup days before. Now...every Preston guild I may actually eat something I have made too much of and stuffed in the fridge. But it's rare. If it's spiced I'm more comfortable with it...but even then. Not really happy.

I like leftovers. Yum yum yum.
But they come from the fridge, and are ripe for picking.

I wouldn't like old food, defrosted.
The freezing process makes them food that wasn't yummy enough to eat the first time round.

Well, I like to call them "planned-overs." :)

What does work is to re-purpose them somewhat. Say, make a beef roast one day, then make it into beef veggie soup the next. Roast chicken/chicken casserole. Etc.

Oh yes, that would work for me!
Remember, like Dani I am a singleton. Evn living at home, I essentially cook for one. It's a different perspective.

And I'd eat your frozen meals like a shot - I'm sure they are yummy in their own right.
It's just my own I have an attitude of "been there, done that" to.

Yep, me too. I will eat left overs from mum's fridge, no problem.

Though half of an old-married couple now, I was single and living alone for a long time. I used to cook a "serves four" batch of something, eat one portion and freeze the other two*. I used to dish it out into one plate and two tupperware boxes straightaway (prevents accidental consumption of even larger portions!) and think of it as storing away no-cook nights for me!
Yum!





* [portion control, what's that?]

... don't buy them at all. I started that a few years ago. There was a bunch of whining at first and they still love them as a treat. I buy "it" maybe once every 2 months, or when I am away... special circumstances.

Its amazing what they'll eat when their beloved junk food isn't around. They cook & prepare stuff on their own and occasionally even make me dinner :)