You've probably read blog posts or
articles about super talented and organized people who spend one day
a month “freezer cooking.” These people spend 8-10 hours putting
together meals they can freeze and pop in the oven for quick dinners,
and they are my heroes. I'm just not that organized.
Being disorganized and responsible for
the entire homestead 9 months out of the year makes for some
harrowing mealtimes, so yesterday I spent the entire day cooking
breakfast. I rarely have a plan when I start cooking, so what I ended
up with is a freezer full of breakfast rolls (dinner rolls filled
with bacon, egg and cheese), french toast bars (using a failed batch
of biscuits) and cinnamon rolls. I figure it's about a week's worth
of breakfasts, and they're packaged in foil to go in the toaster oven
for about 20 minutes in the morning.
Since these breakfast creations came
about through trial and error, it's tough to compare them to
store-bought frozen breakfast items. But, I'm pretty sure they're
more healthy and cheaper being made from scratch. Freezer cooking is
probably really worth it if you're organized. Personally, I prefer
adding to the freezer a little at a time. If I make a pot of beans, I
put half in the freezer after a quick soak. After cooking, I put half
of the remaining cooked and seasoned beans in the freezer. That
leaves me with a half-pound (before cooking) of pintos, which we can
take care of in one meal. If I choose to reinvent the rest of the
beans on subsequent days, I can do it by taking the frozen beans out
in the morning. If not, they have fed the freezer stash and are a
cheaper alternative to frozen pizza when I'm in a hurry or have
stepped on half a dozen rusty nails and can no longer stand up to
cook supper.
However you do it, one big tightwad
rule is “feed the freezer.” Some families don't like leftovers,
and can even recognize reinvented ones the next day. But, put those
same leftovers in the freezer, wait a couple of weeks to reinvent,
and, voila!: brand new food. It doesn't just work well for leftovers,
either:
- Cheese. Calculating price per ounce for my price book, I discovered that a nearby members-only store had the cheapest cheese in town, but it came shredded in 5-pound bags. When I get it home, I fill five, one-pound freezer bags and put four in the freezer. Shredded cheese freezes like a champ, and can even be used frozen if you forget to take it out to defrost. Bread crumbs from slicing homemade bread, and the heels of some tougher loaves, go into a bag in our freezer labeled “bread crumbs.” When it's full, I give it a whirl in the food processor, pour in a little butter and some herbs, and it makes homemade macaroni and cheese downright gourmet.
- Fresh herbs. We use a lot of cilantro around here, but we never could use it fast enough to prevent the black slime from claiming it in the crisper drawer. Dried cilantro just isn't the same as fresh, so I tried a tip I read. Chop and freeze fresh herbs (works for all I've tried), just by themselves, in a jar. When you need some for a recipe, flake some off the top with a spoon, and you've got that fresh-herb flavor without the time constraints of fridge storage.
- Milk. Cow's milk from the grocery store has become less of a staple for us as we've found other ways to get our calcium, and a $3 a gallon, it's a good thing. To make it go even further, I buy whole milk and cut it to approximate 2 percent milk. I get the gallon home, pour half into a clean gallon jug and freeze it. I fill the unfrozen milk jug the rest of the way with water, and do the same with the frozen jug about two days before we need it. This trick effectively cut my milk costs in half. It isn't for everyone, but my children aren't toddlers and no one in my house needs whole milk, so this works fine. (If you do this, though, add milk powder before trying to make pudding or yogurt. Cut milk lacks enough milk protein to make most recipes “set up.”)
- Dry goods. Combat weevils in flours, dried beans and rice by putting them in the freezer for at least 48 hours once you get them home from the store. That amount of time in the freezer will prevent any weevil eggs from hatching (and believe me, they're in there), and if you put them in a sealed container right away with a bay leaf on top, your weevil problems will be gone.
- Water. If all your freezer-feeding efforts still haven't filled it to capacity, put plastic water jugs in the freezer just to make it run more efficiently. All those energy-efficiency experts say freezers and refrigerators run better when they're full, so save money by keeping them that way. And, when you find that 49-cent-a-pound turkey deal, take out all the water and dry goods, serve up some of the leftovers and fill your freezers with your latest stock-up buy!
What's that? You say you only have the
freezer-fridge that's in your kitchen? Maybe it's time to talk about
high-value tools that every frugal chef should watch for at garage
sales...
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