it would be great if the show did a feature for meals that can be made ahead at the weekend and cooked during the week for those of us who get home late. What can be frozen and what can't? Can we be told about storage when you do the rrecipe recap? I often look at the kind of recipes cooked in a bag and wonder how long they can be left in there before they are cooked.

thats a very interesting thread keith, i have lots of simple ideas but guess u already know most, so lets c what comes of this hey?? kimi.x

hey Keith


My daughter was only saying tonight that when we lived in England we would frreze half and eat half

Good idea

She wated to raid the freezer!

lol

Good idea Trudi and at what stage.

nice to know that some other people felt the same. It would be good to hear your ideas snoozy

It is a really good idea to have a few meals in the freezer for those days when you can't or don't want to cook. You know, when you get a bad cold or sprain your ankle.

I often cook too much of things like casseroles, curries, pasta sauces, soups etc. and freeze half ... they are so easy to defrost and reheat and in fact some of them taste better the second time around.

When I make a curry I always make too much and then freeze the rest, I make my curries with a tomato based stock and then add cream at the end to make a nice sauce - to freeze you just put separate portions in bags or containers without the cream and then when you defrost just add the cream and fresh coriander at the end after defrosting.

This would really be a great idea, at the moment by husband and son have fallen in love with meat and potato pasties so I make a large batch at the weekend cook and freeze them up and they take them to work frozen (they don't fall apart that way!) and then reheat them. However I'm getting bored with making beef and potato ones has anybody got any ideas for other fillings that would be suitable for this?

Thanks Lynne

Hi Trudi,

I think it would be quick tricky to add such a section to the website. Most of the website's recipes come from Good Food Live and they're turned around so quickly that I think it would be practically impossible to do the necessary research. :-(

All the best,

--
Ian

what about cheese and onion filling,,or vegetable curry. i often cooked , lasagne, shepherds pies, curry, caserole,chilli con carne, pies and froze in individual portions to make defrosting quicker. or i would make up the batches , freeze, then in the morning b 4 i left for work i would take out what i wanted for t that night . when i got in , heat up in time for me to shower and change!! i also made tomato sauces for pasta.

Thanks Snoozy,

I tried cheese and onion but it wasn't very succesful are you meant to make a cheese sauce and then add onion and potato? Apart from that I think I would be strung up if I gave him veg curry. He id very much into meat. I hide veggies in his food!!! especially peppers

Lynne

yes thats how i make mine lynne. and lol to the curry ones. what about chilli pasties or spicy beef or spicy chicken?x

ideas for pasties would be chicken and ham, bacon, leeks and potatoes, pork with sage and onion, chinese barbecue pork, salt beef and pickles....
the ideas are endless
as for freezing meals, I have a vac pack machine and tend to do batches of meals such as lamb tagines, confit of duck legs and other dishes and vac pack them. the can then be heated by boiling in the bag or grillling in the oven.
the other thing that actually works really well for the cook who needs to cook quick is my Flavourwave oven, now know as the nu-wave oven from hearthware. It will cook steaks from frozen to rare/medium rare in 20 mins due to its cooking method. I know people are sceptical of TV products but I work as a chef and i have to say it does makes a mean steak and is very useful.