INTRODUCTION
As the recession drags on in the United States, everyone is still looking for the best ways to save money and still live well. With gas prices so high in the past few years compared to what many households were accustomed to, feeling the pinch at the pump can often mean more penny-pinching in other areas.
But what if you think you have pared your living expenses down to the bone already? What if you believe you honestly can’t save any more money than you already are? The truth is that you CAN save more. You are actually wasting money, food and precious resources by not making your meals ahead and freezing them.
The statistics are staggering. Americans throw away over $26 BILLION in food every year. Assuming a population of 340 million, that means almost $750 per person in the U.S. That is $3,000 right there for a family of four.
You may think you are not throwing away THAT much, but every week, we are willing to bet that there is probably a head of lettuce, a piece of fruit, some old cheese, a fair few of the children's lunch box items, and so on, all ending up in the bin. What a waste. The price of every single one of those items may not seem like much, but starting adding them up. Then see how much money you could be saving by making meals and then freezing them.
You probably think you are living frugally, and feeding your family well. Even if you cook for your family from scratch, we are willing to bet that you really do not make the most of what you have. We are sure that you do the 'leftover shuffle'.
All busy parents know this dance, especially moms. You make a good meal and put the leftovers in the refrigerator with the best of intentions. But however tasty they are, the leftovers soon get shoved to the back or side or plunked on the bottom shelf. Someone suggests take away pizza the next night. You all head out in different directions the following night, to the gym, an Avon party and so on. Those poor leftovers sit there languishing. They go from tasty to trash in only a day or two. More money wasted.
You might decide to eat out. It might be fun once in a while, but if you have leftovers languishing in your fridge at home, it just means more money wasted, plus you are paying top dollar for food, drinks and tips. Even with the takeout pizza, how much are you spending on what is basically flour, water, yeast, tomatoes and cheese? Plus you have to tip the delivery person as well.
You might try to cook ahead for the week, but your spouse and children balk at eating the same thing two nights in a row. You think you will personally eat it up, but even you start to get sick of it, and tired of packing on the pounds as well because you are trying to be a diligent member of the 'clean plate club'. So the food either goes to waste, or goes to your waist. It's a no-win situation for a lot of Americans, clearly, since over 68 percent of them are now overweight or obese.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. Not if you start to make the most of your meal planning, and the secret weapon of every smart chef: their freezer. Plus, contrary to popular belief, cooking more does not have to mean eating more. In fact, quite the opposite. You can eat well without gaining weight through portion control. Make and freeze cooking is ideal for this because you are not sitting down to eat a meal served in large quantities in most cases. Instead, you are cooking in advance and then packaging things up to put them in the freezer.
You can of course eat one portion and freeze one, but for the most part, the goal is to cook in advance to have a range of options on hand to eat at home or take on the go for breakfast or in a brown bag lunch. (See our Healthy Make Ahead and Freeze Muffins guide for the ultimate 'fast food' in the mornings, or any time you need something tasty, healthy and portable.) You can plan to cook your make and freeze meals to coincide with lunch and/or dinner one weekend morning and afternoon when you have come back from the supermarket, eat it fresh, and parcel up and freeze the rest. No going back for seconds, and NO leftover shuffle!
This guide follows on from the success of our previous guides in helping you create make-ahead meals that you can cook, freeze, and then use any time you need them. In this guide, you will find tips on how to make the most from your freezer, plus recipes that can be frozen in bulk, or divided up into smaller portions (with a limited number of calories) so that you and your family can eat well at every meal and you and your family can watch your weight as well.
Our first guide Make and Freeze Recipes: Great Foods You Can Cook, Freeze and Use Quickly and Easily was designed with beginners in mind, to help them get started with make and freeze meals. It also provides over 30 recipes for beginner cooks. Our second guide, More Make and Freeze Recipes, discusses in detail how to buy a freezer, the benefits and drawbacks of vacuum sealers for foods, and how to freeze a wide range of foods. We also provided more instructions on how to freeze foods well, plus recipes to add to your growing repertoire of make ahead and freeze meals that can be used for any occasion, from dinner at home, to a potluck or even dinner party.
In this guide, we want to discuss more essentials on how to freeze and store frozen food properly. Then we will discuss some of the special considerations to keep in mind with respect to your own meals if you wish to not only use the recipes we will give you, but also use this guide to try to make and freeze some of your own recipes. In this way, you can make the most of your freezer and your food budget, and never do the leftover shuffle and toss again. You will also find even more recipes to try, with instructions on freezing, storing and reheating and serving after freezing, for best results.
We are always happy to get feedback from our readers-we dedicate this book to you, and please keep more of your questions and ideas coming.
Note on different tastes and food preferences:
Everyone has different tastes when it comes to food, and of course many of these tastes start right in the home thanks to what your parents and grandparents cook.
People have differing views on what constitutes a 'good meal'. Evelyn tells the hilarious story of a young man who wanted to date her coming to her house for dinner. The young man (let’s call him Joe) had phoned and spoken to Evelyn's mother, who promptly invited him over for a meal, thinking him a potential 'good catch' for Evelyn.
Joe showed up dressed nicely, with flowers for the hostess. Evelyn was feeling cornered by her matchmaking mother constantly giving her smug, "Isn't he wonderful?" looks, until Joe said, "What's for dinner. I hope it isn't any of that Wop Slop."
Both women stared at him in shock. Had they heard him correctly?
Yes, they had, because Joe was SO rude he actually repeated it. "There's nothing like good old Irish cooking. Give me corned beef and cabbage any day compared to Wop Slop. I hate pizza and anything with slimy tomatoes on top."
Evelyn said quietly, "Well, I'm sorry to hear that. My mother's mother is from Italy, so we have Italian food most nights of the week. It's lasagna tonight, but since you hate 'Wop Slop' as you put it, we wouldn't dream of insisting you stay."
Joe turned red with embarrassment and tried to stammer his way through an apology and an attempt to stay, but Evelyn's mother was already getting his coat. So much for the 'great catch'. Joe was a narrow-minded bigot and he never dared call the house again.
Corned beef and cabbage is a pleasant enough dish around St. Patrick's Day, but it certainly does not count as haute cuisine. It also does not tend to freeze well because it is so watery and the meat tends to be so stringy.
Your taste in food will also depend on attitude. Evelyn eventually married a man from a very small town in Ireland who isn't a bigot and adores Italian food and every other cuisine. They love cooking through all of her cookbooks cover to cover together.
Our own husbands are quite adventurous too when it comes to food, and don't mind healthy eating as long as the food is full of flavor.
Mara's mother-in-law is a good plain cook; Erin's can just about boil water, so Erin tends to do a lot of cooking for the family gatherings.
For some people, food is simply fuel, like gas in a car. For others, food and cooking is more of a hobby, a way to explore some of the nicer things in life.
But with the economy in the US still not improving very rapidly, anything you can do to cut costs on your food bill each month means money for other things, like savings in the bank.
With that view in mind, we will not only be focusing on healthy recipes in this guide, but the best ways to make them inexpensively.
One final point we would like to make is in reference to ‘healthy eating’. We like to emphasize fresh, natural ingredients and making from scratch whenever possible. There are far too many ‘open a can of soup’-type recipes online. Anything canned will have a great deal of sodium/salt in them, and new research seems to indicate that the linings on commercial cans (used to coat the inside of the can so that the food will not react with the metal, such as acid products like tomatoes) might have toxic properties.
Yes, it is true that there are pesticides used in the farming industry on fresh fruits and vegetables, but if you buy locally from small farms and wash them well, you should generally be safe. In addition, you might also like to consult the "Dirty Dozen Plus" and "Clean 15" lists from FoodNews.org, which show you the foods most impacted by pesticides, and the least impacted. The lower the number on the list of the Dirty Dozen Plus, the ‘dirtier’ it is. Those are foods they recommend buying organic.
Our final point is that healthy eating does not have to be dull, but every family does have different tastes. The tastes are at least in part also influenced by the kind of food we encounter in society. Fast food is full of salt and sugar. Canned soup is full of salt. Compare your own homemade soup to what comes out of a can, and yes, it might taste a little bland, because you have not put a week's worth of your daily allowance of salt into each serving. You can dress up your food with herbs and spices without loading on the salt and sugar (a common ingredient even in salad dressings these days).
As with any new recipe book, we recommend you cook the recipes 'as is,' the first time. Make notes, taste and test. Then adapt as needed to suit your family. (Reminder: For baked items like cakes, you should always follow the recipe to the letter the first time, and stick fairly closely to it thereafter unless you are a more experienced cook. Unlike soups, stews and casseroles, baking is more of a fine art/science requiring exact measurements.) Our recipes aim to be 'foolproof', so that any new cook can get a good result and not waste food and be disappointed, or worse still, disappoint their hungry families.
So let's get started now with how to store frozen food properly, and other essential freezer hints and tips not covered in our previous guides, before moving on to even more make and freeze recipes.