Frozen assets: Here's another solution for the 5 p.m. dinner panic

0 Comments | Deseret News (Salt Lake City), Feb 25, 2003 | by Valerie PhillipsDeseret News food editor

Cook all day, eat all month. It's another solution for the 5 p.m. dinner panic. You spend one day preparing massive amounts of entrees and freeze them in dinner-size portions. Then when it's dinner time, just thaw out your meal and serve.

Most home cooks have done this in a limited form -- making a double batch of spaghetti or a casserole and freezing it for later. Several authors have expanded on the idea in cookbooks: "Frozen Assets," by Deborah Taylor-Hough; "Once-A-Month Cooking," by Mimi Wilson and Mary Beth Lagerborg; "Month of Meals: One Day to a Freezerful of Entrees," by Kelly Machel; and "The Freezer Cooking Manual From 30 Day Gourmet," by Tara Wohlenhaus. In Utah, Lori L. Rogers and Chriscilla Thornock-Humpherys wrote "Too Busy to Cook," with low-fat recipes published in 1994 (Rogers has since moved to Texas).

The authors list these advantages to make-ahead meals:

Time savings. "It's like giving yourself 26 hours in a day," writes Rogers. "Every day, for 365 days a year, you spend one to two hours preparing and cleaning up from an evening meal. Wouldn't you rather spend six to eight hours a month, or maybe only every three months, cooking those evening meals instead?"

Once you've gotten out the grater, it only takes a few more minutes to shred the entire block of cheese. By chopping all the vegetables at once, you've saved the time it takes to get out and clean up the cutting board or food processor. Your time is spent more efficiently.

Cost savings. When ground beef is on sale, you can buy 10 pounds to make and freeze spaghetti, lasagna and hamburger-type casseroles. When you're doubling or tripling a recipe, you can use up a whole package of fresh herbs or a bunch of celery, rather than just using a stalk or two and letting the rest go to waste. Also, you make fewer trips to the market, which discourages impulse shopping.

Portion control. Package the meals for one, two or 10 servings, depending on the size of your family.

Family help. If you're late getting home from work, a spouse or child can pull out the frozen meal and pop it in the oven or microwave.

You can cook healthful meals your family likes, instead of resorting to high-fat fast food, or commercial meal kits that are often high in fat, starch and sodium and low on vegetables.

No more "what's for dinner?" panic. Most people don't hate to cook; they just hate the pressure of having to cook every night. On the nights you feel like cooking, you can. But when you don't feel like it, your freezer meal is there.

Handy emergency meals. You've got dinner for unexpected company or comfort food for bereaved or ill friends. Thornock-Humpherys said she recently made 10 of her daughter's favorite meals, so when her daughter came home from the hospital with a new baby, she had dinners stashed away in her freezer.

The concept was so appealing to Deborah Taylor-Hough that she started a Once-A-Month-Cooking Web site, members.aol.com/oamcloop, that averages 4,000-plus visitors each month. Her book, "Frozen Assets," uses many of the techniques from the site.

However, you don't want to end up with a dozen unidentified plastic containers floating around in the far corners of the freezer. Here's advice from freezer-meal experts:

Finding space. Use quart- or gallon-size zip-style plastic freezer bags, or vacuum packaging bags. They can flatten out, and 20 to 25 gallon-size bags will stack in the freezer above your refrigerator. Plus, it's easy to see the contents through the clear plastic. If you're short on freezer space, do only 15 meals, twice-a-month. "Wait until the freezer clears out later in the month before stocking up on frozen bread, ice cream, etc.," advises Taylor-Hough. You can also prepare and freeze only sauces (spaghetti, chicken a la king, etc.) and cook the noodles or rice fresh for serving.

Finding time. If you can't spend a full day cooking, try doing three or four meals at a time, writes Taylor-Hough. Or, prepare all the chicken recipes one evening, all the ground beef recipes another night. But don't try to sandwich a 20-meal cooking spree into a night after work, between a billion errands. You'll waste a lot of food if you run out of time or energy.

Make a plan. Don't just wing it -- you'll waste time running to the store for a forgotten ingredient. Figure out the recipes you'll use and make a shopping list. Be sure to do the math and double and triple the amounts you'll need. Plan on a cooking system. Most authors say to start cooking meats first; while they cook, you can chop veggies, grate cheese, etc.

Packaging the food. To avoid spills, place the zip-style plastic bag inside a 2-quart pitcher as if you are lining a garbage can. Then pour the food in. If you use rigid plastic containers, fill them all the way; excess air allows ice crystals to form on the food, which can make it taste soggy or give it that "fridge-itis" taste. Zip up the zip-style bag most of the way and suck the air out with a straw.

Label your food. Don't rely on memory -- a lot of stuff looks the same when it's frozen. Label and date your meals with a permanent marker, and write heating directions on the bag so anyone in your household can follow them. In a freezer kept at zero degrees, meals can be kept two to three months; use the oldest meals first. Taylor- Hough posts a list of all the meals on the freezer door, and marks them off as they're used.