The Freezer is Your Friend

So, you've spent valuable time, effort, and money making a good meal.  The amount of food you've made is too much for just you for dinner tonight and lunch tomorrow.  Let's face it, even the most diehard foodie can grow weary of eating the exact same meal several days in a row.  So, what do you do to save that food?

Freeze it.

Walk down the freezer aisle in the grocery store and look at all of the frozen meals populating the freezers.  How do you think they did it?  Premade food, put in a microwaveable container, and frozen.  Sound like something you can do?  Of course!

I've done this with a lot of things:  Eggplant Parmesan, Baked Ziti, Crabcakes, Pancakes, Soup...you can try it with just about anything.  Just portion the leftovers into individual portions, and freeze them separately to make your own "frozen meals."  Then, the next time you're running out the door with no time to make lunch, just grab a meal out of the freezer and go!

Quick Tips:

1. Soup:  I suggest using a plastic freezer bag for individual portions of soup.  It makes it much easier to remove the soup for reheating.
2. Pancakes:  When you make pancakes from a mix, make the whole batch of 23 or so 4" pancakes.  Let them cool, then pack them into a freezer bag and freeze them.  To reheat, pop one out, wrap it in a paper towel, and microwave until warmed (timing will vary depending on your microwave, mine takes about 45 seconds).
3. Bread:  Saving bread or biscuits is just the same as saving pancakes - just pop them in the freezer and either microwave or toast to reheat.
4. Vegetables:  Frozen veggies is almost a no-brainer.  If you have veggies that you might not use in time, freeze them!
5. Meat:  If you want to freeze chicken pieces, ground beef, or any other kind of meat, just make sure you separate the meat into amounts that you will use in one serving.  If you don't, you'll have to wrestle with frozen chicken or steak stuck together until it thaws a little.   
6. Butter:  Buy or make your own butter in larger quantities, and throw most of it into the freezer until you need it.
7. Buy some frozen foods in bulk.  This will save you time (chopping veggies) and money (fresh veggies can be quite expensive in the off season), while opening up new options for quick and delicious meals if you haven't had time to go to the grocery store.