Does Anyone Cook Ahead?

[Deleted]

I'm to the point where I am not eating well beacuse I just plain refuse to cook. I'm just bored with food (weird huh?) and I need to have some things cooked up that I can nuke and move on. It's just me and the kiddo eating meals together and I refuse to buy canned soup or TV dinners because of all the yuckie stuff in them.
I'm also paranoid that I'm not getting enough vegetables and nutrition, so I tend to over-complicate things.

Tomorrow I'm making enchiladas (ground turkey, cheese, tortillas, home-made sauce) and putting pinto beans/spanish rice in the bottom of the container and freezing. It will have about a serving of tomatoes, but also all the spices which as supposed to be loaded with vitamins... is this enough?

What about spaghetti? Are there enough veggies in the sauce?

How do you make sure you get 5 a day if you cook ahead? I know that you can add a salad but I really don't want to (at least not regularly) since I can't find a dressing that tastes good to me that doesn't have soy (Lannie's told me to stay away and I had been, then a couple of days ago I went on a 'ranch kick' and I'm swollen up like a blimp)

SO I guess I'm rambling, but I would like to know how to make it easy to fit all the foods that I need into a container to freeze (I really don't care if I eat the same thing repeatedly, just as long as it's not all soup).

[Kathy]

I make things like stews, gumbo's, spinach/italian sausage lasagna, eggs foo yung with lots of veggies & chicken n dumplings to freeze in meal size containers.

I use a lot of onions, celery, green peppers, garlic, carrots, zuchinni and other veggies in the appropriate dish so I'm pretty sure I'm getting at least 3-4 vegetables a day and then I like to have a fruit or two to round out the nutrients.

[Deleted]

Well, when I had shoulder surgery, the nurse advised me to make up some veggie soup ahead of time and freeze it. So I went out and got a package of one-cup containers, made my soup, put it into the little containers, and froze them. What a brilliant idea!!! I'm all recovered from surgery now, but these days I make (usually) stew and divvy it up into the little containers and it is s-o-o-o-o good!

I'm going to modify my process a little and just parboil the veggies for the next batch because they tend to get cooked to pieces otherwise. Got the ingedients in my fridge right now, will cook it up tomorrow. Yum!

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Two of my favorite cookbooks for quick meals:

A man, a can, a microwave (by David Joachim)

and

The Kitchenless Cookbook (by Suanne Beverly)

[momo]

Right now my freezer is full of meal sized portions of meatloaf, beans, split pea soup, meatballs and hot wings. I call them my homemade tv dinners. Much healthier and no unpronouncable ingredients.

[kitaye]

I do it all the time. I usually cook for 4 and end up with enough for 8. There are only two of us. We freeze the leftovers into small aluminum pans with paper lids. That way on days when I just can't be bothered to cook or come home late, all we have to do is pull the pans out and pop them in the oven for 1/2 hour or so.

[Deleted]

I would love to find aluminum pans with paper lids, I use the typical plastic and I prefer for stuff to be in the oven and get crispy.

Thanks

[momo]

Check at a restaurant supply company..they might have them.

[bergere]

Normally we try to double cook. Is nice to have just heat and eat homemade dinners.

There were also times I would pick one day a week to cook. Bag everything up with what we need for each dinner and freeze.