I Double Dare You To Freeze It

I am a cheapie, but I love to eat well. I hate to cook on work nights, and I only eat free-range, humanely raised meat. This meat is expensive, but it is my only alternative to becoming a vegetarian again. The expense motivates me to use up every last morsel. I can usually bargain a big freezer pack of meat with my wonderful butcher. To offset the cost, I always buy generic cereal, ketchup, butter, bbq sauce, frozen veggies, frozen fries, yadda, yadda, yadda...you get the idea.

The whole meat pack goes into the freezer, it is cooked meal by meal, then the left over meal goes back into the freezer! I experiment with freezing anything and everything.

If something is not appealing as an immediate left-over, it goes into a plastic baggy. I suck the air out, seal it up, and label the contents and date with a sharpie. I decided that I have nothing to lose in at least trying to freeze everything. Any time I make lasagna, I freeze half of it. I freeze any left over sauce, meat, and pasta. Whenever I am cooking a few chicken breasts, whatever is left gets chopped into stir-fry sized pieces and frozen. I hate, hate, hate boiling pasta. I always drizzle left-over plain pasta with olive oil, and salt, pepper, garlic and basil, and then freeze.

The wonderful thing that happens when I come stumbling home from a long day: I can thaw a bag of cooked, sliced chicken, and throw on a yummy salad. I find the frozen bags of sauce, cooked pasta, and cooked meat—hello dinner, and I don’t even have to boil the dehrn pasta! I can just nuke it all! I made yummy turkey meat loafs, and no expectations of how they might taste after frozen and thawed. Wonderful! I have found that frozen meat which then gets cooked and re-frozen, tastes just fine!

Even when you pull it out of the freezer, and it looks non-appetizing, or like it is covered in ice, I dare you to thaw and warm it up anyway. Some frozens that have been met with my most harsh skepticism, end up tasting the best after carefully re-heating them.

One thing to try when defrosting in the micro: Moisten a paper towel and lay it on top of what you are thawing. Also, thaw it slowly, checking often so that it is not overly nuked.

Some other things that freeze well: Milk, bread, cheese, fresh fruit, cooked meats, cold cuts, most dips, soups, and herbs! Left over fresh herbs: chop, blend with olive oil and freeze in cube trays. Put frozen cubes in plastic bag, pop directly into pan or pot when cooking.