Working on stocking up the freezer for the winter

I was just watching Lidia on PBS and she made a butternut soup. It looked so delicious. I like butternut but for some reason hardly ever use it. Need to add it to my grocery list.
 

I tend to stock my freezer with ingredients like vegetables, berries, cooked rice, tomato sauce, vegan meatballs, etc., rather than fully prepared meals. However, I will make and freeze some pea soup when (and if) the weather turns cool. Pizza is another exception because making it is such a megillah (not the least of which is preheating the oven to 500 degrees for an hour).

A lot of the dishes listed are inspiring. Chili sounds great as do some of the soups. Great idea for a thread, @Marie5656!
 
@RadishRose This may seem a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway. You mentioned meatloaf freezing well. Do you cook it first? Or just prepare the loaf and freeze uncooked? I am thinking of that as my next project, making several smaller loafs .
I was talking with a lady who mixes beer and pork. She adds veal when she can get it. I have never mixed the meats. May try.
 
Marie5656 said:
@RadishRose This may seem a dumb question, but I'll ask anyway. You mentioned meatloaf freezing well. Do you cook it first? Or just prepare the loaf and freeze uncooked? I am thinking of that as my next project, making several smaller loafs .
I was talking with a lady who mixes beer and pork. She adds veal when she can get it. I have never mixed the meats. May try.
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Marie, I have only frozen leftover cooked meatloaf.

You Tube is rife with "Dump and Go meals" - all the fresh ingredients are dumped into a freezer bag or container, thawed in the fridge the night before then dumped into a crock pot for cooking.

There's even more videos for Freezer Meals. Some of it is slop, and these stay-at-home-moms, seem to cook nothing but hamburger and chicken. Oh, and Tater tot casseroles with canned soup and plenty of cheezyness.

But some of them look pretty good. Most of these gals have large families so, big amounts.

Yesterday I made a bangin' beef and barley soup with chopped fresh carrots.
 
I usually cook the ''meatloaf'' (made with beans), let it cool then put in ref until totally cold, I cut into serving pieces, wrap each portion with plastic wrap and put in freezer. It's only me and I don't like to leave leftovers in ref for more than 3 days. One meatloaf gives me like 6-8 servings.
 
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Marie5656 said:
So, here is my soup. Going to put these three containers into the fridge until tomorrow. Will put them into the smaller containers to freeze tomorrow.

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Something we learned was, we put our soups, sauces, etc. in plastic baggies and then place them in a shallow container and stick them in the freezer without the lid. After they freeze over, Usually 5-6 hours, we remove the frozen bag from the container. They stack up really well and take up less space that way. Plus, we don't end up with a bunch of broken containers since I always tend to crack the lid or the edge of the frozen container while trying to open them.
 
squatting dog said:
Something we learned was, we put our soups, sauces, etc. in plastic baggies and then place them in a shallow container and stick them in the freezer without the lid. After they freeze over, Usually 5-6 hours, we remove the frozen bag from the container. They stack up really well and take up less space that way. Plus, we don't end up with a bunch of broken containers since I always tend to crack the lid or the edge of the frozen container while trying to open them.
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Well, I have this to say about that, My Lovely Dog... I used to always freeze stuff in ziplock bags, flatten everything, ground beef, all sauces and whatever... you're right- this saves a ton of room in the freezer, but puts more plastics in the environment.

I know I'm a PITA with my plastic nag and thanks for listening.
 


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