A lesson on flash freezing

These chicken wings were sprinkled with a little Lawry's seasoned salt and baked, then when they cooled were placed on this waxed paper lined piece of cardboard and frozen.  The process is known as "flash freezing" because the wing pieces stay separated during the freezing process.

When frozen, the wings are transferred into a gallon ziplock bag and stored in the freezer.  Because they've been flash frozen, it's easy to just pull out however many wings you want to reheat, toss them frozen onto a cookie sheet, and bake at 350 deg. for @ 30 minutes.

They can also be thawed and warmed up on the grill with your favorite bbq sauce.  Great to have on hand in the summer for a quick appetizer - because they're already cooked!

Hint - prepare chicken legs and thighs exactly the same way.  I call this my flash-frozen convenience chicken.

Back to basics - freezing meatloaf

Meatloaf is probably the first thing that comes to people's minds when they think of freezer cooking.  That and spaghetti sauce.  If you've spent time on this blog, you know that meatloaf is really only the beginning, and considering how easy and versatile it is to freeze, it's a good place to start!

Some people like to assemble, bake, cool, wrap and freeze their meatloaves - then they just thaw and reheat later.  Some like to assemble the raw meatloaves and freeze them in the pans, and then pop them out and wrap them after their frozen - thawing and baking the meatloaf at a later time for a fresher taste.  This is the method I prefer - however, doing this means I need multiple loaf pans, or I need to freeze one meatloaf at a time.  Way too time consuming for me.

My method is pictured above.  I premix everything, and then put the mixture in gallon ziplock bags, it's relatively easy to squish it around and get most of the air out, meaning you don't need anything fancy like a food saver.  The bags can then be frozen flat, and stacked to take up a minimum amount of freezer space.  The increased surface area and thinness of the bags also means that defrosting time is drastically reduced.

Hint - freeze the bags on a glass freezer shelf, or on a piece of cardboard.  If you lay them flat on a wire shelf, you'll have a frustrating time trying to pry the frozen bag out of the wires.  Ask me how I know...

Chicken broth from a few scraps

This small pot holds 24 raw chicken wing tips, 4-1/2 cups of water, 2 ribs of celery, a good sized hunk of raw onion, one raw carrot, a little salt and a few whole peppercorns.  Use whole peppercorns, they strain out at the end instead of mucking up your finished broth.

The wing tips were left over from preparing chicken wings.  This many are just the right amount for making a quart of homemade chicken broth.  Pieces of chicken I normally would have thrown out I can now turn into 1 quart of broth to be frozen - that I can pull out of the freezer at any point in the future and use in soups, stews and other recipes.  A quart of good, low sodium organic chicken broth at the grocery store fetches somewhere in the neighborhood of $3.00.  You do the math!

Simmer gently for a couple of house, strain the broth, pour into a quart sized ziplock bag and lay flat to freeze.

Bonus - candles shmandles...cook this stuff up, your kitchen will smell amazing for several hours.

Lunch at the office?

Sandwiches get old and eating out is expensive, so here's an alternative to lunch in the workplace.

You've seen the TV commercials for heat and eat entrees - Eddie from accounting touting freeze-dried noodle enlightenment, Healthy Choice Fresh Mixers, I'm sure there are more out there.  But why pump your body full of sodium and chemicals, or pay the outrageous prices for these convenience foods?

When I prepare dinner for my family, I always try to prepare a bit extra so Glen can assemble a lunch to keep in the freezer, and then take to the shop and heat up in the microwave when he feels like eating that particular meal.  The meatloaf, baked potato and green beans lunch is just an example to show you, because it's what I happened to prepare last night.  The containers are simple and inexpensive Gladware that go from freezer to microwave easily.  The cost?  Pennies, people - pennies, compared to what you'll pay for shelf-stable and other frozen meals.  Most importantly, you control the portion sizes and the ingredients.

Because everything is fully cooked, he takes it out of the freezer in the morning and can leave it on the counter thawing until it's ready to reheat.

In today's economy, it's more important than ever not to be wasteful.  Plus, home cooked food just plain tastes better!