Vegetarian and Seafood recipes that are good for freezing?

[turtledazzle]

Our little one is due in about six weeks, and I'm looking for some good vegetarian and/or seafood recipes that will freeze well.

I'm not really very experienced with freezing foods except for my baked ziti, which I know freezes well. One Thanksgiving I had a ton of mashed potatoes left over and, surprisingly, they froze pretty well. Otherwise, I'm a complete freezing novice. I do like to cook, but we just generally eat leftovers within a couple of days instead of freezing. However, with the new bebe, I know pulling something out of the freezer will be very nice.

I'd be very appreciative of any suggestions!

 

[Octavia]

Re: Vegetarian and Seafood recipes that are good for freezin

I freeze as much as I can given the tiny amount of space we have, so I've got a couple of tips:

First, I usually put stuff in freezer bags, squeeze out the air, and freeze them flat. Stacking them takes up so much less space than other kinds of containers. Don't heat stuff up in the freezer bags, though -- thaw it a bit and and slide it out into a microwave-safe container instead. It's a bit tricky with liquids, but if you fill them upright and squeeze as much of the air out as you can, it will be fine -- doesn't have to be 100% free of air if you'll use it fairly soon.

Soups freeze well, as long as they are broth-based. Cream-based ones don't do as well. I've often made large vats of vegetable broth-based minestrone, lentil, veggie noodle, etc soups and frozen them in 1- or 2-serving portions. Veggie chili freezes well, too (I've done both a black bean version and a more traditional version with bulgur instead of meat).

Lasagne is a perennial favorite, I like to fill mine up with spinach, zucchini, and other veggies. You can either bake a big one and freeze the leftovers to reheat, or don't bake it before freezing and just do that when you're ready to eat. If you won't eat the whole pan, portion it out before you put it in the freezer to avoid having to heat the entire thing up when you just want a piece or two. This also works for stuffed shells, manicotti, basically any other variation of the basic pasta-cheese-veggies-sauce theme.

Pot pies can be frozen -- just a simple pie crust filled with a ton of steamed veggies, maybe some tempeh if you like it, and a veggie-based gravy. If you have smaller pie pans, they work great for this.

If you feel the need for a quick sweet treat, cookie dough freezes beautifully. I'm partial to chocolate chip, I have a couple ziplocks full of cookie dough balls in my freezer. Drop cookie-sized lumps of dough on a cookie sheet (they can be pretty close together), freeze for about an hour, then toss them all in a freezer bag. When you feel the need, pull out a couple and bake according to the normal directions -- no extra time needed.

Frozen veggies can be made into a quick stir-fry to serve along with some rice, it takes about 20 minutes. Not exactly a frozen meal, but not too time- and energy-consuming either.

I'll try to think of some more stuff, I know I've put a lot of other stuff in the freezer but I can't remember what right now. I'm definitely hungry after writing all that, though!

ETA: I'm not a fan of freezing cooked seafood, I think it gets kind of rubbery and it doesn't usually taste very good. A good alternative is to keep some cooked frozen shrimp from the grocery store so you can just heat them up and toss into whatever you're eating. You can also get individually wrapped frozen filets of fish that don't take very long to cook, some are pre-seasoned and everything.

 

[Puppmom]

Re: Vegetarian and Seafood recipes that are good for freezin

Turtle, I'm not so experienced with freezing food other than sauce and soup BUT I do know some really quick and easy vegetarian dinners. DH can even make these.

Black bean burritos:

I just heat a couple of cans of black beans
Spoon the black beans into burrito size tortillas
add guacamole (when I'm really lazy, I just use the individual serving packs), fresh salsa, and cheese
roll up the tortilla and you're done!
with the extra black beans, i just melt cheese on top and we eat them with tortilla chips

Pierogies and baked beans:
we use potato and onion pierogies (we boil them when we're in a hurry)
melt cheese on top (usually just putting shredded cheese on when they're on your plate just out of the pot is good enough to melt it)
heat bush's vegetarian baked beans and spoon over the top to really get the cheese nice and gooey

Lemon pasta:
boil spaghetti or angel hair
create mixture of 1/4 cup olive oil (you can use less if you want) and lemon juice (to taste - usually about 1.5 lemons is good for us), salt, pepper and parmesan cheese
just pour the mixture (while stirring or whisking) over the pasta and toss

These are our "we don't have time to cook" meals that don't make us feel like we're eating crap. I know the point of freezing is more for ease than quickness and you may not want to spend ANY time in the kitchen but I thought I would share. For the record, I think my menu will consist of the above and cheese sandwiches until I feel up to cooking since it's all DH can make.