Sanders - Fix n freeze pressure cooker meals in an instant: 100 best make-ahead dinners for busy families

FIX N FREEZE

100 BestMAKE-AHEAD DINNERSfor Busy Families

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WHATS FOR DINNER? Imagine coming home after a long day and not needing to worry about the dinner dilemma. With Fix n Freeze Pressure Cooker Meals in an Instant, youll always have a delicious answer waiting to go from freezer to pressure cooker to dinner table in just minutes!

Electric pressure cookers have revolutionized cooking in the last few years. Its now possible to whip up pot roasts, long-simmering stews, and even ribs on a weeknight. But even if you already turn to a pressure cooker to help speed dinner to the table, the Fix n Freeze method takes convenience to the next level with dozens of simple, family-friendly recipes you prep in advance, freeze, and then pop into your multi-cooker when youre ready to eat. With Fix n Freeze, youll enjoy:

Home-cooked, healthier meals.Fix n Freeze Pressure Cooker Meals in an Instant offers a variety of great dinner recipes that beat frozen pizza and takeout to the table and help you feel good about what youre serving your family.

Time saved for what you really want or need to do. You choose how many meals you want to make in advancea weeks or even a months worth!and dedicate a few hours or more on a weekend to preparing, bagging, and freezing the ingredients. Its fun, easy, and even something you can do together as a family, because most of the work involves simple chopping and measuring. On serving day, you add some liquid to your potusually in the form of flavor-building stockplace the frozen meal into the multi-cooker, and pressure-cook it until done. Given that you dont have to do anything to the pot while its cooking, its a godsend for multitaskers who need to help kids with homework, return emails, and catch up on household choresall while making a hot meal.

Money saved and less food waste. Too often, in the dinner crunch, its tempting to eat out or turn to takeout more often than you (and your budget) would like. If that sounds like your life, and youre looking for a new way to get a home-cooked meal on the table every night for your family, then the Fix n Freeze method may be just what youre looking for.

In a time when were becoming more conscious about food waste, this method wastes less food because you buy only what you need, prep it, and freeze it. It doesnt have time to languish and spoil in the fridge, only to be tossed away. You may also find that it saves you money because youre sticking to your shopping list!

With the Fix n Freeze method, youve got this dinner thing in the bag. Literally.

THE FIX N FREEZE METHOD

Ready to get started and be rewarded with a freezer full of ready-to-cook meals? Its so simple!

1. Select and shop. First, choose the recipes you want to make. Then, make a list, checking to see what you already have on hand and what you need to buy. Next, head to the store and shop. If youre preparing a weeks worth of dinners, you can shop in the morning and do the prep work in the afternoon. If youre planning two or more weeks of dinners, you may want to shop the day before so you can start prepping the following morning.

Many of the recipes use the same cuts of meatnamely, boneless, skinless chicken thighs, chuck roast, and pork shoulder. There are several reasons for that. First, you can take advantage of larger, more economical packages, such as those you might find at a warehouse club or a family pack at your supermarket. Also, these cuts tend to be a little less expensive. Most importantly, though, these cuts are the best fit for pressure cooking. Lean cuts like chicken breast and pork tenderloin can dry out too easily, leading to disappointment.

Some recipes require you to add a few ingredients on cooking day, including perishable items that dont freeze or pressure-cook well (for example, dairy, some herbs, vegetables that are meant to stay crunchy). If youre preparing a weeks worth of meals, you may want to pick up all of these serving-day items at once to have on hand. For two or more weeks, its better to buy the items later to avoid spoilage.

2. Knock out the prep. Roll up your sleeves and clear the countertops! To speed the prep work, you can chop onions and other vegetables in a food processor, and no one will be the wiser if you use pre-minced garlic. (Hint: If you do, a teaspoon of minced garlic is about one clove, so a tablespoon would be about three cloves.) If youre very pressed for time, you can even buy precut veggies. If youre making several recipes that require you to precook ground beef or turkey, you can cook all of the meat at once, and then divide it up as needed for the recipes. To make the meats freezer and multi-cooker friendly, theyre chopped into small pieces. That way, theyll cook evenly, and you wont be left with something thats overcooked on the outside and still frozen in the center.

Once youve prepped your ingredients, youll place them in gallon-size freezer bags and then label and seal the bags. Then youll put the bags in round containers so that they freeze into a round shape that can be put directly in the multi-cooker.

3. Take it from freezer to pressure cooker to table. On serving day, youll need to add liquid in order for the multi-cooker to come up to pressure. Most models need about a cup of liquid, but check your manual to see what your machines particular requirements are and increase the liquid if necessary. To build flavor, the recipes in this book generally call for stock. In a pinch, you can use water, but you may want to taste and adjust the seasonings at the end to compensate. , youll find tasty recipes for homemade stock, but its perfectly fine to use canned stock or a concentrated chicken, beef, or vegetable base in water. If you use frozen homemade stock, just add it to the multi-cooker first, set it on Saut, and once it has melted, add your food and proceed with the recipe.

A few hints: If youre having a hard time releasing the frozen food from the plastic bag, you can hold it under warm running water for a minute or two and it should slide right out. The multi-cooker will take longer to come up to pressure than youre used to, sometimes 20 minutes or longer, because the food thaws out before its cooked.

TROUBLESHOOTING TIPS

Something not going quite as expected? Check out some of the most common issues that can pop up, along with simple solutions.