Grandmas Tips for
Cooking for Your Freezer
Creating your own Fast Food Meals
Natural Health Series
Dueep J. Singh
Mendon Cottage Books
JD-Biz Publishing
All Rights Reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means, including scanning, photocopying, or otherwise without prior written permission from JD-Biz Corp Copyright 2014
All Images Licensed by Fotolia and 123RF.
Disclaimer
The information is this book is provided for informational purposes only. It is not intended to be used and medical advice or a substitute for proper medical treatment by a qualified health care provider. The information is believed to be accurate as presented based on research by the author.
The contents have not been evaluated by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration or any other Government or Health Organization and the contents in this book are not to be used to treat cure or prevent disease.
The author or publisher is not responsible for the use or safety of any diet, procedure or treatment mentioned in this book. The author or publisher is not responsible for errors or omissions that may exist.
Warning
The Book is for informational purposes only and before taking on any diet, treatment or medical procedure, it is recommended to consult with your primary health care provider.
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Table of Contents
Introduction
In great great grandmas time, when freezers were not around, she made sure that the foods that were cooked for her family were preserved either in cold cellars and storage, or cooked in such a manner, that there was no question of it spoiling. That is when she used salt, sugar, vinegar and herbs to preserve the food content.
We still use sugar in its syrup form to preserve food.
She also made sure that the food that she cooked was eaten as quickly as possible, and the leftovers were just about enough to be preserved for a little while, before it went bad. That is why what you had for dinner today would be fed to you for breakfast tomorrow, lunch, and then if there was still something left over for dinner tomorrow, you had to finish it up.
But as time went by, and cooking techniques improved, more and more food items could be preserved for longer periods of time, either by preserving them in sugar syrup, vinegar, or heating them to high temperatures and then sealing. That is how Christmas puddings, pies and other food items were baked in August and then throughout the rest of the months, until they were enjoyed in December.
Grandma knew 500 years ago that ice cream could be made by churning ice and salt in a container, with the ice cream pail placed in it. Grandma of ancient times and medieval times salted pork and meat and put it into airtight hogsheads. This was the meat eaten by sailors when they were at sea. So if they could not catch a fresh meal, they had to fall back on salted preserved food.
However, as technological development and state-of-the-art technology began to make its presence felt in the 19 th century, advancing into the 20 th century, refrigerators and other freezing equipment, came into existence and grandma found out that cooking for the freezer was an excellent way in which she could do her cooking, preserving and baking at one time, while gaining full advantage of her freezer.
So this book is going to give you tips and techniques, as well as recipes on how you can get the best from your freezer with an excellent selection of food items which can be done today or frozen for tomorrow.
Tips before Freezing
Freeze only foods of the very best quality.
Freeze food as soon as possible after preparing; cool hot Foods quickly by standing the casserole or the pan in very cold water and stirring occasionally.
Never put hot or even warm foods into the freezer. Not only is this change in temperature going to cause problems in your cooling system, but it is also not going to help freeze the food to the level needed.
Pack the food up in small packets. This is going to help in defrosting one meal at a time, instead of taking out a whole packet, getting it defrosted and then putting it back into the freezer for freezing again. This procedure is not advised, especially when you are trying to refreeze meat products or fish products. Somehow, once these products have defrosted, the chances of their quality deteriorating when you try to refreeze it again increases.
The smaller the package, the quicker the food will freeze and it will thaw and reheat more quickly and be of better quality and flavor.
In fact, I suggest a tip for all of us office goers, who really could not be bothered to come home and slave over the kitchen stove. That is why ready cooked meals are so popular. My suggestion is to keep one evening free. Do all your weeks cooking at that time. Make up a number of packets. Make an assortment of dishes, so that you have a varied choice of what you wish to eat. So you may have casseroles on Monday, pies on Tuesday, pizza on Wednesday and so on.
Be creative, and the best thing is that you are going to be eating healthy food which you have prepared yourself.
I just hate cooking, you say. Believe it or not, once upon a time, so did I. I lived on bread, boiled eggs, cheese, butter, and anything which could be spread from a bottle or reheated from a can. Until the quality of my health started deteriorating, because I was not getting proper nourishment.
So I decided to get into the kitchen and see what I could do to make my life easier, especially when I came home at night after a hard days work piloting a desk and as ravenous as a bear.
Easy Tips Greens
The more spinach you have in your freezer, the more options you have to use it in different combinations. I hate spinach! The word hate is normally utilized by a large number of finicky eaters, because they never got a chance to eat delicious foods prepared from the items they hated. So the moment somebody said spinach, they visualized the soggy mess dished up during their childhood by a cook who definitely did not bother much about taste, texture or flavor.
So if you are in that category, try entering a brand-new world of eating preparing frozen greens for your freezer.
Preparing Spinach
Chop up spinach, after you have washed it thoroughly. Just put in about 2 teaspoons of water and one teaspoonful of salt. Cover and allow to cook for 5 minutes. Then put the spinach in the blender, allowed to blend, allow to cool and freeze.
This chunk of frozen spinach can be taken out and a portion of it removed for cooking. Put the rest of the chunk back into the freezer. After that, you can make spinach soup out of that defrosted portion, stir fry that spinach with herbs and spices, stir fry it with chicken pieces, or make any sort of gravy with fried onions and tomatoes, garlic and chili, herbs and spices and add the spinach.
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