Here are some tips for making simple meals ahead of time:
– Buy foil casserole pans. Use minipans to freeze foods in two-portion quantities. You can tuck a minipan into a 1-quart zip-seal plastic freezer bag for freezer storage.
– For small families, you can make a recipe that serves six. Cook two servings tonight, refrigerate two uncooked portions in a mini-casserole tinfoil pan for later in the week and freeze two uncooked servings for sometime in the future.
– If you are planning to freeze a casserole in a large baking dish, you may want to line the dish with tinfoil. Then, when the food is frozen solid, you can remove it in a chunk and place in a zip-seal bag. That way, you’ll have your pan back and the food will take up less space in the freezer.
– In general, casseroles keep in the freezer for up to two months. Of course, the sooner you use them the better they will taste.
– If baking a dish straight from the freezer, heat the oven as soon as you get home from work–about an hour to 90 minutes later, dinner will be ready. You have time to take a bath, open the mail or help the kids with their homework.
