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Thanks, @Smithy. The cabbage I bought is huge, 5 lbs at least. It will be good for more than one batch. So far I have prepared and lightly cooked sliced onion, garlic, sliced celery, cubed potato, gorgeous bacon. I haven't sliced the cabbage yet, because I don't want to slice it then leave it uncooked. So I'm only missing the sauce. (I'm not good at making sauces!)

@blue_dolphin @SLB and @Smithy Here's why I'm asking about sauces. My usual way is to look at a bunch of recipes then start cooking (mostly without a recipe). The current dish I'm trying to design involves cabbage. I've collected half dozen or so recipes. The sauces are made of: evaporated milk, flour, parmesan, breadcrumbs milk, flour, cheddar, sour cream French demi-glace cream cheese and mustard potatoes and Gruyère I think if the dish gets too complicated, it loses something. Seems the sauce could be simpler. Maybe I don't know how to make a sauce?

A friend has offered to help cook some meals, so I pinched stuff from that email. 😃 Right now I'm making up dishes with stuff from the fridge, though I do go out and buy a couple of things if it seems sensible. However, there's a certain sameness to what I cook, because I do it the same way. This is how I make a batch so far. (Credit to @patti and her Cooking for a Community Fridge) The pie tin pan is the same size as chicken pot pies from the grocery. For those, DH and I usually eat 1/2 pie apiece, but they are overflowing with pastry. The plastic container is how I got the pies home from grocery. They're handy to stack pie tins in the freezer to freeze. Each pan has been foil covered, then labelled with a printed file folder label. After being frozen, meal is slid into a 8x12 vacuum sealer bag (fits perfectly!) and then vacuumed. Nice little hockey pucks. In case I made the jpg too small to read, this dish has lamb, beetroot, onion, fresh corn (frozen by me), green pepper, tomato, and Rancho Gordo Good Mother Stollard beans. To be truthful, there might be barley &/or mashed potato in there too (because I never remember to put everything on the label).

@SLB, do you do anything special about sauces which go in the freezer? With a casserole, I think there ought to be a sauce. Or maybe two, to add some variety to the batch.

Very gracious (blush). Your post is full of most helpful information, and thanks to the pointer to rutabaga recipe. Sadly, I'm afraid of deep frying – what if I liked it? I suppose the people who deep fry regularly know how to minimize the volume of fat in finished coating . . .

Thanks for your generous wishes! No, no diet restrictions. Edited to add: But I do have a tendency to do some sameness. Right now I'm filling individual tin pie plates with a casseroley concoction: cooked meat, starch, garlic, onion, some veg. Sigh.

I also was thinking about dinner x 2. Once upon a time DH was the main dinner cook, but not for some time. Breakfast for me is toast. Lunch is easy if I have homemade bread (machine). 😃

Another note from my desk: SAUCES What are good sauces for dishes that will be frozen? VARIETY Methinks that more variety could be introduced by using noticeably different sauces in the same batch. Use different brined foods (tangy and salty) Suggestions welcome.

Much followup to do but I'm wanting to get rid of stack of notes on my desk! PRE-COOK If I'm only doing the pre-cooking of food components (onion, garlic, bacon, chicken, etc.), can I used dried vegetables (onion, garlic, carrot, celery, bell pepper, mushrooms*, etc.) WITHOUT any soaking or cooking, as long as I ADD water or other fluid to the dish? HERBS & SPICES Considering that reheated frozen food doesn't taste as good as the first cook, what can be done to improve the flavour? Can I (and is it effective to) double the dried herbs double the spices in dry rubs reduce the offensive spices (e.g. allspice) use more volume of flavourings, e.g. mustard, worcestershire sauce, soy sauce, Maggi, More Than Gourmet demi glace I want to thank everyone for their support. I'm going to be convalescent for a couple months at least; my operation is very soon, so I don't have time to do m/any more trial runs. It will be disastrous if everything tastes awful; I don't want to rely on drab takeout pizza, or chicken pies from the grocery. 😒 Edited to add: * Notwithstanding that @weinoo says I have to soak the mushrooms so I can get the dirt out.

Elsie, I don't know much about baking directly with a frozen dish, so maybe. It's possible my sister does this with her frozen meals, i.e. directly into the oven. Right now I'm pre-cooking items, as I do when making a casserole, e.g. onions, garlic, celery, bacon, potato cubes, cabbage, etc. But not all the items are fully cooked. The items are dolloped into multiple small containers which are wrapped with tin foil, labelled and frozen. Then vacuum-sealed. This process is kinda entertaining which I will document later. My plan was to put the frozen item in the steam oven at a low temp so it defrosts, then heats to eating temperature. I planned to keep the dish at that low temp for long enough to thoroughly cook the dish, but I don't think I left anything dangerous in any of the dishes I've made thus far. Anova Culinary has only one recipe for defrosting frozen proteins in APO with Sous Vide Mode but that recipe is for uncooked meat or fish, so not quite the right recipe. It defrosts up to ONE pound of frozen protein in about an hour. So, Elsie, I think you and I are on the same track! I will try to document what I have done so far so you can pinch any ideas you like. 😂

FREEZE-DRIED If a food item has been freeze-dried, does that indicate it has survived the freezing process? Does the length of time it has been frozen make any difference to the food product, rather than the year or two in regular freezer? Quite a while ago I read about @Kerry Beal's adventures in Freeze Dryers and Freeze Dried Food but don't know if rereading the thread would help me now. Kerry?

I too looked at Harold McGee's On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen. I was going to mention I wanted one of those specifically about freezing! (Great minds sometimes think alike in the morning 😀)

Thanks to @JAZ, I asked for ground rules for selecting recipes from her cookbooks for freezing meals

What was the sauce? Cream with or without cheese, or tomato?

Hi @JAZ, I have Dutch Oven Dinners Dutch Oven Cookbook for two Instant Pot obsession The Ultimate Instant Pot Cookbook for two Super-Easy Instant Pot Cookbook Thanks for offering to recommend some freezable recipes.

Thanks for this topic, @Smithy. DAIRY When selecting/preparing food to be frozen, what's the best suitability between milk evaporated or condensed milk dried milk butter cream sour cream or crème fraîche buttermilk yogurt cheese, various varieties thereof, including cream cheese ice cream and are there different freezing characteristics between dairy animals: cows, goats, sheep, buffaloes nut based milks I.e. How to adjust dairy components for the freezer.

COOKBOOKS, ENCYCLOPEDIA, REFERENCES First thing I'd like to know is if anyone has any cookbooks, encyclopedia or references about preparing food whose destination is to be frozen. I'm looking for something which says use cornstarch in place of cream, or bread freezes better than if refrigerated, or potatoes will like/dislike being frozen. I want to know the "why" of it. With an encyclopedia , I want to look up a vegetable or food product and find out how it survives when frozen. If the result isn't happy, I want to read what to use as a replacement or alternative. Or, what change in procedure will help. In general, I haven't found any/many printed/online recipes which state destination is to be frozen. And I've not yet discovered one search term that will whittle query results. Some recipes have instructions about cooking part way (up to Step 6) and then refrigerating or freezing the dish. Others say dish can be frozen for 3 weeks. What is the science behind either of those statements?

@rotuts, does Fz mean "frozen" ?

@ElsieD @Rickbern I have put nearly 5 pounds of Yukon Gold into the Paradice 9 1/2" dicer to put into my batch meals to be frozen. Now I want to steam the potato cubes not-quite-done in the Anova Precision Oven. Elsie, I know you might have got rid of yours, but I think you have another steaming device? What temp? For how long? (I think settings need to include 100% steam) TIA

@JeanneCake, is the reason RLB is putting the frozen pie on the oven floor is because the oven floor is especially hot? I have a ceramic pizza stone which sits permanently in my gas oven. I think it helps the oven have a more reliable temperature (range is 50ºF at least). It's up about 6 or 8" from the broiler, but I put the pans for items I'm baking directly on the stone. Because I had to look up what the stone is actually called, I learned it's oven and grill-safe to 2000ºF. Of course, my oven only goes to 550ºF. Would you expect this would suffice for a frozen pie shell?

Aah. Perfect answer, thank you. (I mind).

I have some dried mushrooms. What happened is that I forgot them in the fridge, but they were packaged properly so no mould. Can I just blitz them in the food processor and add to any old casserole?

Did you try this, @ElsieD ?

This is old, but no one answered me. Advice please?

Hello @JAZ, I have many of your cookbooks which I dip into regularly. Shortly I'll be having major surgery, so I'm wanting to pre-cook meals and freeze them. Could you please suggest what to consider when choosing between your recipes for which dishes will freeze best? Right now I'm intrigued by @Smithy's post for Instant Pot: Spicy Chickpeas with Sundried Tomatoes and Olives. How well does that freeze? (I'm not a very knowledgeable freezer) TIA