Kathy-in-NZ wrote:
My elderly mother-in-law (80) is going into hospital for hip
replacement surgery in a fortnight. My father-in-law is pretty useless
in the kitchen so I thought I'd make a stock of freezer meals for them
to eat when she gets out of hospital. I live a long way from them so
this will be a one-off effort. My husband is going up there and will
take the meals I prepare and freeze and put them in their freezer.

I could do with ideas (fairly plain cooking for them). So far I have
made:

* 3 meals of lamb roasts (TV dinner style) with mashed potatoes as
commercial TV dinners don't seem to use roast potatoes so I assume they
don't freeze and reheat well.
* 3 containers of vege soup.
* 1 chicken and mushroom pie.
* 1 chicken curry and rice (F-in-L) and curry and veges (MIL)

Any other ideas? My mother in law doesn't like spicy food. Also, apart
from using cornstarch instead of flour for thickening, are there any
other hints for successful freezer meals? So far I have tried to make
the entire "meat and vege" meal. But I am open to ideas on just
preparing the meat part of the meal.


Thanks in advance
Kathy in NZ


My parents are permanently in that state, and SIL and I kep them
supplied with stuff. They like non spicy, easy to eat food. It is a
mistake to give them full sized pies or casseroles - much better to have
individual serves. My parents are inclined to eat a little bit, leave
the rest lying around, heat it up again (inadequately) a couple of days
later and eat another little bit and so on - they don't believe in food
poisoning, but I'm afraid I do.

Individual shepherd's pies in ramekins, pasta with meatballs or just
mince and veggies in Italian tomato sauce, stews of any kind, risottos
of various kinds. Just about any kind of soup.You might consider dessert
- rice pudding and apple crumble freeze well.

It can't be true that roast veggies don't freeze well, because you can
buy them. However, they probably have some sort of special coating, and
it might be easier to just get them a bag from the supermarket.

Good luck!

Christine