Request

By Alissa -
I have been making a lot of meals for a meals-on-wheels type of thing. Sometimes I make the meals at my house and freeze them before they get delivered. Other times I make a big casserole, which I drop off at the church where they portion it out before it gets frozen in the individual containers.

Basically, everything will get frozen at some point, and then delivered to people who can't get around real well or leave their houses. All the containers come with instructions as to how to reheat the meals.

I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas about what else I can prepare for these meals. When I make the individual dishes at my house, I usually just do whatever we're having for dinner and put the left-overs in the freezer containers. Sometimes I make quiche and divide that up. For the big casseroles I have made several trays of baked ziti, chili with cornbread topper, chicken-broccoli-rice casserole, and tuna noodle casserole.

Any other suggestions? Something that doesn't cost a ton of money would be great. The church ladies will add side dishes (usually a veggie and a starch) to every container, so I really only have to worry about the main entree.

Thanks!

Comments

Anonymous said…
How about soups? Take your pick -- lentil soup, split pea soup, minestrone, beef vegetable all freeze well. Chicken vegetable freezes well, you could put the noodles on the side in case they want noodles. Paired with some nice bread and/or a salad, it'd be a good meal. And inexpensive.
Chicken cacciatore (there's a recipe on our site that is good) also freezes well.
8:53 PM
Alissa said…
Yeah, I thought of soups, but I'm not sure if that would work well with the containers they use. The containers are basically like the old-school TV dinner trays from our childhood - aluminum foil trays with 3 compartments. They're pretty shallow. I'm wondering how something sloshy would work in a tray like that, especially if it's being maneuvered by older hands. Perhaps a thicker stew would work a little better.... like the chili I made once. I'll check out the chicken cacciatore recipe. I don't think I've ever made that.
11:23 PM
gwen said…
Hm... lots of slow-cooker thick stew-type stuff sounds like it would work -- maybe some of the stuff with meat that the Crockpot 365 woman talked about? I would bet that the elderly people aren't crazy about hippie-dippy chickpea curry whatever, but she had a lot of what I would consider more traditional food that you could make cheaply.

This could be another casserole-type option, if you haven't tried it yet:

http://foodgoodness.blogspot.com/2009/02/chicken-noodle-broccoli-casserole.html
8:38 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dayton's Famous Pine Club Salad Dressing

By -
Well, close enough anyway. The Pine Club is probably Dayton's most famous restaraunt--not that Dayton is some culinary mecca or anything. This dressing is traditionally served on an iceberg lettuce salad with grated carrot (boring). It's a shame, really, since the dressing is so good but that's why it's better to eat it at home on the salad of your choice. I like it over a green salad with blue cheese, apples/pears and toasted walnuts/pecans, it's good with pasta salad and it's also good on Isaac's broccoli salad. Serves approximately 8. 1 C vegetable/canola oil 3/4 C cider vinegar 1/3 C white sugar 1 tsp salt 2 tsp garlic powder 1 scant tsp red pepper flakes You can mix this one of two ways: either pour it all into a mason jar, put on the lid and shake the heck out of it or do it up with your stick blender. I recommend using the stick blender. Either way it's delicious. Refrigerate leftovers and note that it keeps pretty well. I think I had my...
Read more

Pesto Tortellini Salad

By -
Why don't we just re-name the blog "Recipes Kelly Stole from Isaac's" because I seem to have no other recipes amongst my repertoire. Sheesh. Again, this is not really a recipe, but this salad was, and still is, one of the biggest sellers at the restaurant. As with all of Isaac's recipes, I've drastically reduced the quantity from the original (5 lbs. of tortellini, anyone?) 1.5 lbs tri-colored cheese-filled tortellini (or regular white ones, whatever), cooked according to pkg directions and gently rinsed with cold water 1.5 medium-ish tomatoes, diced 1/2 medium-size red onion, diced 1/3 C black olives (do yourself a favor and get some decent olives) 2/3 C or so pesto (I did a mix of basil pesto and arugula pesto) Dump all ingredients into a bowl and stir until everything is well-coated by the pesto. This is tasty when served immediately but the flavor will continue to develop the longer it sits. As usual, I added 2 handfuls of chopped asparagus but wi...
Read more

mango soba update

By gwen -
A small note to those of us trying to eat more veg, as Kelly would say... this soba noodle salad is delicious with slaw replacing some or all of the noodles. I made it with just one little bundle of noodles, a whole bag of broccoli slaw, and half a bag of cabbage/carrot mixture, and it's great -- actually provides a delicious crunch and you don't miss the rest of the noodles. I cooked the chicken in a bit of the marinade, too, and diced it into the salad/noodle/mango mixture for some protein. Yum.
Read more