Friday, June 01, 2007

Make your own TV dinners

My husband won't be taking leftovers for lunch over the summer. I thought I'd start freezing the leftovers together for those days when our schedules diverge. For my family, a 4-serving recipe leaves almost exactly one portion remaining. Flat boxes like these small Tupperware marinating trays are easy to stack in a standard refrigerator/freezer.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a clever idea! Thanks for the tip. There are times when it's nice to have a quick, convenient meal, and making your own TV dinner is bound to be much healthier (and cheaper) than the store-bought version. I will have to start doing this!

Anonymous said...

I also make homemade TV dinners. I just found some divider plates at Walmart 4/98 cents. I use my foodsaver to seal the meals till we need them later. It is great to pull out 2 home cooked meals when I don't want to cook.

Anonymous said...

my mom always did this...she's alone and well when i was home it was just the 2 of us, so she'd make the big dinners...roast and all the trimming, and then line up some plates...and voila...she loved them for a great lunch...she still does it...cook once eat a dozen times

celina in canada

Anonymous said...

I do this for my husband, but because he is notorious for losing the containers, have started using pint size freezer zip-top bags. (He will eat almost anything cold as long as it has lots of meat, even declining for me to heat up food if we are having leftovers for a weekend lunch.) I look for the Hefty brand on sale with a coupon. Even at $0.15 a bag it's cheaper than him eating at KFC which is where he'd go if I sent sandwiches for his lunch.

Anonymous said...

We invested in divided dishes and the "disposable" containers and do the same. Nice to grab one out of the freezer and take to work.

Anonymous said...

I am curious...are the Tupperware marinating trays microwavable? Mine is old and looks like yours but I doubt mine was made of the microwavable material like newer things tend to be made of. Smaller lunch box size containers are good too to freeze portions of meals to go in work lunch boxes. I do that too. It is amazing how many little bits of this and that you can put together for these meals isen't it. Nothing wasted.

Anonymous said...

You know what? I don't microwave my Tupperware (or any plastic containers, for that matter). The jury is still out on its long term safety. I just plop the frozen food on to a regular plate and then microwave.

Anonymous said...

I use my Food Saver as well -- when we fry out, we'll cook up a lot of extra (because you use the same amount of charcoal to cook up x as you do y), and then I'll split it up, package it and toss them in the freezer for hubby's future lunches (the FS system really does a good job of preventing freezer burn). I've even used the FS for soups that we like (it takes some practice but it works well).