Cooking for Your Freezer
If your home is like ours, we routinely put leftovers in the refrigerator. Then we forget about them and in a few days, throw them out. How much better to wrap them, freeze them, label them and use them at a later date. And when you're cooking that favorite casserole, why not double the batch, make two, and freeze the second? If we have a selection of favorite family foods in the freezer, we can bail ourselves out on those busy days when we just don't have time to cook. On those busy days when there is no time to cook—and for most of us, there are too many of those days—we either reach for a store-bought prepared food, call out to the restaurant for delivery, or jump in the car and go out to eat. All three solutions are expensive. Grabbing a casserole, some frozen rolls, and a dessert from the freezer is quicker, better, and will save money. In an emergency, it's nice to have food put by. While it's true that in an extended power outage, you may lose some of that food in the freezer (you may not lose frozen breads and many desserts), there are many emergencies where the freezer is the perfect resource. And if you are hospitalized or out of work, that food in the freezer may be a savior.
Consider freezing:
Leftovers
Foods that take a long time to prepare
Seasonal fruits and vegetables
Wild game
Food that you can buy in bulk (like half of a beef or food at a case lot sale)
Foods you can prepare in quantity