Freezing.

I've been trying to cook double portions and set them aside, once or twice each week, for a while now.  A month to go, and I already have 18 Meal Nuclei in the freezer.  That's three weeks' worth and then some!  

Meal Nuclei?  Well, I'd be lying if I said I had that many "meals" laid up.  In my mind, to have a "meal" means all the side dishes and trimmings ready to go, or at least what's made is a complete meal-in-a-pot.  A Meal Nucleus needs more stuff to make it a meal … but crucially, the added stuff is either not cooked or not complicated to add.

This is what I have so far:

• Cock-a-leekie soup kit for the crockpot (minus the water and the potatoes, which don't freeze well)
• 9 calzones — which counts for two meal nuclei.  Just add sauce and salad.
• Chicken piccata CORRECTION:  piccadillo [can't believe I made that mistake!] enchiladas (in a kit — thaw and assemble).  Just add some veg or a fruit salad
• Two raw meatloaves with ketchup-(brown sugar)-(cider vinegar) glaze
• Two spinach ricotta pies (kits again — thaw and assemble)
• Two quarts veggie-rich spaghetti sauce
• Unbaked spinach-cheese-red pepper-salami lasagna
• Red-cooked beef, ready to be part of fried rice or possibly an Asian pizza topping
• Two five-and-a-half-cup portions of homemade tomato soup (add grilled cheese sandwiches)
• Italian pot roast kit for the crockpot (just add polenta or pasta and some salad)
• Two quarts sloppy-joe filling (just add buns and cole slaw)
• One par-baked sausage lasagna

Tomorrow I plan to brown five pounds of ground beef with onion and freeze it in quantities appropriate for individual pots of Emergency Chili or Judy's Taco Soup.    Maybe next week I'll do it again with another five pounds.  That, plus a few key pantry staples, turns said chili and soup into twenty-minute one-pot meals.

I also need to re-train my sons in the arts of coffee, bread-machine bread, pizza dough, biscuits, scrambled eggs, oatmeal, and cheese enchiladas.   A few of those skills, plus a giant bag of baby carrots and a well-stocked fruit bowl, can go a long way toward making sure that somebody gets some kind of breakfast or lunch even if Mom is nursing in a rocking chair all morning.