Over the last few weeks before baby arrived, we managed to empty most of the freezer, ready for it to be restocked for baby’s arrival. We have a mixture of favourite and new meals in there now and it has been working well for the first few weeks. We’ve discovered how tricky it is to cook solo with a baby so it’s great to always have something on hand to eat that doesn’t involve take-aways! In fact so far we’ve only resorted to takeaway once and that was more of a treat than necessity!
I found a lot of my recipes ideas by reading blog posts so thought I’d share what I’ve used in case it helps anyone else. We mainly eat vegetarian food but I’ve made a real effort to make and freeze chicken dishes so we have plenty of protein!
Quinoa is a staple favourite in our house so we have these recipes in the freezer ready to go…
One pan Mexian Quinoa does exactly what it says on the tin and only needs some avocado on top to finish it off
This is a new one, we ate half and froze half, Healthy Chicken Parmesan Quinoa Bake. For next time I would make it slightly less healthy and add breadcrumbs to coat the chicken as it was a little bit soft and lacking the golden crunch we like but the sauce was tasty and it was very easy to make.
Roasted Red Pepper Quinoa Chilli is also a new one for us. Next time I’ll add some chilli as we like spicy food but Chris thought it was really tasty, he even took some for lunch the next day!
Lentil and Quinoa Chili has been a favourite of ours for a few years, we always have some of this in freezer for a quick tea/lunch.
Branching out into soups, we have two of our current favourites…
Broccoli and Stilton soup adapted from this recipe as we had a huge bag of broccoli from Costco that needed using up.
Quick and Easy Black Bean Soup, you don’t even need to drain the beans for this recipe!
We also have
Garlic and Basil Chickpea Veggie Burgers which just need avocado or the avocado pesto to top them (the pesto is delicious mixed with quinoa as a lunch too).
Some homemade beef burgers but I’m not sure how long they’ll last considering they’re my current favourite!
Some portions of a giant Costco lasagne which was really delicious for shop bought lasagne!
We have a good stock of ice cream and this Banana Bread frozen for emergencies.
Not too bad I think! I’m always on the look out for good freezeable recipes though so please feel free to share your favourites. The only thing I feel I’m missing is some frozen cookie dough so I may need to rectify that this week…and of course bake a few just to test them at the same time!
To Arizona......and beyond! 
Very useful post. I cook in batches and freeze too. Good to know there’s healthy home-made food anytime you need it. Will give most of these recipes a shot…. sound delicious! Thanks for sharing.
I’ve shared it on my twitter account!
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Thank you, hope you like them, I love finding new recipes to try!
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I am really impressed with your supply of food in preparation for the baby. I think I managed to make one curry! I was lucky because my mother-in-law delivered food parcels every single day for the first month or so 🙂
Having seen a picture of one of your meals on this blog (poached egg on avocado and seeded toast), we are now eating this as brunch on weekends when my avocados are ripe enough!
I know you like Mexican food and you mention lasagne so you have to try this…my hubbie couldn’t believe I had made it ‘from scratch’ hee hee.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/food/recipes/mexican_tortilla_bake_28158
I am becoming a big fan of Mary Berry. Her recipes are so easy and mainly just throwing everything in one pan, which is perfect when I’m cooking with a 4 year old who is very slap dash!
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Eggs with avocado on toast is delicious, definitely a favourite in our house. You were very lucky to have meals delivered for a month! We’d have to rely on takeaways so I’m pleased we got the freezer stocked in time. We’re also officially old as we bought a slow cooker to experiment with! I didn’t know Mary Berry had recipes for anything other than cakes? We love Mexican food, this recipe sounds right up our street, thanks, we’ll definitely give it a whirl!
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Oooh, I love quinoa too!! I’ll have a good look at the recipes!! You did really well to stock up before the baby arrived, and not resorting to takeaways!! It goes to show that staying healthy with a newborn in tow can be done!! My lovely mum stocked and restocked our freezer with home made meals, following the arrival of both of my babies…! I was so lucky. But I do now occasionally batch bake, especially if I find something the children like!!
#bigpinklink
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We moved abroad at just the wrong time, if we’d been at home my mum and dad would have brought us meals everyday I’m sure, it would have been a good excuse for them to get cuddles! Thanks for reading.
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That looks delicious – I managed to make about three lasagnes!! 🙂 #KCACOLS
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Yum, homemade lasagne is one of our favourites! Thanks for reading and commenting.
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i tried to do this before baby arrived last time. it really does make a huge difference. all your recipes look so good, its made me rather hungry. #kcals
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Really great post and so useful. I did loads of cooking when I had my two and froze down all the meals I could. I could of been more adventurous really as I stuck to alot of dishes like lasagne and spag bol but it still made a huge difference to us. You’ve got far more variety here:)
mainy – myrealfairy
#KCACOLS
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wow, how organised are you! Very impressed with your food prep pre baby, and what fab recipes too! I think I pretty much ate sandwiches once baby arrived haha! #KCACOLS
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Wow this is an extrememely useful post and you have some delicious looking recipes there. Thanks so much for linking with #KCACOLS. I hope you can come back again next Sunday.
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Wow you are super organised! Well done!! We used to froze some baby food when my girls where learning about weaning and it was really useful. I love Quinoa! I have had it my whole life!! It is so nutritious!! I’m so happy that it is now so well known around the world!! I guess that is how the incas used to be so strong and healthy!! I also used Quinoa for breastfeeding. It increases your milk supply so I used to drink it like milkshake before I had to breastfeed and it worked wonders for me. If you are interested, let me know as I wrote a post about it with the recipe so you can try it at home, 😉 Thanks so much for sharing this useful post at #KCACOLS. I hope to see you again tomorrow, 🙂 xx
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I didn’t know that about quinoa, thanks for the tip, I’ll have a look on your blog and find the post, thanks!
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I froze 6 weeks of meals shortly after my son was born, because I was getting ready to start classes and didn’t have time to cook. This is such a wonderful post, and I love how they’re not only quick and easy, but super healthy. I LOVE quinoa (: Great job, and thanks for sharing! x #KCACOLS
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