Free up your freezer for cook once eat twice meals

Now the dark nights have made their re-appearance Spud and Slice may be celebrating as we reach for the comfortable autumn warming foods. A lovely hot soup served with bread, mash with sausages and thick tasty gravy – both delicious and brilliant to chase away the chill.

Maybe we’ll be eating more of the top 2 most thrown away foods but how will we do with our meals in general? Whether we opt for homemade or ready meals, as a country we still throw away over 1.5 million meals every day from our homes!
Despite the cost and effort that has gone into providing them, meals are one of the top five of most wasted foods, costing us a staggering £2.1 billion a year.

The run up to Christmas is a busy and often expensive time of year. Cooking once and eating twice saves energy, time and money and ensures that we always have a hearty meal at our fingertips. However, before we can save around 38 minutes a day by doing this you need to make room in your freezer.

So this week we’re encouraging you to have another go at planning your meals  for the  week  and  eating as many meals from your freezer as possible – to clear a bit of space ready for the delicious cook once, eat twice recipes we’re going to share with you over the next few weeks.

There’s a stat out there which says the average household has 11 days’ worth of meals from the freezer, Roger managed almost 2 weeks in September just buying milk and at Sarah’s a week went by without a trip to the shops. It’s probably going to be easier than you think! For a reminder read about their experiences.

It’s honestly not going to take you long…

1. Make a list of everything you have in your freezer
2. Check who will be home on each day
3. Write out your meal plan, remember to check your cupboards because you’ll probably find lots in there to help use up something from the freezer that doesn’t go with anything else in the fridge or freezer. You can download our 7 day meal planner (1868 downloads) , use the Love Food Hate Waste app or any of the other meal planners out there.
4. Make sure the list is somewhere visible – someone else can start cooking if you’re not home and it’ll avoid a long discussion.
5. At the end of the week you’ll have lots more space in the freezer and you may even find that you really like planning after all and want to stick with it.

So next week we’ll introduce you to some cook once, eat twice recipes and some great ways to use the extra time you’ll gain!

Tip from Spud

The Best Before date on your food is for guidance only. It’s an estimate about when the shop or manufacturer thinks the food will stop tasting its best. A whole bag of Spuds will not be harmful to eat if it’s after this date unless they’ve all turned green – everyone has different tastes, so give it a try. The Use By date is very important though, it’s a safety date and you shouldn’t eat food after that date unless it’s been in the freezer since that date.