What is everyone's favorite freeze ahead meals??????????

-- Judy (cookn2000@yahoo.com), January 20, 2002

Answers

Homemade Chicken soup, in a variety of incarnations.

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), January 20, 2002.

Homemade Upper Michigan Pasties #1, followed by: egg rolls, lasagna, spaghetti sauce, chili and chicken soup. I'm sure I've got others, but these are off the recent ones we've made. We frequently cook large batches of our favorites and portion them out in freezer containers. We don't use a microwave oven, so these are all conventional or toaster oven re-heatable.

-- rose marie wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), January 20, 2002.

Rose Marie, what are homeade upper michigan pastis?

-- CJ (cjtinkle@getgoin.net), January 21, 2002.

CJ, an Upper Michigan Pasty is a small meatpie that the miner's used to take into the mines with them for lunch. They'd heat them in the morning and wrap them in several layers of newspaper to keep warm till their lunchtime. They've typically got coarse ground beef, potatoes (or rutabagas) carrots and onions in them. Although there are few working mines left in the UP, there are still several Pasty shops and if you come from an old UP family, you know what they are and how to make them. The recipe is in the archives on the CS forum somewhere, but I've no idea where to tell you to look. It was awhile ago that I put it on there. I'll post the recipe in a separate thread later.

-- rose marie wild (wintersongfarm@yahoo.com), January 21, 2002.

home made pasties are THE BEST on cold days,, think of them like hand held pot pies. First time I ever ate a turnip was in one,,loved 'nips ever since

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), January 21, 2002.

Pasties came from the West Country in England. Cornwall. They were taken down the mines. Not only did they have meat and veg in them at one end, but they also had a fruit, usually apple in the other. The man would have dinner and pudding held together in pastry.

We love them.

Alison

-- Alison Homa (alisonhoma@hotmail.com), February 12, 2002.