Frozen assets: Three cool ideas for meals fresh from the freezer

If the phrase "frozen food" conjures up ice cream and chicken nuggets, you're missing out on the healthful benefits of a stand-alone freezer. As part of Consumer Reports latest freezer review (including both upright and chest models) we ticked off three ways that frozen food can foster nutritious eating. Extend seasonal fruits and vegetables. Most fruits and vegetable will maintain their flavor and texture in the freezer for 8 to 12 months. Berries and cherries should be frozen in air-tight storage bags right when you get them home, while peaches, plums, and apples should be allowed to ripen. Blanching vegetables before freezing stops enzymes that harm flavor, color, and texture. Vegetables with high water content, like celery, cucumbers, and lettuce, aren't suitable for freezing since they turn limp and soggy when thawed. For more information, visit the National Center for Home Food Preservation. Stock up on freezer-friendly recipes. Cookbooks and recipe web sites are filled with potentially healthful dishes that lend themselves to freezing. Some of our favorites include lentil-and-potato stew, butternut squash soup, and vegetable enchiladas. Many of these recipes can be made in bulk so that you can freeze multiple meals, saving you time and money. Tomato sauces and chicken stocks are also easy to freeze. Rigid plastic containers with straight sides are ideal for storage. Be picky about packaged foods. Frozen entrees used to be crammed with processed ingredients. But in Consumer Reports latest review, we found several options with natural ingredients and fewer additives. Kashi, in particular, earned a very good in all the meals we tested, though they cost a bit more than the competition. Note that most frozen diet entrees have low calorie counts, so you'll need to augment them with other items, perhaps some of the frozen fruits and vegetables you've got stored in the freezer. As for frozen pizzas and chicken nuggets, none of the brands we tested were better than good at nutrition, though some contain fewer grams of fat than others. ?Daniel DiClerico

Source: http://blogs.consumerreports.org/home/2011/02/three-ways-to-be-a-healthy-freezer-.html

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