"Freezer Pucks"

I have a nifty little tip. I'm sure this is nothing new and that many people do this, but I love it so I thought I'd share.

I made delicious French onions soup tonight. It's one of my favorite comfort foods. But it takes a solid 2+ hours to cook. That's a lot of work and, unless you are cooking for a lot of people, you are going to have leftovers.

Look at that delicious oniony goodness!

I don't know about you, but I suck when it come to leftovers. I always forget about them until they've gone past their "still smells fine" test and then all you did was waste a bunch of food. So, I found as awesome trick to save my creations and leftovers. I first used it to save that half a jar of marinara that you always let sit in the fridge after making pasta and forget about it until you are too frightened to even open the jar again.

All you need is a muffin tin, a freezer and a large freezer bag.

First, once things have cooled a bit, ladle the food to be saved into the muffin tin. I've never been particularly neat with this step. I just try to get most of it in the muffin part of the tin.

Then freeze that puppy for several hours or overnight. Once solid, pull out the muffin tin and let it sit at room temperature for about 5 minutes. The place down a towel and flip your tin over. I find on mine that just a bit of pressure in the middle of each muffin cup and the puck pops right out.

Put them in a freezer bag, label and date and TAH-DAH! Food saved! 

Insta-meal!

It's great for work meals or prepared meals. I find that about 2 pucks is a good serving for me. Just prepare all the fixings (pasta, bread and cheese, etc...) and nuke the pucks in a dish until melted (I tend to go in about 1 minute increments).