Batch Cooking - Freezable Meals

I have been doing lots of batch cooking this week. My Mum's partner's daughter (mouthful!! Not sure "not-quite-stepsister" is any less wordy though!!) had a baby a couple of weeks ago so I have been making a few meals for her. Her husband is a meat-eater whereas she is vegetarian, so Mum cooked a few meals for him and I cooked some for her...

Loving the foil trays, although they are huge!! The only other size seemed way too small so I have been only filling these about two-thirds deep.

It didn't really take any extra work to make these meals as I just made extra of whatever we were eating last night. Liam particularly liked it as it meant he got "proper" meals for most of the week!

On Monday we had roast vegetable and lentil lasagne...

Tuesday was vegetable cottage pie with sweet potato mash...

Wednesday was a night off from batch cooking (aka meat free "chicken" & mushroom pies with corn on the cobs!!) and last night I made Oh She Glow's Enchilada Casserole (with quinoa instead of pasta)...

Hmm, seems I was in too much of a rush to eat to take any decent photos!! I used haricot beans in this and, as a bean-hater, was pleasantly surprised to find that I actually really liked it. Thanks for the recommendation Maria! It was quite spicy though so I decided it possibly wasn't the best meal to give to Clare. Maria actually posted her own version of this yesterday so I think I will try that next time - it looks slightly less hands-on, and not so spicy either!

I was a bit disappointed that I wasn't going to be sending Clare a quinoa dish so when a burst of energy hit at 9pm last night, I decided to make tonight's meal! A trusted favourite - Peas and Crayon's Cranberry Curry Quinoa, minus the cauliflower, plus some goats cheese...

Friday is always a bit of a stressful day with Izzy, especially, shattered by the end of the week, so I imagine I'll be very glad that all I need to do is pop this in the oven by the time dinner time rolls round this evening!!

I also made a batch of cheese muffins last night. Most of them are on their way to Clare, but Mum and I did sneak one each for our breakfast! Liam's gone off these so I haven't made them in ages, I still love them though! :)

Do you make extra portions for the freezer when you are making meals? Have you ever made meals for a new-Mum, or had meals made for you when you had children? I would have loved someone to have made some meals for me after I had Izzy! I lived at home for the first 5 weeks, so made the most of my Mum's cooking then, but after that Izzy and I moved back to Winchester for uni & I pretty much lived on ready meals for the first year! I made basic things like sweet potato mash for Izzy, but it was only when I started trying to lose weight that I began cooking complete meals. The first few months years weeks with a new baby are especially tiring, so I hope the meals I've made will help Clare out a little bit. And like I said above, they've been good for us too - I must keep this batch cooking habit up in the future!