Tips from the Freezer

The freezer is a food lover's hero because there's not much that can't be frozen until its needed: homemade ready meals (see Timesavers); veg and wonderful herbs; grated cheese for toppings and meat cut in strips for quick stir-frying. This section has a few surprises for us all. Visit the freezer often to keep tabs on what's inside.

• Chestnuts - frozen and dried

  Keep frozen and dried chestnuts in the freezer ready to chop coarsely into stir fries and stuffing’s. Dried chestnuts keep better in the freezer than in the cupboard.

• Cream

  Whip any leftover cream before you freeze it to stop it from becoming grainy when it’s thawed.

• Lots of carrots?

  Submitted by Sheila Wilmac, Porthcawl

  Scrape/peel, top and tail the carrots, but don't put them into water. Slice into rings, pop into a plastic bag and freeze. They can be cooked from frozen. When you take them out of the freezer, give them a little knock and they will loosen. Great!

• DIY frozen ready meals

  Celebrity tip by Sarah Beeny

  To use up veg that I know I won’t get around to eating I make my own ready meals. If I have a few potatoes that I need to use, I’ll boil them up and make mashed potato and freeze it in portions, so next time I am in a rush I know I have them on standby. They’re much cheaper than bought ready meals and there’s something quite nice about knowing you’ve cooked them yourself.

• Frozen Vegetables

  Celebrity tip by Anthea Turner

  Keep a good selection of frozen vegetables in the freezer. This gives children lots of options when it comes to dinner time.

• Cooking for children

  Celebrity tip by Anthea Turner

  When cooking for your kids, cook small batches of new foods that you want them to try. This means that if they don’t like it, you can either freeze the batch or re-use the leftovers.

• Selection of frozen vegetables

  Celebrity tip by Anthea Turner

  Keep a good selection of frozen vegetables in the freezer. This gives children lots of options when it comes to dinner time

• Lemon Wedges

  Submitted by Jayne Roper, Kent

  I buy lemons when they're on offer and chop them into wedges for drinks and freeze them. As well as using in cold drink, I use them to make a cup of hot water with a cinnamon stick - a refreshing drink when you're trying to cut down on tea/coffee and increase the water levels.

• Using leftover bread or crusts

  Submitted by Fran Handrick, Guildford

  I always take the crusts off loaves (no-one in our 7-adult household likes them), I make them into breadcrumbs and freeze them to use for crumble toppings, Queen of Puddings, Stuffings, thickenings for sauces, coating with egg and breadcrumbs etc. I have two bags int he freezer all the time, one for white breadcrumbs and one for brown.

• jus' freeze 'm

  Submitted by Opal, Holland

  I always buy peppers when they're cheap...chop 'm up and freeze 'm as quick as possible...if supermarkets can do that...then why not we???