recipe hunt help?
I'm about to launch into my cookbook collection, specifically the one-dish meal and crockpot cookbooks that mom has a fascination with, to try and solve this problem to some extent, but I love playing "ask the internets", so here goes:
I cook for dad. No, I mean, I make almost all of his food, aside from the oatmeal he eats once a day, and the occasional can of sardines. It all has to be packaged in 2-cup pyrex bowls, frozen, and then reheated in the microwave. This means nothing that is ornate, doesn't work in a bowl, or can't be mistreated by going from frozen to hot in 6 minutes of intense microwaving. (We tried defrosting in the fridge, but he'd forget something was there, let it go bad, then eat it anyway and get sick. This happened more than once.)
This means I have to provide 14-21 frozen meals a week, that have to meet not only those requirements, but all his dietary requirements, some of which are genuine, some of which are his being blasted picky and/or making connections in his head that have limited contact with reality.
So, here's what I need. One-dish, or easy-to-assemble, recipes, that can be frozen without destroying them, and don't involve anything that can't tolerate rapid reheating.
Dad won't eat the following:
-beans
-red meat
-pasta
-bread
-anything spicy
-green peppers (or any peppers, really)
-anything he reads as "too healthy" or "too fussy"
He also has historically been difficult about too much potato and rice, but he seems to be relaxing on that one. (He has had blood sugar problems in the past, but things have improved somewhat.) He has requested lots of vegetables, but again, gets grumpy if it reads as too healthy. Cheese works wonders on this problem, so almost everything gets topped with cheese.
I did have an eggplant parm recipe in play that worked very well, but I'd put it on hiatus due to terribly expensive eggplant, and now he's decided it irritates his bladder (???), so I've been asked to not make it. Or the chili casserole (he outlawed beans entirely about a week ago, after months of telling me to just 'go easy' on them). I don't know if I'll be allowed to make the corn-veggie casserole again, since it's one of the things he poisoned himself with.
That currently leaves me with only a chicken/veggie 'crockpot' soup in a tomato base, and the seafood-rice casserole (also tomato base).
Anyone have anything brilliant to suggest? I've gotten some great recipe suggestions elsewhere, but most of them don't take the "in a 2-cup pyrex" into account, and/or would be terribly impractical to make on the kind of scale I'm talking about. I won't do anything that can't be easily scaled up to make at least 8-10 dishes for freezing, and 12-20 is better. The ingredients need to be not outrageously expensive, if they're used in quantity, and if it takes hours to assemble, unless it makes 24+ dishes, it's not really worth the time. (Yes, I get paid for doing this. I don't get paid very much, and it can be somewhat exhausting, as well as taking away from time that I could be doing other work, and it tends to leave me with no desire or energy to cook decent food for us.)
Help?
I cook for dad. No, I mean, I make almost all of his food, aside from the oatmeal he eats once a day, and the occasional can of sardines. It all has to be packaged in 2-cup pyrex bowls, frozen, and then reheated in the microwave. This means nothing that is ornate, doesn't work in a bowl, or can't be mistreated by going from frozen to hot in 6 minutes of intense microwaving. (We tried defrosting in the fridge, but he'd forget something was there, let it go bad, then eat it anyway and get sick. This happened more than once.)
This means I have to provide 14-21 frozen meals a week, that have to meet not only those requirements, but all his dietary requirements, some of which are genuine, some of which are his being blasted picky and/or making connections in his head that have limited contact with reality.
So, here's what I need. One-dish, or easy-to-assemble, recipes, that can be frozen without destroying them, and don't involve anything that can't tolerate rapid reheating.
Dad won't eat the following:
-beans
-red meat
-pasta
-bread
-anything spicy
-green peppers (or any peppers, really)
-anything he reads as "too healthy" or "too fussy"
He also has historically been difficult about too much potato and rice, but he seems to be relaxing on that one. (He has had blood sugar problems in the past, but things have improved somewhat.) He has requested lots of vegetables, but again, gets grumpy if it reads as too healthy. Cheese works wonders on this problem, so almost everything gets topped with cheese.
I did have an eggplant parm recipe in play that worked very well, but I'd put it on hiatus due to terribly expensive eggplant, and now he's decided it irritates his bladder (???), so I've been asked to not make it. Or the chili casserole (he outlawed beans entirely about a week ago, after months of telling me to just 'go easy' on them). I don't know if I'll be allowed to make the corn-veggie casserole again, since it's one of the things he poisoned himself with.
That currently leaves me with only a chicken/veggie 'crockpot' soup in a tomato base, and the seafood-rice casserole (also tomato base).
Anyone have anything brilliant to suggest? I've gotten some great recipe suggestions elsewhere, but most of them don't take the "in a 2-cup pyrex" into account, and/or would be terribly impractical to make on the kind of scale I'm talking about. I won't do anything that can't be easily scaled up to make at least 8-10 dishes for freezing, and 12-20 is better. The ingredients need to be not outrageously expensive, if they're used in quantity, and if it takes hours to assemble, unless it makes 24+ dishes, it's not really worth the time. (Yes, I get paid for doing this. I don't get paid very much, and it can be somewhat exhausting, as well as taking away from time that I could be doing other work, and it tends to leave me with no desire or energy to cook decent food for us.)
Help?