Now & Later: Freezing soup

The holiday season puts me in the mood to cook and bake for days on end. However, he cold, dark days of Indiana's January & February make me want to come home, put on my sweats and hibernate. For that reason I try to capitalize on my Christmas cooking by making double of what I need and freezing it for later.

One of the hardest things about freezing food is that the process takes up a lot of pyrex/tupperware/other food storage pieces. To remedy this situation I generally line casserole dishes with foil, put the whole thing in the freezer, and once the meal is frozen through take the foiled dish out to free up the dish.

For soup, on the other hand, I tried this method:

I made the soup (butternut squash). 

Poured it into muffin tins.

Put them in the freezer.

Ready-made, individual, frozen soup!

The whole process was quite easy. To stack two muffin trays, I just put a plastic cutting board in between. The cutting board also came in handy when I removed them from the trays to store them. I just put the board on top of the tray, turned it over, and ran the bottom of the tray under hot water. The soup loosened up enough to pop out. From there I just put them in one container and three zip lock bags. Each frozen block is about 1/3 cup.

I'm looking forward to having some ready made soup to thaw for dinner. I'm also planning on taking it to work for lunch. I figure that if I pop a couple in a plastic container on my way out the door, all it will need is a quick zap in the microwave for lunch!