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There are just a few principles needed to master the technique of cooking ahead, and once you know them, you'll have faster, better-tasting, healthier and safer meals to show for it.

The biggest boon to food preparation ahead is the freezer.  Everything freezes from the point of view of food safety, but there's a lot of variation in palatability. For best flavor and texture, don't freeze the following foods in your home freezer:

• Milk products: they'll curdle.
• Boiled eggs:  the whites get watery.
• Custards: they'll lose texture, get lumpy. 
• Mayonnaise: it may separate.
• Most foods that you fry at home: (except french fries and onions) they can get an unattractive "warmed-over" taste.  It's actually the fats turning slightly rancid.
• Cooked potatoes: they darken and get an unattractive texture. (If you're going to freeze stew, add cooked potatoes later on when you're reheating the stew.) 
• Fresh greens, celery, and carrots: they get limp.
• Fresh tomatoes:  their high water content causes them to collapse when thawed. (However, you can freeze tomatoes if you're going to use them in a cooked form, such as in a pasta sauce.)
• Gravy: the fat will separate out and puddle.  (If you must freeze gravy, cut way back on the fat when you're making the gravy, and stir constantly when you're reheating it so as to keep the fat from separating.)
• Heavily spiced foods: most herbs, salts, onions, fade away, but garlic and cloves will seem more intense.   Pepper has a tendency to turn bitter. Curry takes on a musty flavor. 
• Synthetic flavors: use real vanilla rather than synthetic because synthetic vanilla can have an off-flavor after freezing.
• Highly salted foods: salt tends to attract moisture and uneven freezing may result because salt slows down the freezing process. 

Even if you're freezing food for only a couple of days, be careful of packaging. Air that's in the package will affect the color, flavor and texture.  The container should be air tight, or the food will get freezer burn and lose nutritional value, and palatability.

It's critical to have a both your refrigerator and freezer cold enough.  The best indicator of a good freezer temperature is brick-hard ice cream. If ice cream stored in your freezer is soft, turn the control to a colder setting.  As for the refrigerator, check the drinking temperature of milk.  If it's very cold, you've probably hit 40 degrees, which is what you're aiming for.  If the milk isn't cold enough, or if it sours too quickly, move the control to a colder setting.

Here's a great tip if you're freezing chicken in a polyethylene bag:  lower the bag, with the chicken in it, into a pan of water to force out the air.  Be sure the bag opening is above water.  Press entire surface area of bag to squeeze out air bubbles.  Twist end of bag and fold over.  Secure with fastener and label.

Here's a convenient way to freeze casseroles for later use that Joy Schrage from Whirlpool Corporation told me:

1. Line the casserole dish with foil, leaving 2" collar all around.
2. Add casserole ingredients and bake.
3. Cool and freeze in uncovered casserole
4. When frozen, lift casserole and foil out in one piece
5. Cover with foil or place in a polyethylene freezer bag. Press air out, then seal tightly, label, date and freeze. Place in a polyethylene freezer bag.
6. To thaw, take frozen casserole out of bag and foil, and place in the casserole dish it was originally baked in.

This type of freezing frees the casserole dish for other uses while the  casserole is in the freezer.

Homemade "TV" dinners:  Place leftovers in serving portions on sectioned plastic trays.  Cover, chill, tightly with plastic wrap and seal.  Then wrap entire tray in foil.  Label, date and freeze.  To reheat, remove foil, puncture plastic wrap to make steam vents, and heat dinner in microwave.

To keep chicken pieces from sticking together in your freezer so that you can take out just the quantity you want without prying several pieces apart or thawing more than you need, do the following:

1.  Spread pieces in a single layer on a cookie sheet
2.  Place unwrapped in freezer
3.  Once frozen, remove chicken pieces from cookie sheet, and store in polyethylene freezer bag
4.  Place bag in freezer, label and date

Freezing tip - use freezing tape to seal freezer wrap or suitable plastic wrap.  Freezer tape is made with a special adhesive designed to stick at low temperatures.

Whole birds to be roasted should be thawed before cooking.  Broilers, and birds to be cooked by other methods can start being cooked when thawed enough for pieces to separate. 

If you'll follow the suggestions above, you'll find that most of the foods you cook can be prepared ahead of time and if necessary, frozen.  This means that, with the exception of fried foods, just about all the recipes in this book can be considered cook-ahead foods. 

So, whether you're cooking for a party, for the week's meals, for houseguests, or for yourself, enjoy the recipes that follow and all the others in this book as well.