When I make a recipe, I would like to freeze part of it for future use.

- Anna S.

A: It has been my experience that the foods that taste the best, freeze the best.

By the way, freezing prepared foods is not just for those who cook for one. Freezing foods also makes sense for anyone with a busy lifestyle. Not only do you save cooking time for extra meals, you consolidate your shopping time as well.

Recipes that take a long time to prepare are great for freezing. Leftovers that do not keep well in the refrigerator are also perfect candidates for freezing.

Keep a roll of masking tape and a pen to label the foods that you put in the freezer. Also, date each item so you'll know how long it's been in the freezer. Remember to keep the most recent additions in the back. If you find something that dates to the '90s, either throw it away or give it to someone you don't like.

If I planned to do a lot of freezing, I would go out and purchase a variety of microwaveable freezer containers that could hold the portion amounts I wanted to serve. Whether you are using freezer containers or resealable bags, everything must be airtight.

The biggest enemy of freezing is freezer burn. You can tell a product has freezer burn if it has become gray and dehydrated. This means the product has lost all its moisture and is no longer good for cooking.

Anything that has freezer burn can simply be tossed.

Remember that freezing does not improve any product, so you want to start with top-quality ingredients to get the best result. The fresher the better.

Keep in mind that freezing acts like another cooking method. If you know that you are going to reheat a dish at a later date, slightly undercook the recipe to help keep the product from being overcooked and dried out.

There are some ingredients that do not freeze well, such as mayonnaise, which separates when frozen. Cooked egg whites become very rubbery when frozen and thawed.

Sauces made from either a roux (equal parts fat and flour) or a slurry (cornstarch and water) have a good chance of separating when thawed. If you need to use one of these cooking methods, you are much better off thickening your recipe after you thaw the basic preparation.

Pasta in a casserole or in some other dish with a sauce freezes well; however, cooked pasta by itself does not.

Anna, everybody's taste is a little different. As I said in the beginning, foods that taste the best, freeze the best. So here are some recipes that I believe fall in that category.

ANNA'S BEEF

POT ROAST

3- to 4-pound beef pot roast

Flour for dredging