Recommendations for meals to make ahead

Sam1148, I love your idea of the steaks. Brilliant - reverse sous vide!

Ahh..here's another one. Not make ahead..but you get all the stuff ahead of time..and it throws together very quickly. Not fancy, but a crowd pleaser.

Shrimp Boil:
Zatarain's Crab boil, Corn on the cob, Beef sausage, New Potatoes, Shell-On Shrimp, Lemon, beer.

Put the beer in stock pot with the spice bag and a lemon cut up. Let it extract the seasonings a bit. Fill with water add salt. Add the cut up sausages, wait for them to float, add potatoes, wait 5 mins, add corn cut into thirds, wait 5-10 mins. Test potatoes and add shrimp when potatoes are almost tender. Cook 2-3 mins..and turn off and test shrimp.
Drain and serve in a big bowl lined with newspaper. Serve with cocktail sauce and butter, and a side salad.

Simple quick and everyone seems to like it.

A quiche keeps well for a couple of days. Or for brunch, roast beef on crusty bread and au jus. A cole slaw can be put together a day so before, if you don't dress it until serving.

If you have a vacuum sealer. Steaks.

This sounds strange, but it works great for med rare. Season the steaks with salt pepper, let sit 40 mins. Grill just to get grill marks, making very rare steaks.

Let them rest in the vac bags. Then freeze...then seal.
They'll keep a week or more that way.
Defrost in cool running water. And boil in the bag a few mins to warm and finish cooking. (think of it as a reverse sous vide). Results: Should have chargrilled steaks ready to serve. I was very surprised at this tech, but now use it all the time when camping as the steaks defrost in the cooler..and just need boiling water to deploy.

And here's the next installment of the make ahead feature, hot off the presses! Pork tacos + chocolate espresso cookies: http://www.food52.com/blog/2001_cook_this_make_ahead

Here are a few good options:
http://www.food52.com/recipes/8565_mujaddara_with_spiced_yogurt
http://www.food52.com/recipes/2756_pastitsio
http://www.food52.com/recipes/5710_farro_salad_with_roasted_mushrooms_and_parmesan

Great question, and we'd love to hear others' suggestions. We're just starting to feature make ahead dishes in the blog (here's the first post, featuring that very beef stew and flapjack, a great snack to have on hand:
http://www.food52.com/blog/1940_cook_this_make_ahead).