A Freezer Cooking Adventure

     My husband had a three day weekend. To me, a three day weekend should be used in one of three ways... 1. Family Fun, 2. Long Date with the Spouse, or 3. Complete a House a Project.

    Unfortunately a slew of sick kids limited the amount of Family Fun we could have over the weekend, but options 2 and 3 were still valid possibilities.  By Sunday afternoon, I had a plan...an adventurous plan.

     We've been incorporating freezer cooking into our routine for some time, but we've never tried the Once-A-Month cooking idea.  That type of freezer cooking takes planning and calculating.  It takes time and well, money. And most importantly, it takes guts.

     This is how I presented the idea to Chad anyway when I told him we should make Monday a 'freezer cooking adventure' date day.  He totally fell for it!  He was totally on board! 

    We actually did all of our planning on Sunday night.  First we searched through my Freezer Meal Pinterest Board for new recipes we wanted to try and choose some of those as well as a few tried and true family favorites.  We choose 10 meals with the plan to make 3 of each.  Our goal was 30 meals.  We would need to purchase the supplies and prepare them to freeze in one day.

     Once the meals were chosen, we made our grocery list and sought the advice of Facebook friends on where the best deals for meat were.  We choose to only prepare meals with either ground beef or boneless, skinless chicken breasts for simplicity.  We won't use a frozen meal every day of the week so we weren't too worried about a variety.  We estimated the cost, and looked through ads to find our best deals.  We decided on hitting two stores...one had ground beef on sale for $1.99 per lb, the other had boneless, skinless chicken breasts on sale for $1.99 a pound.

     Bright and early Monday morning...okay, it was a little before 9am...we headed out the door.  My MIL had bravely consented to watching the kids for us (they had all been on antibiotics for well over 24 hours) while we shopped.  I regret to say that we didn't take any pics while shopping, but we did get some great deals.  By comparing prices and shopping at just two different stores we were able to buy all of our items for less than we estimated.

     As a side note, we also stopped off at a local produce terminal that we had heard about from other moms that sell to the public and came home with this awesome haul...

     In addition to the freezer meals, the pineapples and strawberries were cut up to be frozen for smoothies and you will likely see a reoccurring zucchini theme in our freezer meals...that's because we bought a huge flat of them for just $5 and needed to use them up!  So we added them to many of the meals.

     Before we move on to recipes, I have to tell you that once again, I didn't take many pictures.  Once we got to cooking it was difficult to find a stopping point and quite frankly, it wasn't always a picture-perfect scene.  Messy floors, kids underfoot, dirty dishes...well, you get the idea.  I didn't even manage to get a pic of each individual meal.  My plan is to take pictures of the cooked meals as we prepare them and update this post with pictures then.

     Another thing that I must mention for those of you who don't know us...we are a large family and we require large family portions.  I am cooking for a family of 10...our 30 meals would likely equal out to about 60 average family meals.  Keep that in mind if you are trying these recipes.

    The first thing we did was divided up our meat and starting cooking it.  All of the ground beef would need to be browned except for 6 lbs that we set aside to use for 3 meatloaves.  About 15 lbs of chicken needed to be cooked and shredded.  We got that going and began labeling gallon sized freezer bags for our Chicken crockpot meals.

     Each of these bags would contain boneless, skinless chicken breasts uncooked as well as marinades/veggies.  These are all freezer to crockpot meals...when we are ready to cook them, we will just throw them in the crockpot and let them cook all day.  It will take 2 bags to feed our family, so we needed six bags for each chicken crockpot recipe to make 3 meals.  We lined all the bags up, cleaned the chicken, and divided it evenly amongst the bags.  Then we started making the marinades and adding them to the appropriate bags.  Here are the links to the Chicken Crockpot meals we made...

1. Cilantro Lime Chicken with Corn and Black Beans

   
2. Cafe Rio Crockpot Chicken

3. Creamy Chicken Italian-O

4. BBQ Chicken
We did add some veggies to this meal.  We went with bell peppers, onions, and sweet potatoes.

    Once our meat was cooked up, we started working on some of our casserole type dishes.

5. Poppyseed Chicken is a family favorite.  We keep it simple and don't add all of the "optionals" on this recipe, but I have found that we prefer to double the amount of ritz crackers she used on top.  We frozen this meal several times.

6. Mexican Mac and Cheese
I've adapted this recipe from some ideas I've seen online, so honestly this one is an experiment.  If I do it again, I will likely add taco seasoning to the meat as I'm cooking it.  Also, each meal wound up taking up two pans when all was said and done.  So we wound up with 6 of these!  I've reduced the amount in the following recipe so it should only be 1 meal's worth of food now.

 Ingredients
1 lb of ground beef, browned
1 box of elbow macaroni, cooked
1 pkg of shredded mexican blend cheese
1 can of rotel
milk
butter

Once your macaroni is cooked and drained, return to pot and fill with milk about halfway.  Heat back to a boil, adding in butter and cheese to taste, stirring constantly.  Meanwhile, drain can of rotel and mix in with cooked ground beef.  Once your mac and cheese is warmed through add in ground beef mixture and stir.  Pour into aluminum pan.  Top with more cheese if desired.  Cover and freeze.  

Reheating Instructions:  Let dethaw.  Bake at 350 for 30 minutes or until hot and bubbling.

7. Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup chopped carrots

1/2 cup chopped red onion

3 cans (14.5 oz) reduced-sodium Chicken broth

1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (14.5 oz) beef broth

1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes with mild green chilies

2 cups cooked, cubed chicken breasts

2 cups frozen corn

2 tsp dried parsley flakes

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1. Saute the celery, carrots, and onion in oil until tender.  Stir in chicken broth, black beans, beef broth, tomatoes, corn, chicken, and seasoning.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes uncovered.

2. Serve with tortilla chips, cheese, and sour cream if desired.

Reheating Instructions:

Let dethaw.  Transfer to stove top and heat until warmed through.

T

      Finally, we finished up our 3 bags of chili, 3 Cowboy Casseroles, and 3 meatloaves.

8. Cowboy Casserole is another kid-friendly family favorite!  It's basically a tator tot casserole and freezes really well.

9. Meatloaf

I almost hate to give you this recipe because I pretty much make it different every time I make it.  I use something similar to the following each time.  We like to add bread to our meatloaf and top it with ketchup, but any way you make it I've found that meatloaf freezes well.

Ingredients:

2 lbs ground beef

1 egg

1/4 cup milk

3 pieces of bread, torn into small pieces

1 tsp ground mustard

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp of sage

salt and pepper

onion

optional: cut up veggies like zucchini or carrots

Mix all together in a large mixing bowl.  Form into loaf and freeze.

Reheating Instructions: Let dethaw.  Cover with ketchup.  Bake at 350 uncovered for 1.5 hours.

10. Chili

Ingredients:

2 lbs of ground beef

carton of Bloemer's chili paste

1 pkg of chil-o mix

 1 large can of tomato sauce

1 can of water

1 can of Brooks Chili beans

1 onion, chopped

1 box of sphaghetti noodles 

Brown ground beef, drain grease.  Add Bloemer's, mixing until completely melted.  Add tomato sauce and 1 can of water (use sauce can).  Add Chil-o mix, beans, and onion.  Let simmer for a few minutes, stirring occasionally.  Let cool.  Freeze in freezer bags.

Reheating Instructions: Let dethaw or place in pot on stovetop frozen.  Heat through, stirring occasionally and let simmer for about 10 minutes.  Meanwhile prepare spaghetti noodles. Stir in noodles and serve.

    We finally finished our cooking and cleaning up rather late, but we both felt like it was worth it.  Our 30 large-family meals cost us about $11 per meal, so I think it would equal out to about $6 per meal for the average family.  Totally happy with that!

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Freezer Cooking Exchange

I'm going to admit something to you that I am not particularly proud of...

I really don't like cooking.  No really, I really, really don't like it.

Nonetheless, my family still needs to eat and ordering pizza every night simply isn't in our budget or our healthy eating plan.  So, I am always looking for ways to make cooking for my large crew easier and quicker. 

We will often double up meals that are easy to freeze to put an extra in the deep freeze.  But occasionally, I like to go one step further and have a cooking day, cooking and freezing several meals at once.  A couple weeks ago I even talked a couple of friends into a Freezer Meal Exchange!

The idea was simple enough.  Each of us would make five different meals times 3(number of families involved) for a total of 15 meals.  We would keep one set of meals for ourselves and exchange the other 10 meals with each other so that we would end up with 15 different frozen meals.

I made two of my meals on separate evenings just by tripling our dinner for the evening.  But I wound up making 3 of my meals (times 3 for a total of 9...are you still following my math?) in one evening with the help of Chad and A10.

Below you'll find some pics of our experience along with the recipes I used.

All lined up!  It took just 3 hours to get 9 meals made.

Lots of chopping! I chopped and separated the ingredients in bowls.  Above is cooked and cubed chicken and squash in the background. 

Sauteing squash and zucchini.  Polish Sausage to mix in for yummy jambalaya.

I think it's best to write instructions directly on the lid if you have a disposable lid.  Be sure to include the name of the dish, instructions for cooking/reheating, and the date it was prepared.

And for the dishes I made.  Please note I am including instructions for one meal only in each recipe.  You will need to double your recipe (or triple it, etc.) to participate in an exchange or freeze extra.

1. Jambalaya

Ingredients

1 box of Instant Brown Rice (14 oz)

1 zucchini, washed and sliced

1 squash, washed and sliced

2 lbs of Turkey Smoked Sausage, sliced 

Creole Seasoning (We use Tony Chachere's)

1. Prepare rice according to package instructions.

2. Saute squash and zucchini until tender.  Add in smoked sausage and cook until warmed through. Drain.

3. Mix rice and sausage/veggie mixture and add seasoning to taste.

Reheating Instructions:

Let Dethaw.  Transfer to stove top and heat through.  Can add cheese if desired when serving.

 2. Poppyseed Chicken

You'll find this recipe here.

3. Chicken Tortilla Soup

Ingredients:

1 cup chopped celery

3/4 cup chopped carrots

1/2 cup chopped red onion

3 cans (14.5 oz) reduced-sodium Chicken broth

1 can (15 oz) black beans, rinsed and drained

1 can (14.5 oz) beef broth

1 can (10 oz) diced tomatoes with mild green chilies

2 cups cooked, cubed chicken breasts

2 cups frozen corn

2 tsp dried parsley flakes

1 tsp garlic powder

1 tsp dried basil

1 tsp ground cumin

1/2 tsp chili powder

1. Saute the celery, carrots, and onion in oil until tender.  Stir in chicken broth, black beans, beef broth, tomatoes, corn, chicken, and seasoning.  Bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and simmer for 15 minutes uncovered.

2. Serve with tortilla chips, cheese, and sour cream if desired.

Reheating Instructions:

Let dethaw.  Transfer to stove top and heat until warmed through.

4. Cowboy Casserole

You'll find this recipe here.

5. Pizza Bake

Sorry.  I didn't get a picture of this one before we ate it all up.

Ingredients:

1 box of rotini noodles

1 package of pepperoni

1 lb of breakfast sausage

2 jars of pizza sauce

4 cups of shredded mozzarella

1. Cook noodles according to package.  Drain and pour noodles into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.

2. Fry and crumble sausage. Drain.  Mix in pizza sauce.  Stir and pour over pasta.

3. Add a layer of pepperoni.

4. Top with mozzarella cheese.

Cover and freeze or continue to bake.

Cooking Instructions:

Let dethaw.  Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes or until warmed through.

 Do you have freezer meal recipes that you love?  Let me know!



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