Freezer cooking, once a month meals

I first started freezer cooking when I was pregnant for my third, and even though I don't have the time or energy to do it all the time, whenever it happens, I don't regret the time or energy spent because it turns out to be a lifesaver for us.

I tried so many recipes, tweaked them dozens of times, tried one method over another, until I got to where I am now. It turns out, we don't like most crock pot meals. And I don't like dumping everything, liquids and all, into double freezer bags. It's messy. It's hard to find the room since a single drop of moisture on the outside of the bags makes them stick together. So through the years we have done things a little differently until we found what works best for us.


This time, I sat down with a notebook and wrote out 14 meals that I knew gave us variety, were economical, and that I knew turned out well from the freezer. I planned to double each meal, which gave us 28 meals.

Here is my meal list:

Chicken pot pie
Cashew chicken with rice
Chicken stir fry with rice
Cheeseburger meatloaf with oven fries
Lemonade chicken with oven fries
Lasagna
Baked ziti
Spaghetti sauce
Pizza
Tortellini soup
Tacos
Nachos
Chicken fajitas
Pierogies with sausage and peppers


Here is my shopping list. I already have things like oil, flour, yeast, and seasonings.

1 bunch of celery
3lb bag of onions
10 green bell peppers
2lbs carrots
1 small bag of frozen corn
4 zucchini
4 summer squash
1 jar minced garlic
5lb bag of baking potatoes
1 package of fresh broccoli
1lb snow peas
1lb button mushrooms
1 bunch fresh cilantro
4 cans of water chestnuts
7 cans tomato sauce
6 cans Italian diced tomatoes
2 cans pizza sauce
1 large bag brown rice
1 package of smoke sausage
2 family packs of chicken
7 packages of ground turkey
1 package Italian sausage
1 package lasagna noodles
1 box ziti noodles
3 bags mozzarella cheese
1 large tub ricotta cheese
1 jar of pesto
1 bag cheddar cheese
1 bag bacon bits
This adds up to about $100 at Aldi in my area, possibly less.

For adding to the meals when served:
Frozen tortellini
Frozen pierogies
Desired stir fry sauce ingredients
1 box spaghetti noodles
Sesame seeds
Cashews
Eggs
Tortillas
Tortilla chips
Salsa
Shredded lettuce
Sour cream
Shredded cheese
Green cabbage
Frozen veggies of your choice


Save all of your veggie scraps from preparing the veggies, this will make a large pot of veggie broth that can be frozen and later added to things for added flavor.

I like to take one day and prepare all the veggies, then take the next day to prepare the meals and sauce. This way I'm not burned out halfway through and it doesn't seem like such a big task.


Carrots-peel, cut off the tips, and chop
Celery-take off tops and bottom, wash well, and chop
Onions-cut some into strips for fajitas and pierogies meals, chop the rest
Mushrooms-wipe with damp cloth, trim bottoms if needed, chop or slice as preferred
Broccoli-break up the florets, then peel the stalk. Cut off about an inch from the bottom. Chop the stalk like you chop carrots.
Bell peppers-the same amount gets cut into strip like the onions, chop the rest
Potatoes-peel and chop a few and then turn the rest into wedges
Zucchini and squash-cut off tips, cut out the middles, and chop
Water chesnuts-open, drain, and chop
Cilantro-destem and chop

Put all of the scraps into a crock pot or stockpot, add enough water to cover well, and let it cook the rest of the day on low or simmer. You could start this before bed that night and cook it all night in the crock pot. Make sure to put some of the jarred garlic in, and if you have it, a splash of lemon juice, and a tiny bit of ground ginger and cayenne pepper really add depth. It's not enough to be spicy. A little salt and pepper would be good as well. Make the oven fries at this time before the potatoes turn brown.

Next day, make 2 batches of pizza dough. Clean out your crockpots. I have one big and one normal sized. Brown 3 packages of ground turkey and put in crockpots with 6 of the jars of tomato sauce, 2 cans of diced tomatoes, some jarred garlic, and some of the Italian seasoning. Turn them on low, we will add veggies once we separate them.

Divide the veggies. The strips of bell pepper and onion will be divided into 4 meals, 2 for fajitas and 2 for pierogies. The rest gets complicated so I will tell you what veggies go with what meals, try to divide everything equally.

Cashew chicken- bell peppers, onion, celery, water chesnuts, snow peas, broccoli stalks, garlic

Chicken stir fry-bell peppers, onion, carrots, water chesnuts, snow peas, broccoli, mushrooms, garlic

Chicken pot pie-celery, carrots, onions, potatoes, and corn

Pizza-bell peppers and onions, garlic

Tacos/nachos-bell peppers, onions, garlic, cilantro

Tortellini soup-zucchini, squash, celery, carrots, onions, bell peppers, garlic

Spaghetti sauce-zucchini, squash, celery, onions, carrots, bell peppers, garlic, mushrooms

Once that is done, put the veggies into the sauce and let it cook on low for about 6 hours. This gives the veggies some texture still, but if you like them softer, cook for 8. Once it's done, let it cool and set aside.

You can bag the veggies for the meals of: stir fry, cashew chicken, and tortellini soup.
Make sure you have bags big enough to include the meat after it is cooked and cooled.

Now we are going to cook up the ground turkey for tacos/nachos in the pan we browned the meat for the sauce. Brown 2 packages with onion, bell pepper, garlic, and salt and pepper. Once browned, add preferred taco seasoning, water, and finely chopped cilantro, and simmer until sauce thickens. You could also add a little lime juice and hot sauce if you want. Let cool, put into 4 separate bags, and freeze.

Wipe out pan and brown all the Italian sausage. Divide into 3 equal parts and cool. 2 parts go into the veggie bags for tortellini soup, and the last part gets cut in half and set aside for pizza.

Prepare the chicken like this. Half of the tops get put in two bags and marinated with a bottle of hard lemonade (we don't drink but this works well for a marinade), garlic, black pepper, and olive oil. Freeze in the marinade. The other tops get cut into large strips and cooked. Cool and add to fajita veggies in the freezer.

The bottoms of the chicken are chopped and cooked with just salt and pepper. Cool and divide between stir fry, cashew chicken, pot pie, and pizza. Toss the chicken for pizza with a little pesto or just olive oil and garlic. Freeze the chicken with the veggies for stir fry and cashew chicken, and set aside the chicken for pot pie.

Slice the smoked sausage and divide equally in the two bags of pierogies meals. I use frozen pierogies but you could instead use some sliced potatoes if you have extra.

Make the meatloaf. Shape into 2 pans and freeze. Since the stove top is free, boil the brown rice and ziti pasta (only cook halfway), cool and set aside pasta with a little olive oil so it doesn't stick. Put cooled rice onto a cookie sheet in the freezer.

Assemble the pizzas. I make 4 large dough circles, they all get sauce, cheese, and Italian seasonings. Then 2 just have pepperoni for the kids. The other two are the grown ups pizzas. They each have bell peppers, onions, garlic, Italian sausage, and the chicken. Wrap the pizzas separately and freeze.

Put now frozen rice into a bag and freeze. Assemble pot pies however you like to make them, or if you don't like that, you could just freeze the chicken and veggies to make chicken noodle or chicken rice soup later.

Use the now cooled spaghetti sauce to make 2 mini lasagna and 2 pans of baked ziti. I used bread pans. Spray well and mix up a ricotta mixture with egg, parm cheese, pesto, and Italian seasoning. Mix ziti noodles with sauce and half the ricotta mixture, put into 2 pans and top with cheese and Italian seasoning. Make lasagna with layers of uncooked noodles, sauce, and ricotta mixture, top with cheese and Italian seasonings. Wrap each pan and freeze.

Put the rest of the sauce into quart size freezer bags, or plastic containers sprayed with cooking spray, and freeze. Just thaw, reheat and add to spaghetti noodles when needed, it already has all the meat, veggies, and seasonings.

I buy some bags of frozen veggies to go with the chicken fillets, and meatloaf. The rest of these meals already include veggies. You can easily add a serving of veggies, a salad, breadsticks, salsa, rolls, and egg rolls to these meals. I also serve the pierogies meals with roasted cabbage steaks.

I sure hope I didn't loose you. 28 meals were cooked, packaged, and frozen. I turn on Christian music, stop every couple hours for coffee breaks, and try to enlist some friends to help or even to chat. If your kitchen is big enough, have a cooking party and each person make a few of the meals doubled into the amount of ladies cooking, and then divided at the end of the day.

When you are ready to cook:

Cashew chicken and chicken stir fry get sauteed from frozen and mixed with a homemade sauce. I add sesame seeds and scrambled egg to the stir fry and cashews to the cashew chicken. Both served with the rice.

Meat and veggies go into the crock pot for tortellini soup and I add 2 cans of diced tomatoes (pureed), half a can of tomato sauce, garlic and Italian seasonings. Cook on low for 6 hours and then add cooked tortellini and parm cheese about 15 minutes or so before serving.

Pot pie, lasagna, pizza, and baked ziti gets cooked from frozen.

Fajita strip get sautéed with onion and pepper strips with taco seasoning and a little water. Smoked sausage, onion and pepper get sautéed and added to prepared pierogies.

Marinated chicken us thawed, then baked, grilled, or pan seared and served with potato wedges and frozen veggies. Meatloaf is cooked from frozen and served the same.

Taco meat is reheated and served as either tacos or nachos and rice that I reheat and season with Mexican seasoning.






You may have leftover spaghetti sauce, cooked rice, chicken, potatoes, frozen corn, pasta, and shredded cheese. You could make chicken tenders and loaded mashed potatoes, or baked spaghetti, or a Mexican skillet meal. These would make great lunches or extra dinners. These meals feed my family of 2 adults and three small kids, you can easily add extra veggies or salad or some type of bread to these meals to suit your family.

Bacon cheeseburger meatloaf

I am not a fan of meatloaf. The texture, the flavor, the ketchup. Yuck. When we were first married and I would ask my husband what he wanted for dinner, his answer was usually traditional comfort food. Like meatloaf, with the ketchup. *sigh*

So through years of recipes, trial, and error, I found a way to make meatloaf taste like a bacon cheeseburger, and we both get our comfort food.


You can play around with this. Ground beef, pork, sirloin, chicken, turkey. Whatever ground meat you want. Low fat cheese, regular cheese, turkey bacon, soy bacon, whatever. Or put taco seasoning in the meat and top with Mexican cheese and chorizo. Anything goes.



Loaf:

1lb ground turkey
1 egg
1/2 cup breadcrumbs
1/2 teaspoon liquid smoke
1/2 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
1/2 teaspoon each hamburger seasoning and steak seasoning
Salt and pepper to taste
Either onion powder or finely chopped onions, to taste

Topping:

4 slices cooked, crumbled bacon
1/2 cup shredded cheese


Combine loaf ingredients, press into a sprayed 8x8 glass baking dish. Put into a 375 degree oven until done, about 40 minutes.


Remove from oven and sprinkle almost all of the cheese on top. Then bacon, and then the rest of the cheese. Return to oven for 5 minutes until cheese is melted. Serves 4.

Kale chips for one

I love kale chips. But I never make them because I don't want to preheat the oven and dirty a cookie sheet. Not for something that will take me 40 seconds to eat.

So now I make them in the toaster oven on aluminum foil. I make them while I prep the rest of my snack, so there's no extra time. Then I just throw the foil away, easy.


You will need:

Fresh kale, cooking spray, garlic salt, and aluminum foil.

Cut a piece of foil to fit the rack of your toaster oven. Tear the kale off the stem and discard stem. Break kale leaf into small pieces and arrange on tray.

Spray lightly with cooking spray and sprinkle with garlic salt.

Bake in toaster oven at 350 degrees for 5 to 7 minutes, just until crisp but still bright green.

Enjoy!!

Healthy cookies

Here is my take on the banana cookies going around the web.

You will need:

1 banana
1/2 cup of regular oats
2tsp PB2 powder
a few drops of vanilla extract
1tbsp mini chocolate chips

Mash banana in a bowl with a fork, add remaining ingredients and stir until well incorporated. It will seem too dry at first but it won't once it's all mixed well.

Spray a small cookie sheet lightly. Spoon the mixture into four dollups, and flatten them into thin disks. You want them as thin as possible without being too thin.

Bake in a 350 degree oven for 12 minutes. Let cool for 1 minute on cookie sheet, then carefully remove with a spatula. Serve warm.

Easy meal: Sausage and zucchini with feta

This takes only minutes, a handful of ingredients, and a single cookie sheet to make. It's great when you are short on time, energy, and dinner ideas.

You will need:

Smoked sausage (we use turkey)
Zucchini (summer squash, bell peppers, or mushrooms also work well)
Onion and garlic (as much or as little as your family likes)
Olive oil
Spray
seasoning
Feta cheese (or shredded parmigiano)

Preheat oven to 375. Spray a cookie sheet with cooking spray. Slice zucchini and sausage on the bias, this makes it look a lot more elegant than a 5 minute meal normally would.

Chop onions as desired, add garlic, seasoning, and drizzle with olive oil. Use your hands to toss everything together right on the cookie sheet.

Put in hot oven and cook for 30-40 minutes. Take out and sprinkle cheese on top. Serve with rice, filled pasta, breadsticks, or on its own for a low carb meal.

Easy cookie project

Decorating individual cookies.


My kids are 8, 5, and almost 3. They can all do this and they love it.

You will need cookies or mini cupcakes, frosting, various decorations and small paint mixing trays from the dollar store.

I got a box of 72 frozen sugar cookies from GFS on sale for $2.99 a few weeks after Christmas. They are normally $10. I can take out just three at a time on days that I need something extra for the kids to do and this doesn't make a mess of the kitchen or hours cutting out cookies.

Once cooled, spread with frosting. You can use store bought, but we like homemade buttercream. It's easy to make a small amount for this.

You will need:

2tbsp softened butter
1 drop vanilla extract
about 1/3 to 1/2 cup powdered sugar
1tsp half and half (feel free to use milk or heavy cream)

Mix butter, powdered sugar, and vanilla with a fork until well incorporated. Stir in half and half and mix well.

This makes enough to frost 4-6 cookies. Older kids can be given unfrosted cookies to frost by themselves, with toddlers it's better to frost them first. Now fill the paint trays with whatever you have on hand, sprinkles, colored sugar, marshmallows, chocolate chips, etc. 

Brown rice

Brown rice gets very mushy when cooked traditionally. And it takes a long time. And the appearance and texture make you not want to eat it.

So we found a different way.

You will need:
Desired amount of rice (I just use a palm full for each serving)
Large stockpot
Water
Colander

We are going to cook the rice like pasta. Put rice in pot with a lot of water.

Bring to a hard boil and continue to boil, uncovered for 20 minutes.

Strain into colander. Return to pan and add butter or oil, season as desired, and serve. I always make extra, it stores well in the fridge for a quick meal the next day.