Freezer Meal: Mini Meatloaves

Before I left for Canada on Monday, I had to deal with 3 lbs of ground beef in my refrigerator. I already had some browned in the freezer so I decided to make some mini meatloaves. The following is my friend Jen's recipe with a couple changes that make it even easier.

Jen P's Mini Meatloaves (with a couple changes)
*1 egg
*3/4 c. milk
*1/2 c. quick oats and 1 c. shredded cheddar cheese
or 1 package of Fresh Take Cheddar Jack and Bacon
*1/2 c. of chopped onion or a couple good shakes of minced onion (if you're in a hurry.  Or too lazy to chop an onion, like me. :-) )
*a dash of salt
*a few grinds of pepper

Sauce:
2/3 c. of ketchup
1/2 c. of brown sugar
1 t. of mustard
(I just use whatever barbecue sauce I have on hand.)

Mix everything together and shape into 8 loaves.


I used my handy mix n chop from Pampered Chef.


I stuck this triple batch into the freezer for a few hours and then just popped them into a gallon freezer bag so I can take out however many I want.

Thaw in the fridge, top with sauce or barbecue sauce and bake at 350 for about 45 min.

Freezer cooking~Getting ready for baby

For the past 3 weeks or so I've been stocking our freezer with meals for before and after baby.  I don't have the energy for a monster all day session so I've done smaller chunks once or twice a week and that's been a great way to fill my freezer.  I've found in the past that we don't like casseroles too much and tortillas don't freeze the best, so I tried make things I knew we would enjoy eating.  Here's a few pics:

               
Chix broc rice, Chix spaghetti, Chix ench lasagna                    

 
 San Francisco pork chops

   
Pork enchilada filling                                                


Chocolate cake
 (a necessity!)

 
Mountain meaballs, brown rice


Baked Chix Penne, Sloppy Joes, Taco Meat
           
             
Spaghetti sauce and meatballs

  
 Farmer's Casserole

 
Beef Goulash, Beef and mushrooms (both crockpot meals)

I definitely prefer this way of freezer cooking.  No monster clean up and most of the time, I just doubled whatever we were having for dinner and put the extra in the freezer.  And I made my crockpot work for me A LOT!  Spaghetti sauce, chili, sloppy joes, taco meat, and pork filling were all made in the crockpot (plus I browned all the ground beef in it).  I have about 30 meals in my freezer now.  Yay!

Freezer Cooking with Chicken (and a little beef and pork)

(Please excuse the enormously huge photos!)

Last Saturday I was going to start my freezer cooking by just doing a few chicken meals. I had bought all my chicken at Meijer on sale last week and my fridge was overflowing so it was time to cook!  My few meals turned into quite a few and I ended up doing a bit on Labor day.

The first meal I made was Continental Beef.  I actually made this in my crockpot overnight and woke up to the smell Saturday morning.  Not recommended.  If I do that again, the crockpot's going in the garage overnight.  Anyway, 2 meals of that.

This is Sesame Chicken.  I marinated that most of the day and then Chris grilled it for me.  After it cooled, I chopped it into chunks which I can use for salads, pitas, quesadillas, pretty much anything that I need cooked chicken for.  I have about 3 meals of this in my freezer now.

This was super simple.  Just mixed all the ingredients together and then divided them between two bags of chicken.  Orange Teriyaki chicken x 2 for the grill.  We're trying this tonight. 

Peanut Satay~Just cut the chicken in chunks and then dump the marinade on top.  This goes on kebab sticks for the grill.  

3 meals of pork ribs browned slightly and ready for the crockpot and barbecue sauce.

12 Cheesy Chicken bundles, 3 meals for our family

Spicy Peanut Chicken x 1

Chicken Parmesan x 2~Still have to make the red sauce for this.  I have 2 cans of 100oz + tomato products I need to use from Sam's.  

This was another super simple crockpot meal for the freezer.  I put raw chicken in the bottom of the crockpot and mixed the rest of the ingredients and dumped them on top.  And it made a ton!  3 meals of Chicken Alfredo for our family.  

Since cauliflower was super cheap last week, I ended up with 6 heads total that I washed, cut, and then boiled for a few minutes.  Cauliflower x 6

I cooked more chicken in the crockpot for this, Parmesan-crusted Chicken Broccoli casserole.  My crockpot was going constantly all day.  I'd finish something, clean it out and dump the next batch in.  Definitely should have borrowed a crockpot or two.  

Breakfast burritos~these are almost gone already.

Chopping up 3 lbs of cooked bacon


I also made 2 meals of French steak and I have a couple more meals of cooked chicken, plus I did a bunch more corn this week.  And I mixed up a huge batch of coconut chocolate chip cookie dough and divided it into 4 freezer bags.  Our freezer is well-stocked!

Freezer Cooking: 2nd Edition~Chicken

It's September tomorrow and fall is coming. Did you hear me? FALL is coming! So I think its about time we stock up the ol' freezer with some good eats for cooler weather. Here's what my plan is for the coming week:

From Don't Panic, Dinner's in the Freezer
*Cheesy Chicken Bundles
*Chicken Enchiladas
*Orange Teriyaki Chicken

From Don't Panic, More Dinner's in the Freezer
*All-Seasons Sesame Chicken
*Spicy Peanut Chicken

From Fix, Freeze, Feast
*Chicken Parmigiana
*Peanut Satay
*Basic Red Sauce

From Fabulous Freezer Meals
*Chicken Marengo
*Chicken Alfredo
*Parmesan-crusted Chicken and Broccoli
And maybe:
*Coconut Chocolate Chip Cookies
*Chocolate Chip Cookies
*Sugar Cookies

I know this looks like a lot (plus I have some beef and pork recipes I'll be doing in a few weeks), but these meals will last a few months in the freezer if properly packaged so I think I'm going to go for it. Plus, fresh chicken is on sale for $1.99 this week at Meijer so I'll be able to buy all my chicken this week.

I got all these books out of the library and I may buy some of them if it turns out I like the recipes. If you'd like to do freezer cooking, here's how I get started:
1) Borrow/buy some freezer cooking books. The ones I listed above are great. The first chapter is the how's and the why's of freezer cooking, plus I know these are tried and true freezer recipes.
2) Go through the books and pick out recipes that you think your family would enjoy and that don't look too pricy to make. I throw recipes out if they have more than 1 ingredient foreign to my kitchen.
3) Make a list of all the ingredients that you need and start watching sales so you can get your ingredients for great prices. Also, consider buying some things in bulk, like shredded cheese at Sam's Club. I bought a 5 lb bag for about 13 bucks which is less than $3/lb. Great price!

Have fun! I'll post some pics when I do my cooking.

Twice-baked potatoes (No oven version!)

I found this recipe on $5 dinners and thought it was a genius idea, especially with the heat wave we had the last week where I totally avoided the oven. I LOVED using the crockpot to bake potatoes. Here's the potatoes cooling after they came out of the crockpot:
I followed the recipe from $5 Dinners, except I mixed the cheese in with the filling instead of sprinkling it on top. I saved some out for our dinner and froze the rest. We just heated the potatoes on the grill and they tasted great! The outsides aren't crispy like oven-baked twice baked potatoes, but these worked better for the kids anyway. Hopefully the frozen ones will taste great too.

Freezer Cooking Completed (almost!)

So I'm sure you've all been waiting with bated breath to see my fabulous freezing cooking post so I won't disappoint you any longer. :-)

Here's what I accomplished:

Sloppy Joes x 2

Chicken Tetrazzini x 3

Green Chile Enchiladas x 2

Green Rice Casserole x 2

Spaghetti Sauce x 2

Wild Rice Chicken x 2

Chili Verde x 2

Chicken Packets

Oriental Chicken

Chili + Chili for hotdogs

Pea soup x 2 (still to be made)

Linguine a la Anne x 2 (still to be made)

Plus:

3 lbs browned hamburger

1 lb browned sausage

2 meals of diced ham

So about 20 meals + 2 sides of green rice + enough meat for at least 6 more meals.

I love looking in my freezer and seeing so many meals ready to be thawed for dinner. And I found that I really didn't have to buy too many groceries this week, just a few thing that were on sale plus some extras for Noah's upcoming birthday party.

How did I do it:
First, I found 15-20 recipes to use. As I started the process, I threw a few out that I didn't think our family would enjoy. Next, I made detailed lists of the ingredients I needed and separated them into two categories: ingredients I had and ingredients I needed. Then I took a couple of weeks to gather ingredients so I didn't have to buy every thing at once and could find the best deals available for meat, etc. I planned to do my cooking in 2 days but ended up spreading it out over a week due to sick kids, teething baby and other duties. I found that this worked out better for me and I think I will take this approach next time too.

What I learned:
With detailed planning, it really wasn't as much work as I thought. And is it really necessary to do it all in one day? I didn't think so. I spread it out over about a week and I still have a couple to do. Also, the crockpot is your best friend! I cooked all my chicken in it, the spaghetti, chili verde, sloppy joes and the pea soup. That was basically throwing the stuff in the crockpot, cooking, cooling, and sticking it in the freezer. I will definitely freezer cook again, but since starting to research it, I've found other resources on the internet that I think will be more helpful than the book I used.

Freezer Cooking Day

Here's what I hope to accomplish next week:

Crockpot Spaghetti

PW's Beef Stew

Chili (Already made and in the freezer, but it was a bit spicy. I'm going to heat it up in the crockpot and add a can of tomatoes when I reheat it.)

These recipes are all from the book Once a Month Cooking:

Chili Verde

Wild Rice Chicken

Chicken Packets

Mexican Stroganoff

Balkan Meatballs

Chili Hamburgers

Chinese Chicken Morsels

Joes to Go

Green Chile Enchiladas

Oriental Chicken

Saucy Hot dogs

Chicken Tetrazzini

And if I find a good price on ham:

Linguine a la Anne

Bird's Nest Pie

If I end up making all these meals, I think I will have about 25 dinners in my freezer! I'm pretty excited about that. I ended up going way over on my grocery budget this month because I was buying ahead for these meals but I think it will even out in the end when I won't have to buy much meat next month. I'll let you know how it turns out!