Time for Freezer meals again!

We had been trying to eat out the freezer before I had to thaw it out last week.  I am so thrilled at how organized and clean it is again!!!

Its pretty organized right now, but once the food freezes solid I will move stuff around to be more like my plan below:
Top Shelf will be meats and meals
Second Shelf will be breast milk (eventually) and Owen's food
Third shelf is frozen veggies
Big Forth shelf is ice packs and other bigger stuff
Bottom Shelf is frozen chicken breasts, pizzas and packaged stuff

But onto the reason for this blog post!  My plan for freezer meals this time.  I am one month away from our due date so usually I shop one day and do a recipe or 2 a day.  It works best if I plan for us to eat it for dinner that night too; so, I am not cooking dinner AND freezer meals.  I always get exhausted doing this even when not pregnant because it is a lot of work, but it really is so worth it for after baby.

Week 1:  Chicken and Pork

• bags of cooked shredded chicken breasts
• chicken pot pies
• Mediterranean Rosemary Chicken Thighs
• Boneless Pork Chops
• Marinated Pork Chops

Week 2: Beef and Ground Beef

• Shepherds Pie (I really want a new recipe b/c we are not in love with the one from Owen's freezer meals, its decent so I will use it if I cant find a better one)
• Santa Fe Soup: seriously this is the EASIEST to make!!
• Beef Stew or Zesty Beef and Veggie Stew

Week 3:  Ground Turkey

• Mild Turkey Chili
• Ground Turkey Cheesy Casserole

Most of the recipes are in my old posts so check them out!  

here are the dollar store pans and they have a reflective side that I put towards the food and a white side that I write directions for later on!

My white erase board is getting full!

Almost ready for you Jesse!

Well, I am just soooo ready to say the nursery is 100% finished and it's not.  I didn't meet my August goal.  It is so close that I am not beating myself up over it.  Tonight, however, I did start on my September goal....freezer meals. UGH! I am so not looking forward to it!

Step one was defrosting the freezer.  I now am praying it defrosts quickly as i have 2 coolers full of food that i don't want to go bad! It was so full of ice on the shelves and some food had spilled on the ice and only way to clean was a complete defrost; that is happing as i type!  Step 2 was gathering my recipes together and making a grocery list and putting dates on the calendar to cook.  Most of the meals I plan to make extra for our meals too so I am trying to look at it as not that much extra cooking.  One good thing about emptying the freezer is getting rid of the hash browns from Owen's freezer meal cooking (3 years ago!!! Gag!) and some of his baby food I made!  LOL!! 

I am excited about clean stocked and organized freezers!  I plan to keep a list of the meals on the white erase board again and hopefully a tally of the frozen veggies too (will help with shopping and not over buying).  

Sadly, the master bathroom is at a stand still.  I was really hoping the tile guy would come today and he couldn't and it probably means he has jobs early next week too. Ughhhhh! Guess Chris is going to have to hang stuff for me this weekend on the walls so I can still have a feeling of accomplishment!!! Fingers crossed that it all gets done!  

Ok, so I talked to Chris about hanging stuff and apparently he has a bunch he can do in there...I knew that he was going to need to sand and sheet rock mud some more, but it sounds like he is wanting to finish the electrical in there too!! Can lights and fan!! 

Freezer is almost thawed!  I just spent 10 minutes breaking ice and dumping water!!  Hope to get the food back in there tonight! Got to love how long it takes to write a post these days!  I started writing at 3pm and it's 8:45 now.  

Wish I had taken a before pic of the freezer it was BAD!  

Freezable Meals 4: Update

Well, someone asked for my recipes so here goes a few more I have done over the past weekish.

Mild Chicken Chili:
1 lb ground turkey
salt and pepper
1 Tbs olive oil
1 white onion
garlic powder (equal to a clove of garlic)
1 28-oz can crushed tomatoes
1 15-oz can tomato sause
1 15-oz can red kidney beans, drained
1 15-oz can white kidney beans, drained
1 15-oz can black beans, drained
1 Tbs brown sugar
1 Tbs chilli powder to taste
1 Tbs red wine vinegar

Directions:  cook ground turkey, olive oil, and onion with salt and pepper till browned.  Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a simmer.  You may want to season to taste, Chris is always so good at this!!!

Made 2 meals for 2!


Cream Cheese Italian Chicken:

1 .7 ounce envelope Italian dressing mix
1/2 cup butter
2 pounds boneless skinless chicken breast
1 10-oz of cream of chicken soup
1 8-oz package cream cheese

Cut the chicken into bit size pieces..  Set the crock pot on high adding the butter in to melt once melted add the Italian dressing mix; once mixed add the chicken and cook on high for 2 hours.  Stir occasionally.  Then add cream of chicken soup and cream cheese.  Mix and put into freezer bags.

I ended up doubling this recipe b/c I had bought a bunch of chicken.  I was able to freeze 3 baggies (2 servings a bag) and a 4th bag that is 1 serving size. 

As for the rest of my cooking, I think I am slowing down.  Getting sick of it!  I still have a few more things to make.  I remembered that I don't like the corn chowder frozen, so now I have all the ingredients, but I am not going to use them right now.  Luckily, they are mostly cans so they will last for a while.

Up next:  cornflake hash-browns (whew no cooking on that one) and an easy chicken pot pie recipe that calls for biscuits on the top.

Freezable Meals Day 3: Pork

Today was quick and easy because the recipes didn't require cooking!

But, I started by putting a spiral ham in the oven for tomorrow's cooking.

Asian Shredded Pork :

3 pound pork loin roast (cut off the excess fat if needed)
2 packages of onion soup mix
2 tsp ginger powder
1 tsp garlic powder
10 oz sweet and sour sauce
1 cup teriyaki sauce
3 green onions, chopped
2 packages of salted peanuts-crushed
dash of sesame oil (optional I just had it on hand and it smells so good)

Cut the pork loin into thirds, rub each piece with dried onion soup mix.  Place into freezer bags.  In a bowl mix the rest of the ingredients, then place into 3 small baggies.  In a third bag put one pork bag and one sauce bag.  Makes 3 freezable dinners for 2.

To cook:
Thaw in fridge.  Place meat in crockpot with water covering the meat, cook 6 hours on low till meat starts shredding, add sauce.  Serve as a lettuce wrap or with a wheat tortilla wraps.
ETA: I usually take the meat out of the crock pot with a slotted spoon, put into a clean bowl with the sauce.  Otherwise, there is too much liquid. 

Marinated Pork Chops:

1 tablespoon soy sauce
2 tablespoons begetable oil
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
1 teaspoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons brown sugar
2 tablespoons ketchup
6 boneless pork chops

Mix all the ingredients, except the pork, in a bowl.  Place the pork in the bowl one by one covering them in the sauce.  Put the correct serving sizes in freezable bags.  Freeze.

To cook:  thaw then cook in frying pan with a little oil or bake in oven 350 degrees about 30 minutes.

I didn't take pictures because raw meat is yucky!

Freezable Meals Day 2

Today's meals were:

Rosemary Chicken with zucchini from the Real Simple website.  What was great about this recipe is that you freeze it before cooking so the chicken breasts marinated in the amazing smelling marinate!  Thank Acey for suggesting it!  You can google for the recipe if you want it.

Then I found a Shepherds Pie recipe that I altered a bit:

Ingredients:
2 pounds potatoes: russet cubed
2 tablespoons sour cream
1/2 cup chicken broth
salt and pepper
2 pounds ground beef
baby carrots sliced
1 white onion, chopped
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons Worcestershire
1/2 cup frozen peas
1 teaspoon paprika
2 tablespoons parsley leaves

Directions:
Boil potatoes with skins in salted water.  Drain and put into large bowl with salt, pepper, sour cream, and chicken broth: mash!

In a large pan on medium high heat cook ground beef and onion, season with salt and pepper.  Once ground beef is browned add carrots cooking for about 5 more minutes.

In a small skillet over medium heat cook better and flour for about 2 minutes, whisk in broth and Worcestershire sauce, stir and cook until thickened.

Add gravy to meat and vegetables and stir in peas.  Place meat mixture in baking pan, spread potatoes on top and sprinkle with paprika and parsley leaves.

Broil on high till potatoes are browned.

Freezable Meals Day 1: 2 soups

Yesterday, I got very organized here is a mini break down:

• narrowed down my recipes making sure I had several recipes for each type of meat and that included lots of vegetables
• then catorgized them by type of meat, as of right now I am going to have 4 big days of cooking, but I will add more if I have time and freezer space. 
• Beef-ground and cubed:  Santa Fe Soup, Zesty Beef Veggie Soup, Shepherds Pie
• Chicken Breast: Rosemary Chicken, Cream Cheese Italian Chicken, Chicken Tortilla Soup 
• Spiral Honey Glazed Ham: Ham and Hash Brown Casserole, Corn Flake Hash Browns, Corn Chowder (any left overs will be frozen seperatly and are GREAT for a quick pre-cooked meat)
• Ground Turkey:  Turkey Chilli (I would like to find another recipe to add to this day.)
• printed all the recipes or pulled out of my go to recipe box
• made a HUGE grocery list divided by each meat category. To keep costs down I am buying in bulk where possible, but I am also just buying right before I cook those meals so that the fresh food won't go bad. 
• Double checked my pantry for items: found a quite a few things!
• Looked for coupons in my coupon file and online
• Headed to Walley World

Here are all the items for the first 3 recipes!

The first two recipes that I did are the Santa Fe Soup and Zesty Beef  Veggie Soup.

I have cooked the Santa Fe Soup many times and I have forgotten how freaking easy it is to make and so yummy!!!  Right now it is cooling before I put it into the freezable containers.

Santa Fe Soup  

Since you cook the ground beef at the beginning you only have to let it simmer for about 30-45 minutes.  Here is the recipe if you are interested; I have no clue where I got it from as I have been making it since early in our marriage.

Ingredients:
2lbs ground beef: (I usually get the lowest fat percentage I can find at the store)
1 onion chopped (I usually use white)
2 cans, 11oz, of white corn (I had yellow in the pantry so that's what I used this time)
1 can, 16 oz, of pinto beans (ops forgot to buy them, but luckily had red kidney beans to substitute!)
1 can, 10 oz, of Rotel tomatoes with chillies (I used mild)
1 can, 16 oz, black beans
2 cups water (ended up adding more b/c I wanted it more soupy which will be better for freezing)
2 packages of taco seasoning
2 packages of ranch dressing mix (or about a half of cup if you have the big bottle like us!)

Directions:
Brown ground beef with the onions.  Throw in the rest of the ingredients, draining the corn and beans.  Simmer 30-45 minutes.

Either serve with Fritos, sour cream, cheddar cheese or in a bread bowl or like I am doing freeze in containers that are the correct proportions for your family.

Next, I made the Zesty Beef Veggie Soup.

Zesty Beef Veggie Soup (before)

Here it is in raw form, it needs to cook in the crock pot for next 6 hours on high.

Recipe: (somewhere off line, I hope this is good)

1 lb beef stew meat, cubed (I bought almost a 1 1/2 because my husband likes eating meat)

1/2 cup white onion chopped

2 tsp garlic, minced (or garlic powder that I had on hand, starting off a little at a time)

2 cups shredded cabbage (I bought this pre-shredded in the bag and it had white and red cabbage and some carrots, but I figured it would still work, more veggies the better!)

2 cups frozen corn

2 cups frozen green beans

2 cups carrots, sliced (I used baby carrots so I didn't have to peel them)

4 cups V8 Hot and Spicy tomato vegetable juice (used almost the whole container)

1 can, 14.5 oz, Italian diced tomatoes (never used these before, but they smelled good!)

2 Tablespoons Worcestershire sauce (we buy the low sodium)

1 teaspoon basil leaves

1 Tablespoon sugar (thought about using splenda, but then didn't)

salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Add all ingredients into the slow cooker, stir.  Cover and cook on low for 8-10 hours or on high for 6 hours.   Taste to make sure its good before letting cool and freezing in serving sized containers or freezer bags.

*I have an awesome husband who is great at seasoning and he ended up adding the following:

Here is our final Zesty Soup!

By this point my feet are killing me and my belly is hard as a rock from all the running around today.  Did I mention I did laundry, dishes and general picking up around the house before the shopping trip?  Thankfully, Chris worked from home on paperwork and was able to help me get the groceries in the house.

Whew!  If you made it this far WOW and thanks for reading!!  

cooking in January

So, I am working on my list of items to cook and freeze and would love your help.  Please let me know if any of you have any recipes or suggestions to round out my list!

Dinners:

• Mild Chicken Chili
• Marinated Cream Cheese Italian Chicken Breast
• Zesty Beef and Vegetable Soup
• Ham and Hash Brown
• McCormick Crock Pot Chili with ground Turkey
• Chicken Tortilla Soup
• Shepherds Pie
• Santa Fe Soup

Sides:

• Corn Flake Hashbrowns

So, it looks like I am covered on the soups!  So, I was thinking if I cook 3 meals a week and each meal I can freeze 2 that would be 6 meals and I have at least 4 weeks so....that would be 24 meals!  Throw in the stouffers lasagna and chicken and rice meals and our new favorite PF Changs frozen meal bags and we will have at least the first month or so covered.  Thank goodness we have a stand up freezer waiting to be filled up!!