Cooking up a Storm!
Some call it freezer cooking, some call it OAMC (once a month cooking), and some just call it "stocking up".
About a week ago, I decided that I was going to do some freezer cooking - cooking ahead several meals and baked goods. In order to do this effectively, this takes some planning. I know there are several young ladies in our Young Married Class who do this (they meet as a group and cook together), so I asked a couple of them for some recipe ideas. I also browsed several online sites for recipe ideas and tips for this kind of cooking. There are many great websites for freezer cooking - just Google it!
I made a tenative list of some dishes for dinner and for breakfast, asking Ed and Emilee to pick some of their favorites (or if the dishes were new, a few they'd be willing to try).
I have limited room in my freezer because it is a side-by-side, which means it is small! So I cleaned it out, getting rid of anything that was old or unappealing. The items left were rearranged so the new food could fit. This is where an extra freezer would come in so handy. However, we do not have a good place to fit one in our home right now, so I have to make my current freezer work for us.
After listing the dishes I was going to make, I check over each recipe carefully and made a grocery list (also checking the pantry for items already on hand) of things I would need to buy. Last night I went to the grocery store, also remembering to pick up more freezer bags and aluminum pans.
I got up early this morning and started cooking by 6am. There were some slight interruptions by the other family members making breakfast and lunch for themselves. I finished by 12:30 this afternoon. These are the dishes that I made today:
- Spaghetti Sauce (meat sauce w/ mushrooms)
- Marinara Sauce (for Emilee)
- Cranberry Chicken
- Lasagna (2- 9x9 pans, using some of the spaghetti sauce)
- Teriyaki Chicken
- Chicken Crescent Pockets
- King Ranch Chicken Casserole (9x9 pan)
- Dinner Burritos
- Grilled Marinated Steaks
- Muffins - dozen each of: Banana Nut, Zucchini Chocolate Chip, and Oat Bran
- Zucchini Chocolate Chip bread
- Breakfast Burritos
- Breakfast Bake
The Dinner and Breakfast Burritos are recipes from my bloggy friend, Barb. You can find them here. I tweaked some of them for Emilee, as she doesn't eat red meat - so I also made some bean burritos and some breakfast burritos with turkey bacon for her, along with the traditional from the recipes. I ran out of flour tortillas (since I didn't account for Emilee's when I was buying) and I had a couple cups of the breakfast egg-sausage-hashbrown mixture left, so I bagged it up and froze it for a Breakfast Bake (just add cheese and serve along with some fruit for a filling breakfast!).
Here is how I freeze most of the foods I made - in freezer bags, labeled (and I date them, too).
If you lay these bags flat in the freezer, after they are frozen they can be stacked or shelved upright to save room.
Ed & I have always made our spaghetti sauce and marinara sauce from scratch (no jar sauces for us!). This is a recipe that Ed has fine-tuned over the years and I've learned it by watching him.
I hadn't planned on making so many muffins, but I had several bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer from last fall that needed to be used and then since I had the muffin tin out I decided to make a couple other varieties, too.
These are always great to grab in the morning to take to work for a mid-morning snack. Emilee likes having this option because she doesn't always make time to eat breakfast before she leaves for work.
I like having a few different flavors to choose from. Ed's favorite right now is banana nut - so I had to make some for him!
Here is how the burritos look after assembling them. I also packaged them into a freezer bag (5-6 per bag) to prevent freezer burn.
I made 15 dinner burritos, 3 bean burritos (for Em), 10 breakfast burritos, 3 turkey bacon burritos (for Em) and 2 quart size bags of breakfast bake.
Now, we just have to get everyone to agree on what's for dinner so I make sure I thaw out the right thing!
If you have done freezer cooking, let me know by leaving a comment. I would love to swap recipes and get some new ideas for the next time I do this (next month maybe?).
I'm tired. *Yawn*
Denise