I've blogged lots about Power Cooking and the benefits of prepping meals in advance but it does take time to organize and plan those sessions. I found a great solution to be Power Freezing. All the convenience - half of the work.
Our freezer had gotten to the point of just sad. (It's really because I wasn't used to having the extra space since for a year it had been filled with Landry's "frozen meals", if you know what I mean). Since I head back to work in two weeks (I may die. I know, I know "poor Katy" but y'all - I have gotten used to the SAHM life where in this world my children also go to school 8 hours a day) I thought it may be a good idea to start stocking up our freezer. Ryan and I hardly ever get to really cook together anymore so we spent Thursday shopping, slicing, dicing, and freezing.
For this PF session I stuck with quick assembly - meaning minimal chopping and really wanted some that I could literally just throw in a bag. This only took us 3 hours to complete, so don't have high expectations of some gourmet choices. ;)
We bought ingredients for 10 meals and only spent $70 - win. Two meals are fully cooked and need to just be thawed and reheated either in the crockpot on warm all day or just popped into the microwave to serve. The remaining meals just need to be thawed and placed in a crock pot all day to cook.
Recipes:
1. Healthy BBQ Chicken - We have made this one before and it is awesome. Seriously yummy. I don't normally like a meat on a bone, but these come out so tender that the meat just falls off. The kids gobbled them up and even ate all the veggies that are in here since I served it over corn bread. Trust me - make this one.
2. Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos - We try to keep these stocked most of the time. Super easy. Super yummy and way more healthy than any kind you can get in the frozen food section. We leave out the cilantro for the kids' and have tried just about every brand of green salsa you can imagine. Serve with sliced avocado, black beans and some rice.
3. Honey Sesame Chicken - One of Radley's favorite meals is "honey chicken" from Pei Wei. He will seriously eat an entire entree by himself. So when I found this recipe I knew we had to try it. I did not include the sesame oil because well, it's like $8/bottle and I didn't think it was necessary. We are going to try this one soon, so I will keep you posted on how it turns out. (I also really like this blog - seems to have lots of yummy recipes!)
4. Taco Casserole - this is just our own made up recipe. And I'm an awful blogger and didn't take any pictures. Just brown some meat (we used 90/10) then mix with 2 cans of your choice of beans (we used pinto and kidney) (drained), 1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes (undrained), and 1 15 oz can of whole kernel corn. Then layer meat, tortillas and shredded cheese. Fancy, huh?
5. Chicken Broccoli Alfredo - I have to admit - I found this recipe in the car as we were pulling into HEB. I felt really guilty about buying some store bought alfredo sauce for two reasons: my Italian roots and the fact that Ryan makes the best homemade alfredo sauce ever. But we bought it. And then I thought that it was silly to put all of this in a bag, so we just have the ingredients to use for a meal soon. (So I realize this isn't technically a freezer meal, but whatever).
For this PF session I stuck with quick assembly - meaning minimal chopping and really wanted some that I could literally just throw in a bag. This only took us 3 hours to complete, so don't have high expectations of some gourmet choices. ;)
We bought ingredients for 10 meals and only spent $70 - win. Two meals are fully cooked and need to just be thawed and reheated either in the crockpot on warm all day or just popped into the microwave to serve. The remaining meals just need to be thawed and placed in a crock pot all day to cook.
Recipes:
1. Healthy BBQ Chicken - We have made this one before and it is awesome. Seriously yummy. I don't normally like a meat on a bone, but these come out so tender that the meat just falls off. The kids gobbled them up and even ate all the veggies that are in here since I served it over corn bread. Trust me - make this one.
2. Baked Creamy Chicken Taquitos - We try to keep these stocked most of the time. Super easy. Super yummy and way more healthy than any kind you can get in the frozen food section. We leave out the cilantro for the kids' and have tried just about every brand of green salsa you can imagine. Serve with sliced avocado, black beans and some rice.
3. Honey Sesame Chicken - One of Radley's favorite meals is "honey chicken" from Pei Wei. He will seriously eat an entire entree by himself. So when I found this recipe I knew we had to try it. I did not include the sesame oil because well, it's like $8/bottle and I didn't think it was necessary. We are going to try this one soon, so I will keep you posted on how it turns out. (I also really like this blog - seems to have lots of yummy recipes!)
4. Taco Casserole - this is just our own made up recipe. And I'm an awful blogger and didn't take any pictures. Just brown some meat (we used 90/10) then mix with 2 cans of your choice of beans (we used pinto and kidney) (drained), 1 15 oz can of diced tomatoes (undrained), and 1 15 oz can of whole kernel corn. Then layer meat, tortillas and shredded cheese. Fancy, huh?
5. Chicken Broccoli Alfredo - I have to admit - I found this recipe in the car as we were pulling into HEB. I felt really guilty about buying some store bought alfredo sauce for two reasons: my Italian roots and the fact that Ryan makes the best homemade alfredo sauce ever. But we bought it. And then I thought that it was silly to put all of this in a bag, so we just have the ingredients to use for a meal soon. (So I realize this isn't technically a freezer meal, but whatever).
If you are looking for some inspiration on meal prep then here are a few of my favorite places:
1. My friend, Stephanie, is a PRO at this. Check her out at Nothing Special... but it sure is GOOD!
2. Baked in the South
3. Six Sisters Stuff
4. My friend, Kelly (ha!), did a link up last week for freezer meals so check her out, too!
And just for fun - when looking around for quick recipes, I found this. Scroll to the bottom. Y'all. Now that is some POWER cooking.
Go forth and freeze! And - if you have any great recipes, please leave them in the comments! :)
Thanks for the shout out, Katy! :-)
ReplyDelete