Monday, January 30, 2012

Freezer Meal Update

So, Friday morning Ben and I went to Sams to procure all of the makings for my freezer meals.  That part of the mission was definitely accomplished.  I went to lunch with some amazing friends, and then did some school work Friday afternoon. So, I finally started working on actual cooking about 4 PM. Here's how it went down.

I had found some potatoes in the pantry, so I washed them up and stuck them in the oven to bake.

I chopped onions and carrots, and threw them in with a whole chicken I had in my freezer. I boiled the chicken, ending up with a cooked chicken to shred for meals, and also quite a bit of stock.
I started a huge pot of rice (8 cups water, 4 cups rice -- thanks Shanna for the advice and words of wisdome regarding freezing rice! That will come in handy!)

Scrambled 18 eggs.

Cooked 2 lbs of sausage (in crumbles)  while the eggs were cooking.

Once the eggs and ssg were done, I rolled about 16 breakfast burritos, and then bagged up the rest of the sausage crumbles for other recipes.

Then I bagged up the rice into 3  side dish portions, and 2 main dish portions. I didn't end up doing the fried rice recipe, however I don't think it will take much time to heat and "fry" the rice on that night's dinner.

I bagged up the cooked chicken that had been cooling. I'll probably regret not shredding it, but I just stuck it in a bag whole.

It was at this point that my Food Saver decided to stop sucking the air out of bags. Wahhhhh!

Then, I strained and put the stock in containers to freeze. I absolutely love having homemade stock to use for recipes. 

Next I made the "Asian" marinade for the salmon, and made 2 dinners worth of asian salmon. I had a little salmon left over. It wasn't enough for a meal, but Kevin through it on the smoker today while he was smoking the pork shoulder. It was delicious and he made a salmon dip this afternoon that was AMAZING!!

I used the same Asian marinade (I tripled it) and bagged up some chicken (2 meals) and pork chops (1 meal) in that. Then, I made the sweet and sour sauce. I coated chopped up chicken breasts in corn starch, and bagged the sauce separately. I will finish the chicken on the sweet and sour chicken night and serve it with fried rice.  I also just threw the leftover sauce to marinade some pork chops for a different dinner. 

I pretty much was exhausted at this point and decided to finish Saturday.

On Saturday morning I started some black beans, fully intending to finish my cooking spree. However, I opted instead to spend a fun day with my family.  Sunday, I ended up doing a decorating project, but I did manage to separate and freeze the rest of the meat.  I kept balking at the dishes that involved bread crumbs. Something just keeps telling me that is better done on the same day it is eaten. I could be completely wrong, as I am no freezer meal expert.  But, between being exhausted and just completely ADD, I made that choice.

I do feel good that I have a good amount of dinners that just need to be pulled out and cooked.  I also feel good that I have a good stock of meat in the freezer, which will cut down on the amount of days where I have to run to Publix to get stuff for dinner.  This will be a huge time saver, and less face it save money too!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Awesome!! It is totally exhausting to do all that! And the dishes- ugh!! :) Now that you have a good supply, you could try making one big meal/recipe a week (maybe on Sunday or another easy day), then eating one portion for dinner and freezing two. That way you can use what you have in the freezer, but also keep the inventory up without doing the marathon day.

I also agree about the breadcrumbs. I haven't had good success with that. It looks so lovely going in the freezer, but when I reheat it either gets burned (heating in a skillet) or soggy (heating in the mic). I have tried heating in the oven, but if I'm going to go to that time frame, I'll just cook it fresh.

Congrats on making so much- I need to do some breakfast burritos. That is a great idea for all of our hectic mornings!

Anonymous said...

typo- I meant to say I *have NOT* tried heating in the oven

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