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!