Freezer Cooking Day

Freezer Cooking Day: My No-Casserole 2-hour Plan (and come link up yours, too!)

by Crystal on April 30, 2010

With summer upon us and grilling and salad season in full force, I challenged myself to create a menu plan for Freezer Cooking Day which include zero casseroles. I also am short on time this weekend and ended up with only a 2-hour time slot with which to cook.

::The No-Casserole, Two-Hour Freezer Cooking Day Recipe List::

–Barbecued Beef x 4 (recipe coming)

–Southwest Roll-ups x 4

–Marinated Chicken x 3

–Frozen Fruit Cups

–Whole-Wheat Chocolate Chip Pancakes (recipe coming)

–Cooked bacon for BLT sandwiches and salads (enough for 3 meals)

–Cooked and chopped chicken for Homemade Pizza and Chicken Pasta Salad (enough for 4 meals — 2 of each)

And here’s my plan — maybe a little ambitious to accomplish in two hours. But it seems doable on paper, at least!

::The No-Casserole, Two-Hour Master Freezer Cooking Day Plan::

–Set out meat and milk from freezer tonight (to thaw).

–Start beef in crock pot (5 minutes)

–Grind flour (5 minutes)

–Cook bacon and chicken (5 minutes)

–Make chocolate chip pancakes batter (5 minutes)

–While pancakes are cooking, clean up kitchen (10 minutes)

–Continue cooking pancakes and mix chicken and marinade in freezer bags (5 minutes)

–Make fruit cups (15 minutes)

–Chop chicken (10 minutes)

–Make Southwest roll-ups (10 minutes)

–Bag everything and put in freezer (10 minutes)

–Clean up kitchen (20 minutes)

If all goes exactly according to plan, I’ll have 18 meals (or parts of meals) in the freezer, plus fruit cups and pancakes. Stay tuned on Monday for the full report including pictures and recipes.

Are you participating in the May Freezer Cooking Day Event? If so, post about your cooking plan on your blog and then come back here and leave your direct link below so we can all be inspired! Please note: links which do not link directly to your freezer cooking post or which do not contain your freezer cooking plan will be deleted.

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Is Freezer Cooking Really Worth It?

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by Crystal on April 30, 2010

Over the past few years as I’ve shared my Freezer Cooking Day adventures with you, a number of you have written and asked, “Is it really worth the effort?”

Well, you’re right that it’s effort. Having a Freezer Cooking Day is hard work. It takes thought, planning and sweat to pull it off.

But I have definitely found it to be every bit worth it. In fact, it’s hard for me to imagine life without pre-made meals in my freezer!

As many have stated before, Freezer Cooking definitely saves you time and money. But here are three other specific reasons I love Freezer Cooking:

1. I only have to do dishes once a month.

Okay, well, I wash plates, bowls, cups and utensils, but my kitchen only becomes massively messy once a month. Do you know how nice that is?

When I have a clean kitchen, it somehow feels like the whole house is cleaner. So while I definitely pretty much “destroy” the kitchen on Freezer Cooking Day, the other 29-30 days of the month, it stays relatively mess-free.

(Ahem. We won’t talk about the kitchen floor, though. Can I exempt it since I have young children? Because seriously, no matter how many times I sweep and mop each week, there always seems to be enough crumbs on the kitchen floor to make a casserole with! )

Nope, I don’t have a deep freeze, so I just do the stuff-and-cram method for my over-the-refrigerator freezer. It might not be the prettiest method ever, but I can fit close to 30 meals in there at a time! And yes, I’m sure the organizational geeks are totally cringing at that picture. It works for us — and that’s what matters!

2. I don’t have to dread 5 p.m. anymore.

I don’t know about you, but there are some days at our home when life whizzes by so quickly and all of a sudden, it’s 5 p.m. and dinner isn’t even a figment of my imagination. Before I started regularly cooking ahead and freezing meals, I’d be tempted to call my husband and ask him to bring something home for dinner.

Freezer cooking has solved the 5 p.m. “What’s-For-Dinner” panic. If I forget to pull something out earlier in the day, I’ll just pick a meal from my freezer stash which defrosts quickly — such as meatballs. I pair this with from frozen veggies, toast and maybe a fruit salad and no one even has to know I forgot about dinner until 30 minutes before it was supposed to happen!

3. It’s not a huge undertaking to have dinner guests or take a meal to someone.

When I have meals already made in the freezer, it’s rather simple to bring food to a new mom or have friends over for dinner.

Lasagna, spaghetti pie and meatballs are great staple meals to have on hand to share with others. Just whip up some Bread Machine Buttery Rolls, make a salad or fruit and maybe some brownies and you’re set!

I also like to sometimes make up chocolate chip cookie dough and freeze it so I can quickly make a dessert for friends coming over or to take somewhere.

New To Freezer Cooking?

Here are some articles to get you started:

Start Where You Are and Learn As You Go

How to Plan a Freezer Cooking Day (and find more ideas here)

How to Cook for Your Freezer When You Don’t Like Casseroles

Can You Have a Freezer Cooking Day if You Don’t Have a Lot of Freezer Space?

How to Store Your Freezer Meals

Do you think Freezer Cooking is worth the effort? Why or why not?

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Pumpkin Carrot Cake Muffins

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by Crystal on April 29, 2010

Guest Post by Katie from goodLife {eats}

When I first saw Crystal and Jessica talking about freezer cooking, I shied away from it. I made excuses: That’s not for me. I don’t have a big freezer. I like being spontaneous and creative in the kitchen. I don’t have time to cook a whole month’s meals at once, nor did I want to. Being a food blogger, I wanted to be able to cook on my own schedule and as I was inspired.

BUT, eventually I realized that having a few things in the freezer would make life easier. Especially breakfast!

Our family loves muffins, waffles and pancakes for breakfast. I don’t always have time to whip up a new batch of whatever we’re in the mood for, and sometimes I’m out of the ingredients we need. That’s where freezer cooking came in for me.

Baking is easy and fun, something my kids love to do with me. And breakfast isn’t usually something I’m as spontaneous with, except for maybe on the weekends. Instead of tackling my freezer cooking projects all at once, I do them when the opportunity strikes and as time allows. Often times, my son will say “let’s make muffins!” just because he wants to. I take that opportunity to make a double batch and freeze the extra for later.

Here is one of our new favorite muffin recipes. I’ve doubled it for you below so you can have 1 1/2 dozen for now and 1 1/2 dozen to stash in your freezer. Or maybe you’ll even stash all 36 in your freezer.

They are super easy, healthy, and a great way to start the morning. You don’t have to frost them with the sweetened cream cheese. That’s just a little something to make them feel more special, but they are certainly just as good without it! I take advantage of the “frosting” and tell my kids that we’re having cupcakes for breakfast!

Pumpkin Carrot Cake Muffins

makes 36 regular-sized muffins

1 cup packed brown sugar
10 tablespoons butter, softened
1 1/3 cup vanilla yogurt
2 cups pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
4 tablespoons orange juice
3 teaspoon vanilla
2 1/2 cup carrots, grated
2 cup whole wheat flour
2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup cold milled flax
2 teaspoon baking powder
2 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice

Sweetened Orange Cream Cheese (optional)

16 ounces cream cheese
7 tablespoons powdered sugar
5 tablespoons orange juice

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 36 muffin cups with baking liners.

Grate the carrots (I use a box grater and use the second largest sized hole). Set aside.

In a medium sized bowl, combine the carrots, flours, flax, baking powder and soda, cinnamon and allspice. Stir to mix well. Set aside.

Combine the brown sugar and butter in a large bowl. Beat using a stand mixer or a hand mixer until smooth. Add the eggs and beat until incorporated. Stir in the yogurt, pumpkin, orange juice, and vanilla.

Add the flour mixture to the sugar/butter/egg mixture. Stir with a wooden spoon until well mixed, but do not over beat.

Add a scant 1/4 cup of batter to each muffin cup, making about 36 muffins in all. Bake at muffins at 350 degrees for 14-16 minutes, or until cooked through when tested with a toothpick. Remove muffins from the pan and cool on a wire rack completely.

To freeze: Place completely cooled muffins into gallon sized freezer zip bags in one layer, about 9 will fit in a bag. Using a straw, remove any excess air and zip the bag. Place in the freezer, it’s ok to stack the bags on top of each other, for up to 2 months (good luck getting them to last that long!).

Remove as many muffins as you need at a time and either thaw at room temperature or heat in the toaster oven or microwave. Frost with the sweetened cream cheese, if desired.

For the sweetened cream cheese: Place all the ingredients in a food processor and process until smooth. Alternatively, you can use a bowl and a hand mixer. Cream cheese will store for up to a week in the refrigerator. (I have not tested freezing it.)

Source: http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/04/pumpkin-carrot-cake-muffins.html
© Copyright 2012 Money Saving Mom®. All Rights Reserved.

–Katie Goodman believes that part of the goodness in life is sharing good food with friends and family. She’s a SAHM determined to make family meal time a priority while providing a variety of healthy and delicious food choices. Katie blogs at goodLife {eats} where she shares what she finds good in the kitchen and in life. She also contributes to Craftzine.com, Paula Deen Online, and Tablespoon.

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Freezer Cooking Day Extravaganza: April 30-May 3, 2010 (Join us for a #OAMC Twitter Party today!)

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by Crystal on April 29, 2010

FishMama and I are joining ranks again to bring you another Freezer Cooking Day Extravaganza this weekend (April 30-May 3, 2010). Want to play along?

::Follow along with our Facebook Event page.

::Attend our Twitter party this afternoon from 2-4 pm, CST. We’ll be using the hashtag, #oamc and discussing all things related to freezer cooking. Come bring your tips and questions and interact with dozens of others from around the country who are interested in freezer cooking. Newbies and professionals alike are welcomed. You might want to go ahead and follow @MoneySavingMom and @FishMama so you’re ready to jump in this afternoon!

::Cook and Link Up! Plan a few things (or a slew of things!) to bake or cook and stick in your freezer and pick a day or two over the next week to tackle your chosen recipes. I’ll post my plan and a link-up opportunity tomorrow afternoon (Friday, April 30, 2010) so you can share your plans. I’ll be cooking over this weekend and will share pictures and recipes on Monday as well as a link-up opportunity on Monday afternoon (May 3, 2010) for you to share what you accomplished.

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Freezer Cooking Day: The Final Tally (and come link up your accomplishments, too!)

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by Crystal on April 2, 2010

We finished our Freezer Cooking at 12:30 p.m yesterday! We didn’t quite get everything done on the Master List, but we counted up and had made enough for 45 dinners for our families! Here’s our final tally:

::Spaghetti Pie x 6

::Barbecued Meatballs x 6

::Baked Ziti x 6

::Southwest Roll-ups x 7

::Chicken and Rice Casserole x 6

::Beef, Bean and Tomato Burritos x6

::Chicken Spaghetti (from The Pioneer Woman Cooks: Recipes from an Accidental Country Girl) x 8

Considering we made all of that in a little over 3 hours, it was a productive morning! And each of us took home enough food to last us at least 3-4 weeks!

A big thank you to my mom for helping with the children while we worked in the kitchen; we couldn’t have done it without her. She also stayed to help clean up so that my kitchen was pretty much in pristine condition by 1 p.m.

Yes, I think I like this joint freezer cooking thing. It’s so much easier and more efficient than doing it alone. Plus, I’m not left with a mound of dirty dishes and a house that’s pretty much destroyed!

_____________________________________

Did you have a chance to do any baking or cooking this week? If so, post about it on your blog and leave your link below to your direct blo g post. I’d love it especially if you could share pictures and recipes so we can get ideas for our next Freezer Cooking Day! And I’m guessing many others would be inspired as well.

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Southwest Roll-ups

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by Crystal on April 2, 2010

My sister-in-law brought all the chicken pre-cooked and chopped for the Freezer Cooking Day, which saved us lots of time and effort. We used it to make a few of the recipes–including one of our favorites, Southwest Roll-ups.

This recipe is so simple, uses inexpensive ingredients, and freezes really well.

Southwest Roll-ups (makes 16 roll-ups)

2 cans refried beans (you can make your own Refried Beans with this recipe)
1/2 cup salsa
2-4 cups cooked chicken, chopped
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
16 tortillas (you can make your own Homemade Tortillas with this recipe)

021

Mix together beans, salsa, and chicken. Spread 1/8 of mixture onto one tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese. Roll up and turn ends under. Stick in a freezer bag or in a 9×13 baking pan and freeze.

When ready to bake, thaw and bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for 20-30 minutes until heated through. Sprinkle with more shredded Cheddar cheese, if desired. Serve with salsa.

Southwest Roll-ups

(makes 16 roll-ups)

2 cans refried beans (you can make your own Refried Beans with this recipe)
1/2 cup salsa
2-4 cups cooked chicken, chopped
2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese
16 tortillas (you can make your own Homemade Tortillas with this recipe)

Mix together beans, salsa, and chicken. Spread 1/8 of mixture onto one tortilla. Sprinkle with cheese. Roll up and turn ends under. Stick in a freezer bag or in a 9×13 baking pan and freeze.

When ready to bake, thaw and bake in a pre-heated 350 degrees oven for 20-30 minutes until heated through. Sprinkle with more shredded Cheddar cheese, if desired. Serve with salsa.

Source: http://moneysavingmom.com/2010/04/southwest-roll-ups-recipe.html
© Copyright 2012 Money Saving Mom®. All Rights Reserved.

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Freezer Cooking Day: My Little Helpers

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by Crystal on April 2, 2010

Kaitlynn (2) and Silas (10 months) both enjoyed “helping” with Freezer Cooking Day. I think they may have done more eating than helping, but that’s okay. I figure if I start training them young, someday soon, they’ll be my right hand and my left hand.

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Freezer Cooking Day: Making Do in a Small Kitchen

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by Crystal on April 2, 2010

While I worked on grating the cheese, the others got busy chopping peppers, boiling noodles, browning ground beef, and Gretchen started putting together the Beef, Bean, and Tomato Burritos. (I’d love to share that recipe with you, but she made it up on the stop–as the girls in my family are prone to do!–so I haven’t a clue what was in them aside from cheese, tomatoes, taco seasoning, beef, beans, and tomatoes rolled up in tortillas).

Our kitchen is on the small side. It works for our little family of five, but it gets cramped really quickly if you add in more people. However, compared to the crackerbox kitchen we had in our little basement apartment, it seems rather spacious!

I wasn’t sure how four of us were going to cook in the kitchen without bumping into each other all over the place–especially since we’re short on counter space. My sister had a brilliant idea: set up a cardtable! So we added a large amount of work space just with this simple addition to the kitchen.

Someday, I’d love to have a a large kitchen with massive amounts of cupboard and countertop space. But in the mean time, a card table works great when you’re in a pinch for extra countertop space!

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Freezer Cooking Day: Um, I Think It’s Time to Replace the Cheese Grater

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by Crystal on April 2, 2010

Our Freezer Cooking Day began at 9:15 a.m. yesterday morning. I had planned a Master List of everything that needed to be done and the order it needed to be done. I also tried to equally divide the work up among those of us who were working in the kitchen. We didn’t completely follow the plan, but it was really helpful to have everything thought-through ahead of time.

Remembering how we’d run out of bowls and pots and pans last time, I asked everyone to bring pots and pans and bowls. I also had everyone pitch in on bringing ingredients and that seemed to work well.

The only thing I forgot to ask someone to bring? A real cheese grater.

I have this little half-sized dinky one that I picked up at the store a number of months ago when my much-nicer one got rusted. Let’s just say that it was rather impractical to grate that pile of cheese blocks with my mini cheese grater.

Somehow, I managed to grate them all–but it took me probably five times what it would have taken with a real grater. But I’m all about making do. Next time, though, I’m definitely investing in a better cheese grater!

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How to Have a Freezer Cooking Day if You Don’t Have a Deep Freezer

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by Crystal on April 1, 2010

Guest Post by Jessica from LifeasMOM

“I’d love to do freezer cooking, but I don’t have a freezer.”

Sound familiar? Well, today we’re going to dispel the myth. You can practice bulk cooking even if you have small storage space. Really and truly. Want to see how?

For the record, that is a 10 cubic foot freezer into which I placed 20+ meals and still had extra space. The meals were varied, from casseroles to sauces to chili to marinated meats. Let me explain in more detail how you can make this work for you.

The first time I attempted once-a-month cooking, I was pregnant with our first child. We lived in a 250-sq ft studio apartment and were learning a lot about making the most of small storage space. How we fit three of us in that one room is a testimony to God’s grace and creative thinking. My freezer cooking experience was no different. Our refrigerator was the smallest they made that still had an independent freezer. It was one (small) step up from a dorm fridge. Yet, I was regularly able to store 30-40 meals in the freezer. Granted, I was only feeding two adults, but if we do the math, even that small freezer would hold 15 – 20 meals for a family of 4.

How is this possible?

Start with a mostly empty freezer. You are probably not going to be able to store several weeks’ worth of meals in your refrigerator/freezer if it already has multiple boxes of ice cream, loaves of bread, and packages of hamburger. Consider “eating from your pantry” so that you can reduce what is already there. If you have a stockpile of frozen meats and poultry, those are going to be the building blocks of your freezer meals. Research meals that you can make ahead using those proteins. You don’t need much extra space for these meals. You’re simply going to take the frozen hamburger out, thaw it, cook it up, give it a makeover and put it back where it was.
Use freezer bags. Ziptop freezer bags, designed for cold temperatures and durability are able to hold many different kinds of frozen foods. These are especially useful for meats in marinades, taco fillings, pizza dough, and even thicker stews and chilis. As you cool, label and freeze the food in these bags, seal them tightly and lay them flat in your freezer. Once they are frozen, you will be able to stand them on end and line them up like books on a shelf, making the best use of your storage space. Make sure that you remove as much excess air as possible to avoid freezer burn.
Use like-shaped plastic containers. For more liquid meals, like pasta sauce, use containers that are all the same shape and size. These will stack the best and make the best use of your space. Square boxes are more efficient than round, but use what you have and look for other complements on sale in future months.
Stack like with like. This is probably obvious, but bears repeating. If you have three 9×13 pans, stack those one on top of each other. Not only will those meals be easy to find, but you’ll make the most of your space.
Consider freezing meals in components. You might not have room for 15-20 casseroles to fit in your freezer, but you don’t have to freeze it all together. You can freeze some meal components separately. For instance, when Crystal made my Slab Apple Pies, she froze each layer in a separate ziptop bag. This enabled her to have much more flexibility with her storage space; she could move the separate bags around and fit them where there was space, rather than have to find a way for a 9×13 pan to fit.

You don’t have to have a free-standing freezer to make Freezer Cooking work for you. Sure, it helps. But, you can make the most of what you have and still enjoy homemade convenience foods.

– Jessica Fisher, also known as FishMama, regularly feeds her freezer so that she can feed the hungry masses who call her “Mom.” She posts daily about life’s joys and challenges at LifeasMOM and shares delicious ways to act your wage at Good Cheap Eats.