What we ate for dinner tonight!

We ate another new freezer meal tonight.  A-M-A-Z-I-N-G-L-Y yummy!  We put them in the oven before going to the gym and then stuffed ourselves when we got back.  Here is the recipe if you want to try them!

Picture from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/creamy-chicken-enchiladas.html

Now it's time to listen to Lucy singing to her babies in bed and for us to watch 30 Rock. 

<3 Love <3

What we ate for dinner

I found this recipe for Garlic Chicken Farfalle and decided to try it on our last cooking day.  We ate it tonight and it was AMAZING!!!!

Picture from http://www.kevinandamanda.com/recipes/dinner/becky-higgins-garlic-chicken-farfalle.html

The one I made wasn't nearly as pretty as this picture.  Still tasty though! 

We will definately make it again.

Chicken Broccoli Cobler

This meal has turned into a real favorite (for Matt and me).  I got the recipe at a church women's night and thought it looked easy.  Then when I started doing the big cooking days, I realized this would be a great freezer meal!  It is a little Christmasy with red & green veggies in it so if you need a Christmasy dish (in 8 months) give this a try.

Chicken Broccoli Cobbler
(Original recipe was half of this and said it feeds 4.  I double it and we get at least 10 servings)

6 cups broccoli florets (I use frozen and don't cook them at all.  Just cut them up a little if necessary)
6 cups of chicken or turkey, chopped
2/3 cup roasted bell pepper, chopped
2 jars Alfredo Sauce
3/4 cup sour cream
4 Tbsp white wine or dry sherry

topping:
1/2 cup butter
6 cups sourdough bread, cubed
1 cup shredded Parmesan cheese

Divide butter, bread, and Parmesan cheese in half and place in freezer bags for topping.  (I put the cheese in a snack bag, wrap the butter in plastic wrap, and then throw the bread in a 1 qt zip top bag with the butter and bag of cheese.)

Combine broccoli and next 5 ingredients in a large bowl
Divide in half and place in gallon freezer zip top bags
Label, attach toppings and freeze

To Serve:
Thaw 24+ hours in the fridge
Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Place in a 2 quart baking dish or 4 individual serving bowls
Bake 30-35 minutes (25 minutes for individuals)

So yummy and SO easy!  Enjoy!

Yummy Potato Soup

One of my favorite recipes lately is a Potato Soup recipe from my sister-in-law, Heather.  It is super easy and really yummy!  (And freezes really well which is a must!)

Potato Soup

1 bag Redskin potatoes (5 lb bag)

1 bag celery cut up

1 cup onion, chopped (about 1 medium sized onion)

4+ cups chicken broth

1 tall half and half (what is that... a pint???)

2 cups Mexican cheese

1 package bacon, cooked and crumbled

salt, pepper, and parsley to taste

Wash and quarter potatoes (I cut them in smaller than quarters so they cook faster)

Add potatoes, onion, and celery to a large pot

Cover with chicken broth just to the top of the potatoes

Boil until the potatoes are soft

Smash potatoes in pot when they are still hot (I used a stick blender last time and it worked GREAT!)

Then add half and half, cheese, bacon pieces, salt, pepper, and parsley

Cool, divide into 3 gallon zip top bags, label and freeze

(Makes a total of about 12-15 servings)

To serve after freezing:

Thaw 25+ hours in the fridge

Reheat on stove top



Mostaccioli Bake

I've been taking pictures of dinner lately and realized I am not good at taking appetizing looking pictures of food.  I'm sorry about that!

Monday night, we were going to have our small group over, but Lucy was sick so we cancelled.  That left a ton of yummy casserole ready to bake.  Here is a picture of our favorite pasta casserole (and Lucy's FAVORITE food!  She will eat more of this than me!)

Mostaccioli Bake

(makes about 18 servings- 3 meals for our family)

2 lbs ground pork (beef works too...)

1 box (16 oz) Mostaccioli noodles

2/3 cup brown sugar

2 jars spaghetti sauce (we like the kind with mushrooms)

2-3 cups of shredded Mozzarella cheese

Boil noodles until just barely tender (for freezer meals make sure you don't overcook the noodles) and drain.

Brown ground pork and drain

Stir together spaghetti sauce and brown sugar.

Add pork and noodles to sauce mix and combine

Divide into 3 gallon size Ziploc bags and label. 

Divide cheese into 3 bags and attach to gallon size bags.

Freeze.

To Serve:

Thaw in the fridge for 24+ hours

Pour noodle mixture into 8x8 pan

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes

Remove, add cheese to top

Bake for another 10 minutes

So yummy! 

Let me know if you have any good pasta recipes.  I'm always looking for new good recipes!



Pot Roast

Here is another freezer meal!  This one is a newer one for us.  I got it from my friend Rebecca who got it from her mom.  It is SO easy and takes no cooking on cooking day.  Just wrap it up and freeze it!



When it's finished, the soups have turned into a delicious gravy!

Ingredients:
2 4lb Beef Chuck Roast (Pork Shoulder/Boston Butt Roast would work too!)
4 cans Cream of Mushroom soup
2 packets dry onion soup

On cooking day:
Lay out a big enough sheet of tin foil to wrap up the roast with the topping
Lay the roast on the tin foil
Spread in layers the soups on top of and down the sides of the roast
Wrap tightly in the foil
Label & Freeze

To serve:
Thaw 24+ hours in the fridge
Place roast still wrapped in tinfoil in a 9 x 13 pan
Bake at 275-300 degrees for 4.5-5 hours

Recommended side dish:  Baked potatoes

Figure 1/2 to 1 lb of meat per person.

Sloppy Joes

I've decided to start sharing some recipes online from my freezer meals.  Freezer meals have been such a blessing for us.  It is always nice to go to the freezer and have the main dish prepped.

I don't normally like sloppy joes but these are GREAT!  Lucy ate almost half a sandwich last night which is saying a lot!  (She has never been a huge meat fan :( )





Ingredients:
6 cups All-Purpose Ground Meat Mixture (see below)
3 cans tomato soup
6 Tbsp brown sugar
3 tsp prepared mustard
hamburger buns

On cooking day:
Place meat mix in a large skillet
Add tomato soup, brown sugar, and mustard; stir
Cover and simmer 10 minutes
Divide in half and place in 2 gallon size zip top freezer bags
Label and freeze

To Serve:
Thaw or 24+ hours in fridge or in a sink of warm water
Heat in skillet
Serve ladled on hamburger buns

Makes 8-10 servings

***
All-Purpose Ground Meat Mixture

Ingredients:
5 lbs ground meat (the recipe calls for beef, but pork works too!)
2 cups celery, chopped
1 tsp garlic, minced
2 cups onion, chopped
1 cup green peppers, diced
1 tsp salt (optional)
1/2 tsp pepper

On cooking day:
In a large pot, brown ground beef.  Drain.
Stir in celery, garlic, onion, green pepper, salt & pepper
Cover & simmer about 10 minutes until veggies are tender but not soft
Use immediately during cooking session or freeze in 2 cup portions for later use

Suggested uses:
Tacos (use 2 cups with a packet of Taco seasoning)
Taco salad
Chili
Stuffed peppers
Sloppy Joes (see above)

A Busy Day

Yesterday was a busy day in the Ehinger household! I did my cooking day and Matt worked a long time on a new section of landscaping. Lucy "helped" with both, but also slept in, took a good nap and played by herself for a while which was more than helpful.

The morning started a little rough for me. When I got to the kitchen at 7am, I found 2 bags of refridgerated food out on the counter! Oops! Thankfully, it only shorted me 2 meals of food, and one recipe made more than anticipated, so I still ended with 32 meals in the freezer.

To keep things flowing for the day, I plan out the order that I'm going to make things. It is important to make sure all recipes are on the list. I forgot to write down chili so at the end of the day when I had extra ingredients, I realized I forgot the chili! Thankfully, that's an easy recipe so I just did it last. I post this list on a cabinet.

I also have all my recipes typed up like this and in plastic sleeves. The ones I'm working on, I tape to the cabinets like this for an easy reference.

Lucy watched a full episode of Sesame Street without getting up. I couldn't believe it! Turns out, she is getting a molar in, so I don't think she was feeling 100%.

This is a new spaghetti sauce recipe that I made curtesy of Jessica's blog. I had a different recipe but didn't really like it. I doubled her recipe and used some of it for lasagna (see below) and the rest I bagged separately for 4 pasta meals. It tasted AMAZING!

Here I'm putting together 2 lasagnas. This was one of 2 recipes that I put in foil pans. I wrap the whole pan with heavy duty aluminum foil when I have it put together.

Most of the other meals I put in gallon Ziploc bags like this. This is a Chicken and Broccoli Cobler recipe. Coffee cans work GREAT for holding the bags. A glass measuring cup works good for scooping. I do 1 scoop in can 1 then 1 scoop in can 2 until I get to the bottom of the bowl so that both bags are equal.

Same concept, but here is our family favorite: Mastaccioli bake. You can put almost everything in a bag other than layered casseroles like lasagna. I put the cheese topping in a second bag and then add it when I thaw it out.

It is important that everything is room temp or cooler when it goes into the freezer. Otherwise large ice crystals form in the food and it hurts the flavor and texture. I've heard from a friend that this is true. I use one side of the sink for cooling with water and ice packs. Some things also go in the fridge to cool.

While Matt was looking for the Michigan game on the radio, Lucy helped make enchiladas. We won't be giving these away, since she was eating off the spoon for the cheese. She really did help some by handing me tortillas and dumping cheese in the enchiladas. Dilbert and Lucy ate quite a bit of cheese. My mom helps a TON on these days too, so for a while we had 3 generations cooking!

My freezer is in the basement, so this cooking day, I tried to minimize trips down there and used a laundry basket. This trip had 8 meals in it: 2 lasagna, 2 mostaccioli bake, 4 spaghetti sauce.

At 2pm, this is what my freezer looked like (and still does!) the second shelf and bottom drawer are other items, but the other 3 shelves contain the 32 meals that I made. As you can see, I still have a lot of room. Using freezer bags saves a lot of space!

When it wasn't raining, Matt was spending his time working on this new landscaping area. I think it is going to look GREAT! Lucy and I came out to watch and Lucy "helped" Matt too by throwing things away and holding the measuring tape.

We were all exhausted when we went to bed, but it was a very successful day!

Big day ahead

Tonight, I'm finalizing my meal plan for the big cooking day on Saturday. Lucy was coloring while I worked on my list. Her favorite color right now is PINK!!
This past week I "scheduled" out a meal plan. I don't stick to the meal plan, but it helps me plan so I know that we won't have a week with all Mexican food or all soup. Dilbert tried to eat this, but thankfully he didn't get it all.

Here is the plan:

Lasagna- 2 meals

Spaghetti- 2 meals

Mostaccioli Bake- 3 meals

Chili- 3 meals

Sloppy Joes- 2 meals

Tacos- 2 meals

(I make a recipe that makes all the meat/onions/green peppers for the Chili, SJs and Tacos)

Chicken Broccoli Bake- 2 meals (very similar to Bursley food! Go Blue!)

Chicken Broccoli Cobler- 2 meals

Heavenly Potatoes and Ham- 3 meals

Southwest Pork and Bean Soup- 2 meals

Beef Enchiladas- 4 meals

Mexi Chicken- 3 meals

Pork Tenderloin- 2 meals

14 recipes. That will give us 32 meals. I will probably give a few away. We normally eat 5 freezer meals per week, 1 night out or at Bible Study, and Sunday dinner at my parents. That should get us through the next 6 weeks! (Hopefully we will have a completely remodeled kitchen by then!!)

Here is a sideways view of my ingredients list. After my second cooking day, I put all my recipes in Excel spreadsheets so I can easily made shopping lists.

Tomorrow I'll go shopping at Meijer after Lucy goes to bed. Then Saturday I will cook. My mom and Matt are both very helpful by helping cook and keeping Lucy from hanging on me. I can't wait! These cooking days are amazing for our family.

Planning the next big cooking day

For Christmas, Matt gave me the cookbook Frozen Assest: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month by Deborah Taylor-Hough. This book/concept has been AMAZING for me!!! I realize that it's not for everyone, but if you are like me and have a hard time planning meals and then sticking to the plan and always feel like you are eating mac and cheese for dinner, this may be the thing for you. I will blog on it every once in a while because it has truely changed mealtimes at our house for the best.

This is my cookbook. It has all of my main recipes including the meals for my cooking days. Each cooking day, I choose 10-15 meals and make 2-3 meals worth. My next cooking day is next week. My freezer is almost empty! I have 7 meals left.

This is what we had list night: Chili on baked potatoes

When I make the meals, I put most of them in gallon Ziploc bags and stick a label on with the recipe name, heating/baking instructions, and a date. (I used to handwrite everything, but now that I know what we really like, I have labels made up) The bags freeze really thin to minimize freezer space.

For this meal, I threw the chili in the fridge the day before, then Saturday night poured the chili into a pan, warmed it up, and 20 minutes later we had a yummy meal to eat while watching football. Lucy loved it, too!

This morning I started planning my meals. It's looking good: Chicken Broccoli Cobler, Lasagna, Southwest Pork and Bean Soup, Enchiladas, and many more! Yum!