FREEZER COOKING DAY

I'm a big fan of napping. I come home from work and I want a nap. I do not want to come home from work and cook. That's about the last thing I want to do. Don't get me wrong, I love to cook in general. Just not when I get home from work. In order to solve this dilemma I have occasionally been known to do some of what I call freezer cooking. There are all kinds of names for it, some call it make ahead meals and I've also heard it called once a month cooking. The premise is simple, just make up enough meals at once so that your freezer is full of easy meals or components of meals that you can get on the table very quickly and with no fuss. You can do it all at once, like I did this afternoon, or you can just double up recipes and serve one and freeze one. I like to do a bunch of meals at once and then be done for a while. It really makes a difference and frees up a lot of evenings when I need to be at Girl Scout meetings, band concerts or baptism classes instead of cooking dinner. It saves tons of $$ because I don't have to run through the drive through on busy nights, or nights when I came home from work and ....napped.

 Off from work for the holidays this week, I decided to get serious and get some meals in the freezer. Here's what I finished the night with:

3 Baked Ziti Casseroles

3 Ham Quiches

2 Meals of Hawaiian Chicken

3 Meals of Parsley Parmesan Chicken 

3 Bags of Taco Meat

3 Bags of Meatballs

A few years ago I bought a book called The Freezer Cooking Manual by Nancy Slagle. I learned how to freezer cook from her manual. Most of my recipes come from this manual. You can buy it at www.30daygourmet.com. Here's what I did, starting with a ziti casserole.  I under cooked the noodles so they will be just perfect after I bake the casserole.

 The Baked Ziti Casserole recipe comes from the  Freezer Cooking Manual. Next I put 3 ham quiches in the freezer. I just tripled my own recipe for quiche and froze it in three ziploc bags. I put each of the bags inside a premade deep dish pie crust so on prep day I just thaw, pour into the pan and bake. Add a bagged salad and we are in business!

After that I worked on a master meat mixture that can be made into meatballs or meatloaf. I made 70 meatballs and baked them.  I used my roaster pan to mix the meat in because I couldn't find a big enough bowl.  The meatballs turned out beautiful and I will use them for meatball subs, spaghetti and meatballs and meatball stroganoff. YUM!

 After the meatballs cooled  I packaged them up in bags, pumped the air out and froze. To pump the air out, I used this vacuum device, but this may be the last time because I can't seem to find the bags for it anymore. :(  I bought it about 4 or 5 years ago.

 I made three pounds of hamburger meat into taco meat by cooking meat, taco seasoning, crushed tomatoes and onions. These packages will be made into tacos, taco salad and nachos during the next few weeks.

The Hawaiian Chicken is my own recipe. 

Put 4 chicken breasts in a ziploc bag.  Add 3 TB soy sauce, 3 TB brown sugar, 2 TB Karo syrup, 1/2 cup pineapple juice and 4 pineapple rings.  Moosh it all up. Freeze. When you are ready to serve just thaw in fridge, and either grill or bake on 350 for 25 minutes. I serve with rice.

Parsley Parmesan chicken is the last meal, recipe comes from my Freezer Cooking Manual.

That's it, 18 meals or the main part of the meal anyway. These really make my evenings much easier. I can concentrate on making a salad, side dish or even some biscuits. If you want to try it, start simple. Take your favorite meatball recipe, triple it, cook them up and then freeze them. Use good freezer zip type bags. Just thaw and reheat on serving night. You can throw them in spaghetti sauce or make meatball subs. I LOVE to make a stroganoff type sauce out of 1 can cream of mushroom soup, 1 TB worcestershire sauce cause and some sour cream. Add the meatballs and serve over rice. Try it, you may find time for a late afternoon nap, too. YUM YUM!