freezer cooking — Cooking During Stolen Moments

Foodie Fave Five with Good Cheap Eats

June 23, 2010 By Kate 1 Comment

In our house, we are all about food that tastes good but is still cheap to make. That’s why Jessica’s site, Good Cheap Eats, really resonates with me. She definitely knows a thing or two about making delicious meals with frugality in mind.

On top of that, Jessica is a fan of freezer cooking. Her freezer meals make you realize that food for your freezer doesn’t have to fit in a tidy, casserole-shaped box. Just those two facts alone make me a fan! Once you take the time to read her posts and get to know her, you feel like more than a fan; you feel like a friend.

So I’m thrilled to share with you the Top 5 Freezer Friendly recipes from Good Cheap Eats. Enjoy!

Meatballs, Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Bacon and Spinach Quiche

Garlic Focaccia

Chicken and Wild Rice Bake

Applesauce Walnut Bread

Jessica Fisher, aka FishMama, is chief cook and bottle washer to seven adorable people, aged 1 to 40something. She shares parenting tips at LifeasMOM as well delicious ways to act your wage at Good Cheap Eats. (And she’s in love with her deep freeze….)

Do you want to share 5 of your family’s favorite recipes? I’d love to feature you here, whether or not you have a blog. Please leave me a comment letting me know that you’re interested or send me an email and I’ll be in touch ASAP.

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Beef & Rice Burrito Filling

March 9, 2010 By Kate 2 Comments

When you have 17 pounds of ground beef staring you in the face, it’s easy to get overwhelmed. Either that or it’s easy to be lazy and resort to doing the same things with said ground beef that you do month in and month out. But it’s honestly just as easy to just get it done and mix things up at least a little bit.

I’ve actually started to look forward to my big ground beef batch cooking days. It doesn’t take very long to get everything prepared and I know that everything I make will be useful throughout the month. Plus, I know that the things I freeze will, for the most part, be versatile enough that I can change up plans as needed.

Here’s what I did with this month’s batch of ground beef:

Meatballs for 2 dinners (tentatively planned serving ideas – bbq meatballs and sweet and sour meatballs)
7 bags of browned ground beef (each bag contains at least 1 lb. of ground beef)

Salisbury Steak with Pan Gravy for 1 dinner (this will go perfect with mashed potatoes I plan to freeze later this week)
1 mini meatloaf (to be used for sandwiches or for the kids if my husband and I have a date night this month)
1 bag of Beef & Rice Burrito filling
1 casserole of Cheeseburger Pie (which we ate for dinner)

The beef and rice burrito filling is super easy, freezes perfectly and will mean dinner on the table in under 15 minutes.

Beef & Rice Burrito Filling

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained
1 1/2 c. cooked rice, white or brown
1 15 oz. can crushed tomatoes
2 t. chili powder
2 t. cumin
1 t. salt
1/2 t. garlic powder

1. In a large bowl, combine all ingredients and stir to combine. Cool completely and store in the refrigerator for 3 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months.

2. To serve: Spoon (thawed) filling down the center of a tortilla. Top with shredded cheese. Roll up and repeat, using about 8 to 10 tortillas total. Place rolled tortillas in a casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, until heated through.

If you have the available freezer space, you can assemble these completely ahead of time and freeze. Then just bake from frozen for about 45 minutes. But if your space is at minimum like mine, just freezing the filling is a perfect solution.

Don’t forget to see what Toni and Jen are cooking up in their kitchens. Toni just saved a cake wreck and Jen’s talking about tracking your food expenses. Sharing tips and keeping it real…what’s not to love?

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A Day For Baking

October 7, 2009 By Kate 14 Comments

I love baking days! I’ve been doing both baking and cooking days for a few years now and they save me an enormous amount of stress and time. Not to mention it makes taking advantage of those stolen moments that much easier!

And today was possibly one of the most fun baking days I’ve ever had. It was just me and my two little girls in the kitchen, but a lot of my bloggy friends were having their own baking days too. We all shared our progress throughout the day on twitter. (If you want to see all the fun, we used hashtag #bakingday.)

I actually split my baking day into two days, and I still have a few things on my list that I hope to finish up tomorrow. I started on Sunday with a batch of Blueberry Breakfast Crumble and a triple batch of biscuits. I turned a portion of the biscuits into breakfast biscuits and substituted butterscotch chips for the chocolate chips since that was all I had on hand.

The breakfast crumble is gone now and so are half of the biscuits. The other half is in the freezer.

Today the little girls and I worked together while their older sister and brother were at school. We didn’t have a whole day though since we had a gymnastics class and a grocery trip in the middle of the day. I’m still pretty pleased with our progress.

One of my favorite parts of a day spent in the kitchen is wearing the awesome apron The Happy Housewife made for me. I even choose my clothes for the day so that they coordinate with the apron. I love it!

We started the day with a double batch of pizza dough. I used this pizza dough recipe, which already makes a pretty big batch of dough. We froze enough dough for two nights worth of pizzas and used what was left for tonight’s dinner.

Then we made a big batch of chocolate chip cookies. I baked half the dough for an after school snack and froze the rest.

The cookies didn’t turn out very pretty. My oven seemed off all day. (Either that or the chef was off, as my husband so gently pointed out to me.) But they still tasted great. I guess I’ll find out when I bake the batch from the freezer if the fault lies with the oven or me.

We finished off the day with a dozen mini crustless quiches. These went into the freezer for quick school day breakfasts. (More on these tomorrow.)

So, we didn’t make it through the whole list, but I’d still say it was a very productive day. In fact, I think it was exhausting for at least one of us.

Tomorrow I plan to make some homemade crackers, granola bars and tortillas. Then I’m going to try to get a few dinners in the freezer too. We’ll see how it goes.

Do you have baking days? If you do, what are some of your favorite things to make in bulk and have on hand in the freezer?

Stop by Money Saving Mom for even more Baking Day fun.