August 4th, 2010 Here’s a recipe and another how-to on freezer cooking.
Once again, we ate it up before we got pictures. Doh!
When you go buy your big pack of ground beef and brown it up all at once, you’re also going to buy another big pack of ground beef. This one is for burgers. After you brown all that other ground beef and set it in the fridge to cool, then turn your attention to the burger prep.
Dump the whole bunch of raw ground beef into a big glass bowl (use a metal pot if you don’t have a bowl big enough). Mix in some burger seasoning mix – we’re currently using Emeril’s Bam! Burger Mix but we’re not partial. Mix it in really well. Lay out a long strip of wax paper on the counter. Then patty out the ground beef however large you want them. Lay them out lined up on the wax paper. Then start tearing off plastic wrap (I don’t have a great method for this, suggestions?) Currently I tear off the size I’ll need that will wrap one patty completely. I start setting them all around on the counter tops – not touching so they don’t wind up all wadded up together. I wrap each patty individually, stack them, and set aside. When they’re all wrapped I stack them into my freezer – you can put them into freezer gallon bags if you’d like and date them, but we eat them up so quickly that I skip this step most of the time.
Now, to the cooking part.
When you want them for a quick dinner, pull out however many you’ll eat at a meal, unwrap, set frozen into a large casserole dish not touching. Set your oven to broil. Set them under the broiler (with the shelf halfway down – you don’t want them right under the broiler) and set the timer for 10 minutes. When the timer goes off, squish ‘em flat and flip them. Set the timer again for 10 minutes. Squish, flip. Set timer again for 10 minutes or less – depending on doneness. You can tell they’re done when the juices run clear when you squish them. Keep squishin’, checkin’, and flippin’ until done. When they’re done add sliced or shredded cheese and set back in the oven until cheese is melted.
When serving this time we added precooked bacon you can buy in the store, tomatoes, lettuce, pickles, mustard, mayo, and buns (toasted or not – your preference!). We deep fried some Rally fries you can find in the freezer section (really good, by the way) and added shredded cheese to the top, sometimes we salt and sugar the fries instead of adding cheese – mmm!
Cook ahead meal and walk away, unattended burgers all in one!
July 30th, 2010 Once again I have no picture to go with these – must remedy that.
My honey came up with this one, so you know it’s divine!
Ingredients
Directions
Preheat oven according to directions on can.
Spray a glass pie plate well with cooking spray. Layer a handful (or however much you want, don’t measure, people, just toss it in!) evenly in the pan of the chopped pecans, then the shredded coconut, then the chocolate chips.
Drizzle the caramel from the package all over that.
Place the rolls with sides touching in the pan.
Bake as directed.
When they get golden remove from oven and immediately place a large plate over the top and flip them out onto the plate.
Eat ‘em warm and try not to gorge yourself!
July 28th, 2010 I don’t have a picture for these yet. You’ll just have to trust me when I tell you how yummy they are.
I think there may be a misconception that all of my recipes are these hard involved recipes like the unbelievably amazing tasting Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. There’s a lot of work there. Made much less if you cook ahead a few of the ingredients, none-the-less pretty involved, but oh so worth it. I promise not everything I do is difficult. I’d lose my mind if it were.
So, are you ready for, like, the easiest recipe ever?
Ingredients:
- 3-4 pounds country style pork ribs, boneless (or boneless pork chops)
- 1 family sized can cream of chicken soup (you could use cream of mushroom, but I don’t like cream of mushroom, therefore I use chicken)
- salt and pepper to taste
Directions:
Put pork ribs in crockpot. Pour soup on top. Add a little salt and pepper. Cook on low for 8 hours.
I normally don’t double this recipe since I serve it with veggies and rice – it usually makes enough for our family for one meal. Want leftovers? Double up!
I serve this with those in-the-bag steamable veggies found in the freezer section. I put some garlic salt on the veggies with a little margarine. I serve the Creamy Pork Chops with rice and pour the “gravy” they cooked in over it.
That would be it.
July 23rd, 2010 Let me start with the menu planning. Backwards. Makes complete sense, right? Allow me to explain.
Sometimes I grab my recipes (see below), look into my cabinets to see what we have, and then write out what we’ll be having for the next 2 weeks in a list form (not a calendar day-by-day type that I tried before). On the same page I make a grocery list, going meal-by-meal seeing what we need to buy. This is one of my old lists I just happened to find. Not pretty, but functional. Notice I marked how many or what size of each item before going shopping (because I have no ability to think when I’m in the store with a bunch of sweet hooligans).
After shopping sometimes I post the same list, marked on and all, on the fridge. That’s my normal menu planning.
But sometimes Matt shops (can I get a woo hoo! ?). We shop vastly differently. Viva la difference! He’s not so much a plan aheader. Nor is he a list taker. I never make a list for him. I love a list, he hates a list, what can I say? So I quit fighting that long ago and rejoice in the fact that I’m not shopping this time. Who cares what he comes home with, right? It’s food and I didn’t buy it. This was a life-saver and how we lived the whole time I was pregnant last time. I not only couldn’t bring myself to think about food without throwing up, there was that whole swine flu debacle, not to mention my inability to walk by the end of the pregnancy. He shopped. I loved him for it.
But it’s hard to know what to cook when you’re not the one shopping, right?
Here’s the backwards part. So, he comes home with all this food and I assess it. Hmm, what I can make with this and this? I make a list of what all he bought. I put that list on the fridge with a number of how many meals I can get out of it (not leftover meals, mind you. Completely separate days.) Then I brainstorm and hit up my recipes and ask Matt what all he planned when buying (note the Hawaiian Chicken – he came home with a bottle of marinade which I poured over the chicken in a freezer ziplock and labeled – now it’s premarinated, ready to thaw in the fridge, and use in a Chinese meal). Then I proceed to cook ahead like normal (ground turkey this time instead of beef). I leave the list on the side of the fridge and as I use a meal I mark it off. There are even snacks on there that I might forget are in the cabinets.
 The arrows are to let me know the ones I need to use first before something goes bad, ie. uses produce or fresher bread that will go bad, etc.
And here’s where I discuss why I don’t use the day-by-day plan. It didn’t work for us. Somebody mentioned this in my comments or Facebook fanpage recently (I can’t remember which). They said they might want one thing one day and it not be what’s for that night on the schedule. Amen, sister girl! Plus, we’re fly by the seat of our pantsers. I might plan to be home Friday night and schedule some fancy meal. And Matt might come home and say “Let’s go to town tonight!” And then I have to make elaborate switcharoos. Not my thing. Or I might forget to pull out from the freezer to thaw one night for the next day’s meal and now I’m back to the switcharoo. Ugh. Or I might plan to make a crockpot meal and have fifteen kid emergencies right off the bat (can you say last Monday?!) and forget to start the meal until it’s too late. This way I’m not bound by a schedule. I can go to my list at any point, assess how much prep work any one meal will take and pull the stuff out to make it – make-ahead is great for this – last minute craziness? I need a meal in the next 15 minutes? I already have ground turkey browned – it’s going to be a spaghetti night! I actually have my wits about me at the kids’ bedtimes as I pass by the fridge? I set the boneless ribs in the fridge for tomorrow. No schedule, just easy peasy.
30 Meals
I found the 30 Meals idea from Brenda. Here is the official total 30 meals idea. I love it, I plan to implement it a little at a time. These are the ones that are already in rotation in my house. Even though we’ll use this list most of the time, we’ll continue to always try new stuff – we like variety! I hope y’all will post your list of 30 and link ‘em up (or put them in the comments) when I post a McLinky later. I also eventually plan to put every recipe for these on here. If you’ll let me know what your favorites are I’ll write the recipes in order of popularity!
- Fajitas
- Meatloaf
- Chinese
- Spaghetti
- Chicken and Rice
- Sour Cream Chicken
- Mexican Chicken
- Bacon, Eggs, Biscuits
- Bacon Lettuce Tomato Sandwiches
- Pancakes and Sausages
- Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas
- Frozen Burrito with Enchilada Sauce and Cheese Bake
- Egg Casserole
- Beef Stroganoff (with beef tips)
- 7 Layer Dip
- Homemade Burritos
- Salisbury Steak
- Chicken Fried Steak with Mashed Potatoes
- Black Beans – Crockpot, Salsa, Sour Cream served on Garlic Bread
- Roast with Veggies – Crockpot
- Roast Beef Sandwiches
- Creamy Pork Chops – Crockpot
- Hamburgers
- Melty Ham Sandwiches (with or without fried eggs)
- Lasagna
- Tacos
- Barbeque Sandwiches – Crockpot
- Chicken and Dumplins
- Porkloin
- Swiss Steak – Crockpot
- Chili – Crockpot
- Chilitos
- Chicken Taco Soup – Crockpot
- Lemon Pepper Chicken – Crockpot over Salad or Rice
Sides and Extras I’ve included these because they are (for the most part) staples we keep and will need to buy each time we go
- Sweet Potato Casserole
- Salsa
- Twice Baked Potatoes
- Drop Biscuits
- Steamed Veggies
- Granola
- Muffins
- Quick Breads – Banana, Pumpkin, Apple Spice
- Devilled Eggs
- Seasoned Rice
- Noodles
- Fruit
- String Cheese
- Yogurt
- Instant pudding and Jello
- Chocolate Chips
July 16th, 2010 A tutorial on making them fluffy.
Because, though the old saying goes “Flat as a pancake” really you want them fluffy. I promise, you do.
I never thought there was an art to pancake making until I worked at the group home and then they taught me a thing or two.
Here are the how-to’s of successful pancake flipping and freezing (yes, freezing, if you’re going to all this trouble you might as well be done with pancakes for good long time, right?). With a couple creative ideas added just for fun!
Take a deep breath, get as many skillets or griddles as you own out, grab a huge bowl, and get ready to make the entire box at one time. Yes, you are. Yes, you can. The kids are playing Wii, watching a movie, doing SOMETHING, baby is sleeping, you can do this, I promise. Measure out the ingredients by the directions. Then keep measuring them out until the whole of the mix is there. Then just multiply your wet ingredients by how many times you measured the powder. For instance, if it calls for 2 cups dry mix and 1 cup milk, 2 eggs – then, if the whole box has 6 cups dry mix, you use 3 cups milk, 6 eggs – got it? Remind yourself you can do this!
For these I used Bisquick. They’re my favs (fluffier), but I usually buy the off-brand boxes to save money. The off-brand boxes usually just call for water, I add vanilla (just put a little in – a tablespoon for the whole box, maybe more? – I don’t measure) and an egg or two for good measure. The Bisquick actually does call for eggs. The main thing here is that whether you use off-brand, Bisquick, or a complete “from scratch” recipe you need to mix the dry ingredients in a bowl separately from the liquid ones. Beat the eggs well, add the milk and vanilla all in one bowl and then add to the dry ingredients.
You do this because with pancakes (and muffins and quick breads) you don’t want to over mix – it makes them tougher and less fluffy – you want fluffy, remember?
After you add the liquid ingredients to the dry mix stir just until moistened. This is important. Don’t over mix.
Now, spray with cooking spray (or when we don’t have it I just use a stick of margarine and rub it right on the griddle) heat your griddles on medium high (or about 375 for the electric griddle) at first. I usually lower that once I start cooking them, because I’m distracted by little people around me and I don’t want to burn them. During this time you’re letting your now blended mix set there. Untouched. Also important. By the time the griddles heat the batter should look a little different.
You know your griddles are ready when you drop a little drop of water on them and the water “dances” and disappears.
Pour your mix by spoonfuls (however big you want them, for the longest I made little bitty ones because my kids liked them, now we’re back to more “normal” sized ones) onto the griddle. And wait.
When they look like this:
with dry edges and bubbles in the middle, it’s time to flip them. You’re only going to flip them once. I spray my spatula before flipping.
When you wait until they are truly ready to flip, then you don’t have much gooey mess to contend with. Let brown on the second side (this takes much less time than the first side did) and remove from griddle.
This is the entire box of pancakes minus the 8 or 10 I served to the kiddos while finishing up the others. That’s the beauty of this freezer meal – you can hand out the goodies while still cooking. Keeps them busy, lets you finish the rest of the cook-ahead meal.
Yes, that’s a Waffle House plate. From my husband’s lawless college days. Let’s not talk about that, okay?
I cover loosely with plastic wrap and set in fridge. When they are fully cooled I label gallon freezer bags and put about 10 – 12 pancakes into one bag (that’s how many we eat at one meal – do what works for your family). When you want pancakes just pull them out of the bag, arrange on a plate, microwave for a minute at a time, rearranging and checking for warmth. Butter, syrup, serve!
Now, for the fun stuff!
Sometimes we serve Seussian pancakes (as in Dr. Seuss, get it?) When I do that I mix all the ingredients together and then break my don’t over mix rule. I separate the batter into smaller bowls and mix in food coloring – a different color for each bowl: pink, green, blue, purple, whatever! You can take the fun a step further and make polka dotty ones by swirling and dotting the batter when you drop it onto the griddle. My kids beg for these every time.
I saw on the Bisquick site that you can write your child’s name in pancake batter if you have an empty squeeze bottle. Put the batter in a bottle and draw out their name on the griddle. I haven’t try that yet, but I really want to now!
Okay, last time we talked about freezer cooking I talked you into just browning a bunch of ground beef all at once. How’d you do with that? Have you tried it yet? You mastered it, right?! Now you’re ready for step 2 – mix up a bunch of pancakes and try it once. See how it goes. I wanna know.
|
|
|
