Freezer cooking this week

This week was extra busy.  We had a couple doctor's appointments and are planning a birthday party for the weekend.  But I was still able to sneak these items into the freezer.

Vegetable Stock -- I've been saving all the little bits from my Farmer Market vegetables that are so flavorful.  I had three large bags in the freezer that are now turned into veggie stock and chicken stock (see below).  I froze in three 14 oz jars and used the rest later in the week as you will read.
Beef Vegetable soup -- I used a good portion of the vegetable stock to make this recipe. I used some leftover roast (sometimes I use steak) to make this recipe with meat. I saved this in two 32 oz containers and three 6 oz baby food jars for a quick dinner or lunch.  I normally serve soup with grilled cheese or other sandwiches.
Crockpot Chicken-- I seasoned with salt and pepper.  I added 3 cloves of fresh-from-the-Farmer's Market garlic and about 1 cup of vegetable stock.  I cooked in the crockpot for 6 to 8 hours on low.  Once cooled, I pulled the chicken off and froze in 2 cup portions for casseroles or salads.
Chicken Stock -- after cooking chicken in crockpot, I took the meat off the bones.  I put the bones and juice from the crockpot into a large pot added 14 cups of water and vegetables pieces I've been freezing. I cooked it for a couple hours.  Then put in 1 cup containers and froze.  Once froze I put in ziplock bag.  I will use these in many recipes, including boiling vegetables, potatoes, and rice.
Chicken puffs -- froze once rolled up.  Still need to bake.
Ham - I pour a can of pineapple over top and cook in over for an hour.  We ate some that night and I saved two freezer bags of extra meat.  One for scalloped potatoes and ham, the other for a black bean soup.  I also saved the ham bone for the soup.
Pancakes -- I made apple cinnamon and blueberry pancakes and cooled completely.  I stored in two freezer bags.  To reheat, just pop in toaster.  Extra easy breakfast.

Overall, I feel good about what I've accomplished the last few weeks.  It will definitely make dinner time a little easier now that I'll be working during the day.

To see my other freezer cooking weeks go here and here.

This week's freezer cooking

I've been busy trying to spend quality time with our little girl before we start preschool.  And organizing the house has been consuming my time.  Here's an update on my freezer cooking for the week.  Doesn't look like much and it really wasn't much time, but I've had to fit it in between everything else creating a little bit of a challenge.

• Browned 3 pounds of ground beef -- stored in 1/2 pounds and 1 pound freezer bags.  I'll use these for soups and casseroles.  It saves a lot of time.  Often the meal prep turns into a dump together and heat up instead of a slow wait and messy clean up.
• Froze lemon juice from two lemons -- stored in freezer bag for future use
• Banana Oatmeal Cookies -- for quick allergy-free snack for preschool and home. 
• Tomato paste -- froze in ice cube tray and then put in freezer bag.  I often use just 1 Tbsp of tomato paste as a thickener but hate opening a 6 oz can for just a little bit.
• Pot Stickers -- just found this recipe and it's so good.
• Homemade Tomato Sauce -- froze in old jar.

Curious what I did last week, go here!

Freezer Cooking -- going back to work!

Earlier this week I posted my beginning phases of getting organized before I go back to work.  I decided during the course of the next couple weeks I'm going to do something extra a day.  By extra I mean, extra organizing of a room or cooking a freezer meal.  I also have a birthday party to plan for our little girl with food allergies and I'm working hard to find a tasty cake and frosting (I've found the frosting!).

As far as my freezer cooking goes, I've taken giant steps this week.  I have cleaned out our big freezer.  I took inventory of what we had for meat leftover from our bulk buying we do each year.  I also stock up on chicken when I see it on sale -- around here that's usually 89 cents per pound or less.  My goal for the next few months is to eat up what we have and slow way down on stocking up.  One thing I've learned since being a stay-at-home mom is that the sales are cyclical and will come around again and again.  I now which stores offer what and often I can guess when.

After taking my inventory I realize I am getting low on ground beef, we have a ton of bacon and 14 roasts.  Plus a few surprises.  My menu planning will take all this into consideration.  I usually will cut up my roasts into to 1 inch cubes and use in several stews or other crockpot meals.

I've read many blog posts about how different people attack freezer cooking.  What I've learned is that you have to do what works for your family.  There is no cookie cutter recipe or plan for freezer cooking.  For freezer cooking I try to make food we really like.  I use a Foodsaver to preseve the food.  I recently got some bags from some windfall money.


What I found in the freezer already

2 packages of Salisbury Steak (sorry no recipe yet)
1 package of Pizza Burgers
Several soups for our daughter
Lots of chicken stock
2 packages of white beans
1 jar homemade spaghetti sauce
Half a package of Ravioli
several leftover meat (small portions for soups or fried rice)

Here is what I've done for freezer cooking this week

• Many cups of black beans -- I cooked up two packages of black beans in a ham bone (I freeze these for future meals or for cooking black beans).  I store these is 1 cup or 2 cup bags.  I will use these in many recipes and work great as a filler with ground beef.  This is cheaper and tastier than canned beans.
• 5 lbs of meatloaf -- stored in 1 lb freezer bags
• Porcupine Meatballs -- I made this the day I made the meatloaf, so I only had to get my Kitchenaid mixer dirty once.  I froze in 1 pound bag.  I didn't form the meatballs, but I think you could make the meatballs, put them in the freezer for a couple hours on a cookie sheet and them freeze as meatballs in freezer bag.  I just didn't have the patience for that.  I figure it takes just a couple minutes to form meatballs, but mixing the meat and cleaning the bowl it's mixed in is the time consuming part.
• Chicken Pot Pie -- I baked the crust for 8 minutes then added the warm filling.  I let it cool completely before freezing.
• Chicken gravy for Chicken and Biscuits -- this is the same recipe I use for pot pie, so I just doubled it as  I made the pot pie and froze half separately.  And there you have two similar meals, but still different.

So as of today, I have 11 full meals made.  Beans and chicken stock for recipes.  It's a good start.  I'll keep updating as I go.  Since our daughter will be taking a lunch to school, I have a plan to freeze two soups a month.  This way she will have a variety of soup for lunches.

What's there to eat?

We are really working on freezing meals ahead of time and freezing extra meat for fried rice, casseroles or salads.  Sometimes we have so much we don't know what there is.  My husband will look franticly for something for a quick lunch, but doesn't have time to sift through the freezer.  We also have a tendency to have a serving or two in the refrigerator that doesn't get eaten.

So, I recently created a form to put on my fridge.  It lists what I have for leftovers in the fridge and what frozen meals I have in the freezer.  There also is a column for the date so that I can stay on top of cleaning out the fridge and plan meals from the freezer timely. I laminated the list it so it can be used and reused.  Simple put it on the refrigerator for all to see. Feel free to use it if you like!

Freezer/Fridge List -- print as webpage for larger size.

Dairy-Free Recipes

I just went back and labeled those of my recipes that are free of milk, dairy-free.  If you struggle with meals for those with a milk allergy or lactose intolerance, I hope you might find one or two that will work for you!!

Look What I won!

Every now and then I enter a blog giveaway, but I have yet to win until now. After a long weekend away, I came back to an e-mail telling me that I won a giveaway on $5 Dinners (one of my favorite blogs). She was giving away a subscription to a meal planning service from Kate at Stolen Moments Menu Planning. Oh and I just love Kate's blog -- Cooking during Stolen Moments!

I won a year subscription for the basic plan that will give me monthly plans for dinners, which comes with weekly grocery lists. Along with the recipes, I signed up for ideas for freezing meals ahead, too. I make so many of Kate's recipes already, I know I will love what is planned. I am really excited because I've been in a little rut lately because we have several projects going on and I feel I make the same thing every month.

I'll update in a couple months and tell you all about it!!

Buying meat again

I have posted in the past how we buy a quarter cow and a half a hog each year. Here's the breakdown of our quarter cow this year.

79 1 lb packages of ground beef

3 packages of stew meat

13 chuck roasts

5 arm roasts

15 Ribeye steaks

total 200 pounds of meat ($1.79 a pound = $358)

We have them package the roasts and steaks into serving sizes that are about one meal for us. I really like this because I don't have to unthaw more than I'll use. I also noticed that the grocery stores package ground beef in 1.15 pound or 1.2 pound packages. I was spending more money for meat that I really didn't need. It's so nice pulling out a 1 pound package from the freezer and its 1 pound every time.

Our half a hog was about $150 and we received several hams, roasts, pork chops, pizza sausage, pork sausage, bacon, and pork hocks. I didn't tally how much meat it was before we started eating it. But it is a lot of meat, also.

Last year, the quarter cow lasted a year and the half hog lasted about 9 months. Well worth the money!

How I plan meals

It's been a little trickier planning our meals since our 15-month-old started eating with us a couple months ago. She has allergies to milk and egg. It's not until you start really reading labels do you realize how many items have milk in them. The egg allergy has been easier to avoid and she actually tolerates it cooked in burgers and pancakes. We also just got another half a hog and ordered a quarter cow, which we plan to receive in about a month. This helps a lot in making menus.


At the end of each month I plan the next month's meals. I leave Saturdays and Sundays open for eating out and grilling (or leftovers). I will take a look at the meals I make (many posted here) and vary them. First I vary the week's menu with beef, pork, chicken and sometimes fish. Then I vary the meals throughout the month. Finally, I rotate some meals monthly. I will take ground beef recipes that are similar and spread them throughout the month -- hamburgers, sloppy joes, pizza burgers, tacos, goulash, chili, cas mac, etc. I make a roast a week -- I alter between pork and beef. And I will use different recipes for roasts from port-glazed roast to stew to crockpot roast. I'm always trying something new with roasts (they are easy to cut up and use in many recipes). For chicken, I vary the recipes and have tried some new ones recently. I also will freeze some chicken for future meals. Then I just pepper in other meals into the monthly menu, such as lasagna, kraut and kelbasa, tuna noodle, baked ziti, spaghetti, etc. I've been doing this for about six months and it only takes me about 10 minutes to fill out a calendar of meals for a month.


Working my daughter's dietary needs in has been a challenge, but what I do is make a little extra and put it aside for her without the milk or cream soups or cheese. I also will make batches of soup and freeze them for easy meals. I also freeze extra tomato sauce for a quick meal. I freeze them in the portion size she eats so there is not much waste. It's been working really well for us. We had some brats that we didn't really like that came with our last order of beef, but she loved them. My husband grilled them up for her one day when he was grilling and froze them into individual servings for her. Works great. I also don't add butter to any of our warm vegetables any more and if we have extra of those I will save them for her for lunches.


The key to menu planning for me is to have variety and to visualize it by placing it on a calendar. I still tweak the week before I go grocery shopping (for example if I have tacos planned for Friday, I might move it to Monday if I'm doing shopping early in the week so the lettuce doesn't go bad). I also can buy ahead if items are on sale. It's nice to have a guideline to follow and it alleviates a lot of thinking in the morning, not to mention the worry that I might not have all the ingredients. I hate shopping for one or two things, especially if I just did the grocery shopping.

You gotta sign up for this

Have you signed up on Kraft's website for recipes and other product information? I think I read about this an some blogs a while ago. I received an e-mail today and am really impressed. They even have a place where you can type in three ingredients and they will recommend recipes. Good recipes, too. A good resource.

Buying Meat

Here is one reason I am able to plan my meals a month in advance.

In December we bought half a hog and a quarter cow for $535. Ok that sounds like a lot of money, but it's been a lot of meat. We started with 90 pounds of ground beef alone. So many roasts that I'm still trying to find new ways to cook roast. Lots of steaks, stew meat, pork chops, hams, sausage, and brats. It was a lot of money up front. But it all was under $1.50 a pound. Saving me money during each grocery shopping trip. Ground beef alone is around $3 a pound. Steaks are easily $15 to $20. The best part is the quality of the meat is guaranteed and it tastes really good. No question about whether we purchased something that wouldn't taste good. I still buy chicken -- usually chicken breasts or leg quarters. I usually stock up during a sale. I love having a freezer full of meat and not having to worry if it's going to be an expensive grocery bill because of the meals I planned for the week. If you have the chance to do this, give it a try!

Meal Planning

I love cooking and baking. If I could do it all day long without the clean up, I would. With the little one I quickly realized I needed to plan a variety of meals that took different lengths of prep time. After we moved in October, it became really hard to plan a meal the day of or even plan a week in advance. So much seems to change the dynamics of the day. Especially when I was still nursing.

I made a decision to plan our meals out one month in advance. Of course there is always flexibility. It allows me to plan my shopping trip very easily. I sit down only once a month to plan rather than 4 or more times a month. I don't have to think about the variety of foods. When I don't plan we end up eating easy ground beef meals every night and that gets really old, really fast.

So toward the end of the month I pull up a calendar on a Hallmark program I have (so the calendar at least has some decoration on it). I type up our meals for each day Monday through Thursday. I leave the weekend open because we go out at least once and grill out, too. There are usually leftovers to eat, too. I list the main meal. Sometimes I know how I'm going to prepare it, sometime not. For example, I've been trying many new chicken recipes lately. I'll just put chicken and figure out the recipe the week before. I don't add side dishes because it's usually a vegetable and potato. Those are easy to figure out the day of.


I really like creating a calendar with our meals on it because at a glance I can see what needs to be done for the week or if I need to move a meal around. It's also nice because if on a particular day I know I won't have time to make something due to our schedule, I can just take a meal from another day that week and switch them around because I know I've got the ingredients.

This has saved me tons of time and worry.