Today as I looked at my dinner plan in Plan To Eat, I remembered this is a week I’m adding to my freezer stash more than I am taking out of it. I needed cut up chicken for a couple recipes, so I started boiling the chicken in a big pot of well seasoned water (salt, pepper, garlic, minced onion, and parsley). Once I got that started, I thought “Why not go ahead and make that batch of refried beans?” So I started that after looking up this recipe. I did used canned pinto beans this time because it’s what I had though I aim to use dried beans next time. Then Karis wanted to make some lemonade, so we did using good ol’ Paula Deen’s recipe.
All this didn’t really take a long time as I did it as I was cleaning up lunch and finished it after putting my three little ones down for naps. Here’s what we ended up with after some dumping, mixing, stirring, cooking, and mashing.
Six cooked chicken breasts ready to be cut up for 3 different meals.
Several cups of homemade chicken stock that I just freeze in freezer bags.
SUPER good refried beans...I mean, really, the best I've ever tasted. I'm going to use these in quesadillas for an easy lunch from the freezer and as a side with our fajitas this week.
And some really good lemonade!
But we definitely did it the hard way, hand squeezing 6 lemons! But I know one little girl who was really loving it!
What do you do to make freezer cooking easier?
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We bought chicken when it was on sale B2G3 from Harris Teeter. It took my husband and I 2 hrs. one night to trim 18 pounds of chicken breasts and to boil and shred half of it to freeze. We put the shredded chicken in 1 c. and 2 c. bags to pull out for tacos, casseroles, chili, chicken salad, etc. We froze the other half as breast. This lasted our family of 3 (now 4) over 3 months and cost about $30. Harris Teeter has breasts at the meat counter for 1.99lb. if you can’t find it on sale.
Abby that is AWESOME!! And this was fresh chicken right? I usually get the bags of frozen chicken from Aldi. I LOVE having a big stash in our freezer. It helps so much!
I don’t do a lot of freezer MEAL cooking, but I prep a lot and freeze it. I do the same as Abby mentioned with chicken breasts when I find a good sale. I also buy bulk of onions and green peppers and have a chopping frenzy…freezing them in snack-size baggies to pull out whenever the recipe calls for it. I brown 5-7 pounds of ground beef in my huge skillet and freeze it in 1 lb. bags or tupperware (bags defrost faster!) I also cook a LOT of rice and freeze some in individual serving size bags and some in family serving size bags. Whenever I make a casserole that is freezeable or a spaghetti sauce, I make 2 or 3 batches so I can freeze the extra for a busy day, but this doesn’t happen too often.
Oh Becky, that is so helpful to have basic ingredients already prepared. I have been thinking about freezing diced onions and peppers. You may have just inspired me to do it!
It would be so easy to buy when they’re on sale and then chop in my food processor. Thanks!
I’ve always baked large portions of our dinner meal, and frozen the leftovers for a quick second meal on another day. I find it makes meal planning really easy when half of your meals are already cooked! I haven’t done frozen prep stuff though, because our freezer is quite small. Now that I’m done pumping for the baby, and cleared out all the milk, I have a little extra room. I’ll have to think about what makes the most sense for me to prep ahead of time. Thanks for the great idea!
It really does make sense, Victoria, since you’ve already got all the ingredients and pots and pans out. It makes life so much easier. Good luck getting into the hang of more freezer cooking now that you’re done pumping. That frees up all kinds of time in your day, huh?