Freezer Meals Part II

Okay! Life has finally settled down just a bit for us! We had a scare with our little one. She had been complaining for a few weeks about headaches, and her doctor rushed an MRI for her. Talk about the scariest, longest, day of my life! But luckily, it turned out great! And I am ready to get back to normal...whatever that is?

I mentioned previously I wanted to post to you about some of my favorite things to help out with dinners that I keep stocked up in the freezer. We all want those extra minutes with our kids, our hubby, our house (it needs love too!), or maybe for ourselves. Help a girl out, and make life simple, right!?

I know some of these may seem super tedious, but I promise, it really DOES make a difference!

1. Chopped Vegetables I don't know about your house, but we always seem to need onions and peppers for our various recipes. One thing that has made life a little simpler is to have veggies already chopped up in the freezer. As you're cooking dinner, you're sitting there chopping the onion-bawling your eyes out, while the kid is screaming in the background, and whatever you're cooking is nearly burnt. (That's real life at our house!) I did some research about some foods, how to store them, or use them to help keep them longer, or simply just to be more flexible in cooking. Chop some onions, peppers, zucchini, whatever it is that you find yourself using frequently-except potatoes...we'll go there soon, place them on a tray/plate and flash freeze them for 1 hour so they don't stick together, then throw them in freezer ziplock bags. When you need them for you next dinner, you already have them done, chopped and ready to go! (And honestly, it's so that those dang onions only make me cry every once in a while!) 

*My favorites to store are onions, peppers, zucchini, carrots, jalapenos, and tomatoes. For information on how to store tomatoes in the freezer check out this link! 

2. Meat already cooked
This may sound dumb to you, but I can't even tell you how much longer it takes to cook hamburger/chicken/ham/whatever raw, than it does already cooked and frozen again. And with our crazy life, every minute I save is precious!

We don't use hamburger very often, but it's so nice to have it ready when you need it. I buy hamburger on manager special at Smith's (saving every cent I can), bring it home, and cook it ALL in the crock pot (usually I do it at night so in the morning I just drain, sort, and throw in the baggies). I like to divide it in half, (take out the plain first), then add taco seasoning the the second half, and label my baggies plain/taco. We also like to do this with chicken.  Canned chicken is really expensive, and personally, I HATE shredding chicken. So again, I cook 6-7 chicken breasts in the crock pot with some water and broth for some extra flavor, when it's done, I chop into cubes, or shred, divide into baggies...you get the hint! It's awesome!

3. Bread sticks
These are honestly my FAVORITE bread sticks for many reasons, they're easy to make, they require no yeast (we're not friends... I can never get it to work!), and they are really filling! We've even used this recipe before as a pizza crust and it works AWESOME! My husband, a big eater, was full in just 2 slices (I am pretty sure that has NEVER happened before!) I follow this recipe-times 3 or 4. And always have to add a little more milk than what the recipe calls for, or flour if I accidentally dump the milk in! (Oops!) I make the recipe, cut the bread sticks into slices, flash freeze for an hour, place them into a freezer ziplock bag. And when I am ready to cook them, I melt the butter in the bottom of the pan-like directed, throw the frozen bread sticks on top, and add a few minutes to cooking time! It's like bread sticks in less than 20 minutes! *These make great bread sticks for dipping-like with spaghetti.

Click here for the recipe from Hill Billy House Wife 

4. Muffins, Muffins, Muffins, and more Muffins! Muffins are my favorite thing to have on hand because they help make a meal a little more filling, I can hide vegetables in them (I get pretty creative sometimes haha), and my daughter will devour them, which is pretty awesome because she hardily eats ANYTHING! I also love these because they freeze so well, they keep for probably about 3 months, and they're great for my hubby to just grab and go for breakfast in the morning. (I don't think we've ever made it to the 3 month mark, and that's with doubling/tripling EVERY recipe!)

*If you want to save time, make these into bread. I personally like the muffins, even though they take longer to make when doing in bulk because they're already divided into serving sizes and I can thaw out a small portion rather than the whole loaf.

Our favorites are:

•  Banana Oatmeal Muffins
• Spaghetti Squash Muffins (MODIFICATIONS: I add 1/2 cup of craisins to these too, which my family loves. I blend my squash in a blender with the eggs, vanilla, and 1- 1 1/2 c. of apple sauce (because my blender is horrible and needs a lot of "wet" ingredients to be able to blend. I also use nutmeg in the place of ginger. And do half whole wheat flour. Because I add applesauce, I minus a 1/2 cup of sugar to the recipe.)
•  Chocolate Spinach Muffins *I loved these, hubby did not, but I am pretty sure I forgot to add an egg, so they were pretty dry, and it helps if you have a good blender-NOT the blender I have lol!
• Zucchini/Pumpkin/Sweet Potato Muffins

Brussels Sprouts (Yeah, I know you're grossed out already!)

I recently volunteered to be a Bountiful Basket Site Coordinator in our area (man, it's a lot more work than you think!) But I have been loving it! It feels great to be involved with our community, and helping to provide families with fruits and vegetables to feed their families!

This week in our baskets we got Brussels sprouts. It was SO funny to hear the "you can have my brussel sprouts, if I can have this..." to those who exclaimed excitedly, "Yes! I love brussel sprouts!"
Believe me, there are a LOT of them who think they're gross...and I am one of them!

I asked some of the people that like Brussels sprouts how they prepare them (I am a firm believer it matters how you "try" it) most of them said they steam, boil, ect...the common ways. But I also had a few who said the best way is to saute them. Who would have thought to saute a Brussels sprout?! NOT ME!

They also gave some suggestions like adding garlic, butter, Parmesan cheese, bacon, onions, ect. I decided I was going to try experimenting with my Brussels sprouts to find a way to like them-not love them-but like them.

I am actually scarfing this down now as we speak (yes I am starving, but it's also really good..for a Brussels sprout!)

Here is what  I came up with! Be brave!! Try it!! It's really not that bad! I am NOT gagging it down, like I have other vegetables!

Brussels Sprout Saute:

Egg noodles-follow package directions (I did about 1 cup uncooked for myself)
onion, diced (I did 1/4 of a medium sized on)
brussels sprouts, washed, and sliced (I did 4 little ones)
ham, diced (ours was an actual ham we cooked a while ago, divided up, and froze)
1 tbs. olive oil
shake or two of salt
1 tsp garlic powder
shake or two of fresh ground pepper

I am not giving you exact amounts, because honestly, I have no idea, and I made it for myself, not for my whole family. So do what looks good to you!

*I learned that if you cook Brussels sprouts too long, they'll be really bitter, so cook your onions, and ham to get the favor going, then add the Brussels sprouts last to they get lightly sauteed.

Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup (You'll Actually Eat!)

My husband and I had a really rushed day the other night, and we have been slacking in planning our dinners! The typical, "What do you want for dinner?" conversation totally happened, except this time, it was..."We have 25 minutes to make dinner, what do you want?"

Grilled cheese sandwiches are always our "hurry up we need dinner" meal, and so of course we decided that's what we'd have. However, I knew that wouldn't be enough to fill my big eater husband up, so it needed to be filling. We decided to experiment with the soup portion because it was the easiest to make more filling, and it's our least favorite part. It's great to dip, but honestly SO much of our soup goes right in the garbage afterwards (such a waste!)

Here is what we came up with, and it really was good! My husband wrote the recipe card and titled it:

This is not our soup! Just a picture I found online 

Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup (You'll Actually Eat!):

1 can Tomato Soup +1 can water
1 can drained corn (or frozen corn)
1 can Rotel tomatoes with chilis (or use fresh! we get TONS of both in our Bountiful Baskets)
1 can ranch style beans, drained
1-2 oz cream cheese
*we decided a little cilantro would be amazing in this too!

Place all ingredients in a pot, stirring occasionally, until cream cheese is melted & soup is heated.

Awesome Grilled Cheese Fixins:
Pepperoni
Guacamole
Instead of cheddar, try mozzarella cheese *we LOVE mozzarella!