Stock up on Freezer Meals
My girls and I took a day at the beginning of summer and spent it cooking meals. We froze the fruits of our labor so that I wouldn’t have to spend so much time in the kitchen cooking and could spend more of the time at the pool and outside enjoying summer. While it was a tiring day, I am thankful to have so many meals ready to defrost and serve (and, it makes putting together my menu on Sunday SO much easier!).
To prepare for the day, I scoured websites for recipes that freeze well. I then got together several recipes that appealed to me. I made a master grocery list and took my older shopping with me (my younger, Ally, chose to stay home). We bought all that was on our list and when we got home, I realized there were about 5 things I had forgotten to put on the list, so be sure to go back over the list of ingredients while unpacking your groceries to be sure you have everything needed.
By far, our favorite recipe from the day is the Homemade Hot Pockets. I found the recipe on local mom Rebecca Ishum’s blog. Not being a master chef, I will admit this is the first time I cooked with yeast. I more of a “if it’s already made for you, why bother” type cook. But, I bit the bullet and decided we were doing these from scratch. Guess what? They are SUPER yummy and SUPER easy. We doubled the recipe and made four different types of hot pockets:
- Pizza. We used just pizza sauce and cheese. We are big fans of St. Louis style pizza and used Imo’s cheese for these. Not the best choice, as it seeps out of the crust, but they were mighty good.
- Ham and cheese. In her blog, Rebecca uses diced ham. We used deli slices. While very good, I think the diced ham works better and that’s what we’ll use next time.
- Chicken and broccoli Alfredo. Our least favorite. It needed more of something…maybe extra Alfredo sauce on the side to dip the hot pocket in or some garlic added, but our version was rather bland.
- Southwest chicken. Our favorite! And, when I say “our” favorite, I mean my favorite, as I ate them all myself (not all in one sitting, but I did eat them all). We used precooked chicken strips with southwest flavoring, chipotle ranch dressing and cheese.
For our next cooking day, in addition to lunch hot pockets we want to try dessert hot pockets. Doesn’t that sound yummy? So far we’ve come up with apple pie and s’mores. I’ll be sure to let you know how they turn out.
Other faves from our first cooking day include:
- Taco Dippers. This made a lot and we were able to freeze two bags full of meat mixture. Both girls loving put together their individual tacos for this meal.
- Mongolian Beef. I think this one was love so much by Tori because she made the entire meal by herself.
- Chipotle Chicken Tacos. A little on the spicy side, but very good.
We also had a few misses, nothing terrible, but recipes we won’t try again. Do you have a favorite freezer meal? I’d love to hear about it!