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Friday, December 19, 2014

Freezer Meals

From your freezer to your crock pot, whats not to love?!

These are just a few meals that I would normally make in my crock pot but I decided to do a little meal prepping and prepare them ahead of time. If you can brown hamburger meat, you can make these meals. Keep in mind, I make these meals for myself (sometimes friends and family) and to have enough for leftovers. You can alter these meals however you would like. This is just what works for me! ;)



1. Chicken Fajitas 

Ingredients:
  • 4 small chicken breast tenderloins 
  • 1 packet of dry fajita seasoning mix
  • 1 red pepper
  • 1 green pepper
  • 1/2 yellow onion
  • 2 tablespoons of butter 
  • 1/3 cup salsa 
  • 1 package of tortillas of your choice

1) Cut up your red pepper, green pepper, and onion and place them in your gallon freezer bag.
2) Add the chicken, fajita seasoning, butter, and salsa into the bag.
3) When ready to eat, pull out of the freezer and place in your crock pot on high for 4 hours or on low for 6 hours. When the chicken is done, use a fork to shred the chicken then serve on tortillas with sour cream and shredded cheese.

This recipe above is enough to feed about 4 people. I made 2 freezer bags of this mixture. Super easy and super cheap!



2. Chili

Ingredients:

  • 1 packet of chili-o seasoning mix (or whatever kind of chili seasoning you like)
  • 1 lb of ground beef
  • noodles (any type)
  • 1 can of chili beans
  • 2 (large, 29 oz) cans of tomato sauce 
  • 1/2 onion, chopped 

1) Brown your ground beef and drain the grease off. 
2) Cook your noodles until done.
3) Combine all ingredients in a gallon freezer bag.
4) When ready to eat, throw in your crock pot on warm for 6 hours. Or low for 4 hours if you are wanting to eat it sooner.

Those are the ingredients that I use in my chili. You could always make your favorite chili recipe and then freeze it. I split this recipe into 2 freezer bags. This recipe is normally enough to make one large pot of chili. 



3. Vegetable Soup

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 can of diced tomatoes (15 oz)
  • 2 cans Veg-all mixed vegetables (1 29 oz can, 1 15 oz can), drained
  • 1 large can of tomato juice (46 oz) 
  • 1 can tomato sauce (15 oz)
  • Salt and Pepper 

1) Brown your ground beef and drain the grease off. 
2) Combine the rest of the ingredients in your gallon freezer bag. 
3) When ready to eat, throw in your crock pot on warm for 6 hours. Or low for 4 hours if you are wanting to eat it sooner.

4. Taco Meat


Ingredients: 

  • 1 lb ground beef
  • 1 packet of taco seasoning 

1) Brown your ground beef and drain the grease off. 
2) Combine 1 cup of water and 1 packet of taco seasoning and add to your meat. Let simmer for about 10 minutes.
3) Place the meat in your gallon freezer bag. When ready to eat, throw the meat in your pan and let it heat up for some nachos or tacos!


5. Fluffy Potatoes  

Ingredients: 
  • 8-9 medium to large russett potatoes
  • 2 tablespoons olive oil 
  • 1/2 cup sour cream 
  • 4 ounces cream cheese, softened 
  • 1 1/2 cups shredded cheese (I used monterey jack)
  • 2 tablespoons of chopped chives (or more if you would like!)
  • 1 tablespoon of minced garlic
  • salt and pepper 

1) Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2) Rinse and dry the potatoes and place them on a baking sheet. Drizzle olive oil over the potatoes to coat. 
3) Bake for 35 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. 
4) Place the sour cream, cream cheese, monterey jack cheese, chives, garlic, salt and pepper in a bowl and mix together. 
5) Cut each potato in half lengthwise. Then take a spoon and scoop out the inside of the potatoes, leaving a thin rim of potato inside the skin. Add the potato pulp to the bowl with the other ingredients.
6) Using a fork, gently mash the ingredients together until smooth.
7) Spoon the mixture back into the potatoes. 
8) At this point, you can eat the potatoes or freeze them. If freezing them, place the pan of potatoes into the freezer (uncovered) for about 20 minutes to let them harden on the outside.
9) Place the potatoes in a gallon freezer bag and when ready to eat, bake them at 375 degrees until warmed. 

This is a Pioneer Woman recipe (she is the BEST!) I broke down the instructions a little bit but for pictures along the way, visit her page here.



6. Baked Penne

Ingredients:

  • 1 lb of ground beef
  • 1 jar(16 oz) alfredo sauce 
  • 1/2 onion, diced
  • 2 cups of shredded mozzarella cheese
  • 1 box (1 lb) penne pasta
  • 2 jars of spaghetti sauce* 

1) Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2) Spray a baking dish with non-stick spray. 
3) Cook pasta until done.
4) Brown the ground beef with the onion until done. Drain off excess grease. 
5) Pour in one jar of spaghetti sauce into the meat and keep on warm. 
6) Once the pasta is done, drain the excess water off and return your pasta to your pot. Pour in 1 jar of alfredo sauce and combine until mixed thoroughly. 
7) Pour your pasta mixture into your baking dish so that it covers the bottom. 
8) Now add you meat mixture so that it covers all of the pasta layer. 
9) If you are wanting to freeze this, now is the time. Place in a freezer safe pan. You can add mozzarella cheese to the top right before you bake it. 
10) If baking right away, sprinkle the top of your dish with mozzarella cheese and cover with aluminum foil then bake for 15 minutes. Remove foil and bake for 15 more minutes.
* The 2nd jar of spaghetti sauce is optional but I like to pour a little more sauce on the pasta once it is cooked. 

This recipe is off of Pinterest and you can find it here. I mentioned it in my last post. I have ate it straight from the oven and frozen and it is great both ways. 



Tips:
*Run some hot water over your freezer bag to break up the ingredients inside before placing into your crock pot. It is almost impossible to get a frozen meal out of a plastic bag. I would know.
* Brown all the hamburger meat while you are cutting up vegetables and preparing other meals to save time.
*Your crock pot might not cook the same way mine does. So if you can, keep an eye on your meals the first couple of times you use it to make sure they do not burn in the crock pot.

I hope these meals work for you and that you love them as much as I do. All of this only took me about 2 hours so it is very easy to do and you will thank your self later! If you have any questions, comment below! ;)




Monday, December 8, 2014

Pinterest Recipes

We all love Pinterest...do we not?! I have a lot of 'pins' on my food board but until recently I had not tried a lot of them. So, here are some recipes that I have tried the past few months that are really good and that I will make again!

  • I made this Baked Ziti last night and it was so easy to make and I even had enough to freeze some leftovers! I think it is even better heated up the next day. 

  • I have a love for pasta and this pasta with tomato cream sauce is from one of my favorite gals, The Pioneer Woman! (Yes, I DVR her show.) I recently found this pinned on pinterest so I thought I would throw it onto this list as well.

  • This BBQ chicken is really the best I have ever had. I made it with these crockpot mashed potatoes. If you didn't know, I could live off of mashed potatoes alone so I had high expectations for these potatoes...and they didn't let me down. 

  • I have recently developed a love for spicy things and this buffalo chicken dip is fantastic. 

  • How did people cook meals before crockpots?! I use my crockpot whenever I can (which is often). Its just so simple! These crockpot chicken and dumplings are easy and you will have plenty of leftovers. 


  • This pineapple cheese ball  is so, so good. I served it at my housewarming party with sun-dried tomato and basil wheat thins. 


  • These homemade pancakes were so easy to make and so fluffy! You can also freeze the leftovers and they reheat just as well. 




These are just some of my favorites lately. What did we ever do before Pinterest?!




*Side note- I have to condense a lot of these recipes since I am normally only cooking for myself and to have leftovers for the next day. You can tweak them to make however much you would like ;)*