Potential Freezer & Crockpot Meals

So I've started making a list of foods to freeze or make in the crockpot once Milly is here. I can't believe it, but it was pretty hard to come up with a list. Neil and I have gotten into this horrible habit of either eating the same thing over and over, week after week, or making it easy on ourselves and either going out to eat or getting hot soup at the expensive grocery store that is right next to our condo. I used to cook a lot and now I don't too much experimenting.

Off to Pinterest I went to try and come up with some things. Vanessa always has good stuff, so I look there and then I go in search of other things. I ended up at Joelens and Pioneer Woman .

Freezer Meals:
Meatballs-from Oelrich cookbook
Lasagna-Mom's recipe-need to get
Tomato Soup
pork carnitas-looking for a recipe to match Chipotles
Asian salmon
Stuffed mushrooms
Lime Chicken Taco meat
Hashbrown bakes for breakfast

Frozen partial meals:
Browned turkey and sausage (for Hillbilly spaghetti pie) -1 lb. increments
Chicken and cheese wrapped in taco sized flour tortillas (for Chicken Enchiladas-absolute favorite!!)- 8 per pan (maybe 24 total)
Marinated Teriyaki Chicken cubes (for Neil's awesome stirfry/fried rice-blog to come about that)
Tilapia
Shredded chicken-2 c. increments (from whole chicken cooked in crock pot)- for Chicken Spaghetti
Chicken Broth- 2 c. increments (from whole chicken cooked in crock pot)-Oelrich Cookbook
Chicken Pot Pie filling -need to add topping, either refrigerator biscuits, puff pastry or mashed potatoes

Crockpot:
Potato Soup

I'm not exactly sure how far that will get us, but I'll keep you posted.

April Meals and Kitchen Buys

Buffalo Chicken Shepherd's Pie

Lime Chicken Taco Meat doubled the recipe, made in the crockpot and will freeze in portions for easy taco nights (enough for 4-5 meals for 2 people)

Teriyaki Honey Chicken used 3 chicken breasts and froze in 3 quart sized freezer bags for rice nights (3 meals for 2)

Chicken Stock Chicken breasts were on sale, but they had the skin and bones on them, so I cut away the meat for all the meals above and then took the bones and made a large amount of broth on the stove.


Amazon.com is having a 4 for 3 promotion on select kitchen items. This is what I scored:


2x-12 count Silicone 3-Inch Reusable Baking Cups


1x Nonstick Petite Loaf Pan
FREE-5 Flexable Cutting Boards

What are some of your favorite make-ahead meals and kitchen gadgets??

Soup Soup Soup

I've gone crazy with the soups lately. This past week I made Chicken Noodle Soup and Potato Soup.


Now, I have all the ingredients to make Cauliflower Soup, Broccoli Cheese Soup and Chicken Cheese Soup (personal recipe). I probably will be making these the next couple of days.

Note: The Chicken Noodle Soup ended up really thick as leftovers, but still good. Potato Soup was more runny that I thought it would be, but oh so tasty anyways. I've made the cauliflower soup before and know its awesome. I'll give my 2 cents on the Broccoli soup after I've tried it.

What's in the Fridge? 1

Our fridge has gotten a little full, so I thought I would try and find something I could make with some of it. I had about 2 lbs of carrots that I probably would have thrown out if I did not use them right away, so I decided to make a curried carrot soup.

It used up all the carrots, one large onion and 2 cans chicken broth. After that was all said and doen, I decided to add the russet potato that had been sitting out a long time, because I probably would have had to throw that away shortly too.

Here's the finished product..




And the taste? Actually, pretty good, the potato made carrot taste not so carroty and the curry make it have a kick. Looks like you can freeze it too!

Yummy food

Neil and I have been getting in the habit of freezing food. For instance, we made a huge batch of meatballs for spaghetti and then froze them in groups of 4 meatballs to use at a later date. We still have about half of them left. We also grilled about 8 flank and ribeye steaks after we marinated them in a carne asada mixture. We cooked them to med. rare to rare and then packaged those up to be used for carne asada tacos or burritos. Yesterday, Neil cooked up an entire bag of dry garbanzo beans and then froze them in 1 cup increments to use at a later date for falafel, hummus, etc. My goal sometime this week is to make swedish meatballs. There is a recipe in the the December 2008 issue of Everyday Food from Martha Stewart that I wanted to try. Hopefully they will turn out well.

For Thanksgiving, we are going to have cornish hens, mashed potatoes, brussel sprouts and pumpkin cheesecake. We don't have a springform pan, but I'm going to try and do without. I'm going to start keeping a list of recipes we use at each holiday. I think that will be fun.

Have a good day!