Other freezer pleasers...

Ok, last post related to My Freezer is My Favorite handout! When I talk about cooking day, I am mostly referring to making dinners. You can add other recipes into your routine that day, but I tend to do a few things on an "as needed" basis.

Other things you will find in my freezer- breakfasts! I will make breakfast sandwiches, breakfast burritos, and smoothie packs as needed.
I also make large batches of cookie dough, scoop into balls, flash freeze, then put them in a clean, empty ice cream bucket and voila!, ready to go cookie dough!
I keep pizza dough in the freezer, easy to thaw, then rise and top with favorites. I always have sloppy joe meat mixture in the freezer, along with refried beans. Taco meat is also a good freezer pleasure, that you can turn into several dinner options. Chili is a staple as well. My husband built a meat smoker, so when he is in the mood to smoke some meat, I always have him do more than I need and freeze the excess. It reheats beautifully for pulled sandwiches, salads, or just serve the meat with some great sides. I know Cafe Rio recipes are popular; you can double or triple the recipes and freeze for another meal later! Takes a lot of the work out of it!
I also have potatoes coming out the wazoo, and I hate to see them go bad, so I make a lot of twice baked potatoes, hash browns, and French fries and freeze them for later.

I haven't tried this, but I heard that you can freeze peanut butter and jelly sandwiches! Take them out and put them in your child's lunchbox and they should be thawed by lunchtime! You can also freeze ham and cheese, turkey and cheese or any other combo of meat and cheese, but you can not put the mustard or mayo on until they have thawed, and for obvious reasons, you would add the fresh tomato and lettuce later as well.

Finally, the last thing I want to mention is cooking groups. There are two groups you might want to consider being a part of when freezer cooking. The first is an actual cooking group- establish a cooking day with 3 or 4 of your friends, decide on recipes, share the grocery costs, and get to work!
The other one would be more fitting for my lifestyle, and that is a dinner swap. Get 4 or 5 people to organize with, establish a day to swap, come with your meals all prepared and ready to freeze. The meals should be discussed beforehand, so that costs are equitable, recipes aren't duplicated, and recipes will be ones that everyone will like, and no one is allergic to! This is a great way to get started and give you some variety in your meals.

I hope these past few posts have been helpful! Feel free to leave comments with any questions and/ or more helpful tips about freezer cooking. Freezer cooking has literally changed my life! I wish I had stumbled on it four or five years ago! I am definitely not an expert on it, but will continue to perfect my techniques and find recipes that my family loves. Happy Freezing!

Things that freeze well.....and things that don't!

I have said that you can freeze almost anything, and you really almost can, but you need to be aware of a few things.

Pasta and rice can be frozen, even though some people will say otherwise. The trick is undercooking them before you freeze them. They will finish cooking when you get them out of the freezer and reheat or cook them. Overcooking will turn them to mush, which has happened to me before. If you shorten the initial cooking time by 2-3 minutes, they should turn out fine.
Veggies and fruits- veggies are great to have in the freezer. Some veggies need to be blanched before you freeze them. A quick soak in boiling water then a dunk in ice cold water and they are ready to freeze. You might also want to try sealing them in vacuum bags, since I've notice that veggies tend to fall victim to ice crystals more than other things. Fruits also freeze well. Most fruit freezes great if you flash freeze fruit pieces first. Cut them up, place them on a cookie sheet, pop in your freezer to freeze for an hour or two. After that, put frozen pieces in a freezer bag. Flash freezing prevents pieces freezing together in one big chunk. I make smoothie packs, and freeze berries and more.
Baked good are easy to freeze. Just wrap in plastic wrap, then put in a freezer bag. Simply take out and thaw on the counter. They thaw beautifully. I am not a bread maker, so we make a trip to the bread store(Sara lee's) about every two months and load up on sandwich bread, Texas toast for French toast, buns, English muffins, and sometimes bagels, then freeze them all! Our deep freeze is reserved for our bread items. It is rare if I have a loaf that thaws and turns hard, although it has happened before.

A tip for things NOT to freeze. Do not freeze recipes that have been prepared with bread crumbs or fried onions, or any toppings (except for cheese); they will get soggy as they thaw and it is not appetizing.

Freezing Methods

There aren't too many freezing methods, but you should be familiar with them and use the ones that are best suited for the type of food you are freezing. Your available space may also determine the type of freezer method you use. The following is just my opinion and tips; what works for me.

First, reusable plastic containers- there are so many brands of freezer safe, reusable, plastic containers. Remember to leave room for expansion when the food freezes, especially if freezing liquids. I tend to use containers when freezing soups and chilies only. Make sure you buy many of one type of container, it makes it easier to stack them in the freezer.

Another method is disposable aluminum pans. This is a method that I like the best. Disposable pans tend to be used for casseroles, lasagnas, and other pasta dishes. I have used mine for quiches, stratas, and even for recipes using whole chicken breasts. You can buy pans at any local grocery store, but I prefer to buy mine at the dollar tree. They are 2/$1 there. I have had trouble finding disposable pans with lids in local stores. The lids are great to use because they protect and hold up in the freezer a little better. Aluminum foil can tear when stacked on top of each other. You can buys pans with lids online, but only in huge quantities. If you and a friend(or two!) went in on an order, it might be worth it. It is recommended that you remove the lids before cooking and cover with foil. I have to admit that I have forgotten to do this a time or two, and the lids did just fine in the oven. Unless I find out the lids have some horrible chemical that contaminates the food, I might "forget" again!
If you don't use lids on the pans, just cover with aluminum foil. It is suggested you do a double layer, one of plastic wrap, them foil, to adequately protect the food, but because I cook my meals fairly quickly, I only use foil. You have to remember to remove the plastic wrap before you cook. I have also forgotten to do this step, and unlike the lids, I would NOT do that again!
The nice thing about pans is this- on the days I have forgotten to get something outntonthaw in the morning, I can still grab something frozen in a pan and stick it in the oven. You just have to cook it same temperature but longer. It is recommended to plan on the stated cooking time +half. I have found better luck if I just double the time. Some people will try to wash and reuse their pans, which you can do if you have patience and heavier aluminum pans. I don't have patience and I buy the cheaper pans, so I don't try to save them.

The last freezer technique is freezer bags. This is a great method too. If you are preparing "dump" recipes where everything goes in the bag and then you freeze it is great to do. I also like to make dinner "kits". One kit, for example, is my pizza kits. I freeze English muffins, shredded cheese(separate bag), pizza sauce(separate bag) all into a bigger, gallon size bag. It's a great grab and go dinner option. Different dishes to put in bags are pasta dishes, meats with marinade, baked goods, individual servings wrapped, then frozen in one bag. DO NOT skimp on brands of freezer bags. It pays to get the name brand- they are thicker, more durable, and have better seals. Another tip- a lot of people love the fact that bags can b e frozen flat to save space. I however, have found that I like to stand them upright or place them in a bowl to make a frozen shape that is wider at the bottom. This way, I can take it directly from the freezer, rip the bag off, and it fits perfectly in my slow cooker! No thawing necessary. If frozen flat, it creates a square that needs to be thawed before placing in the slow cooker.

Cooking Day-Prep Day

Now you are officially getting started! Let me preface this segment by saying you need to read through all your recipes and get familiar with them. Doing this will give you a sense of how to organize the prep work. Do any recipes have shredded cheese? How much? How is the chicken or beef prepared? Shredded? Cubed? Browned? How many fresh veggies need to be cut? Questions like this will help you list your plan of attack, step by step.

Now here is a tip not found in the books I have and it may not work for you, but it does for me- cook your meat the night before! I put my chicken in my pressure cooker and while that is cooking, I will brown my ground beef or brown my other roasts and what not while that is cooking. I do this because it makes the cooking day that much easier. Cooking day then becomes more of an assembly day. It only takes about a hour of the night before to get the meat done and its worth it to me!

On cooking day, you want to prep "like" items; chop all veggies, shred all cheese, and....open all you cans! This is when some of those rarely used gadgets come in handy. Every month my pampered chef food chopper, my food processor and my salad shooter gets used! The salad shooter is actually my favorite way to grate cheese now! An electric can opener can be a lifesaver on cooking day!

Now, the important part......{insert drumroll}......when you get going, it is important to determine what type of recipes you are making. No, not chicken or beef, but HOW it's made.....oven, stovetop, slow cooker, assembly or other. It is crucial you mix it up! That way, you can get four or five recipes going at once! While things are cooking, you can do some "dump" recipes, which simply means that you throw all the ingredients into a freezer bag and you're done! It's a great way to get a few more recipes done while the rest are cooking.

Lastly, don't overwhelm yourself! Take it from me, who made this mistake when I started, DO NOT try to make 20 different recipes! Instead, choose ten different ones and double them. Is it really going to hurt your family to eat the same thing twice in a month? Or, if they throw a fit, ease into serving your freezer meals. Change it up with your regular "served fresh" meals. In a couple of months, you will have a great variety of meals that will get you through a month.

One more note, in case I haven't mentioned it before.....freezer meals are not all I serve my family! We still have grilled cheese sandwiches, or grill a steak, or even have a favorite of breakfast for dinner(fresh eggs, yum!). In our family, I can usually stretch 15-20 meals to last the whole month and sometimes even longer!

Cooking Day....Organization, 'cuz it's gonna get crazy!

The next item on the handout is organization. Organization is a key component to saving time in the kitchen on cooking day.
First, after you have chosen your recipes and tackled your grocery list(which is a whole other presentation!), you need to get your kitchen ready. So when you come home and unload your groceries, leave as many out as you can! Of course, the refrigerated items need to be put away, but anything that can stay on the counter needs to be left out. Again, this is a time saving strategy. You will be doing multiple recipes at once, so you want to have everything at your fingertips!

You will also want to leave your recipes out, in a place that is easy to read them, and somewhere they will stay clean. I usually put my recipes on my fridge or tape them to my cupboards. The recipes shown below are not what I usually use. The recipes in the picture are not folded in half or laminated yet. My kitchen is small enough that I can read them on the fridge while I'm prepping things at the counter.

Next, you will want to get all of your freezing containers labeled and ready to be filled with your recipes! You don't want to leave a label off of anything! You don't want to have a mystery meal in your freezer!

Lastly, you will creating a lot of garbage! From produce cuttings to cans to cartons, you will be amazed at how much is produced! You need to tape or tie several garbage bags to the counters in your kitchen. You want to be able to toss something in the trash without walking across your kitchen. You will actually get really good at tossing trash without looking! Haha! Dont limit yourself to just one garbage can while you cook. Remember, this is all about saving time while you cook and truthfully, the seconds wasted add up!

Oh, just thought of one more thing that is not on the handout. At this point, get out all your measuring cups, measuring spoons, mixing spoons, spatulas, etc. if possible, having multiples of these items are wonderful. I try to use one set for dry ingredients and one set for wet ingredients. You don't want to have to wash off your spoon or spatula every time you stir one of your many recipes you have cooking! Again, another time saver!

How to get started.....

I figured that my handout on freezer cooking is somewhat of a skeleton outline for the general public, since you missed the details of the presentation. So I decided I would break it down and explain each of the points on the handout. I guess you could call it an online course on freezer cooking, of sorts!
I'm skipping the first point of the handout, Reasons Why You Should do Freezer Cooking; I think that needs no further explanation!
So, lets move on to the next point- How to Get Started!

It's overwhelming to try to figure out how to start without any advise or guidance. For me, I tried to follow what was written in the books I have about the subject. I will share some thoughts of my own about getting started, without the books!

Ask yourself "what recipes do I have that I can freeze?" You might not have recipes that are specific to freezer cooking, but A LOT of the recipes you already use can be frozen without much adapting. Many common, easy things can be frozen- chili, sloppy joe mix, taco meat, shredded chicken, breakfast sandwiches, etc.; all things you can try without a lot time or money invested.

Next, what appliances do you have? Why does this matter? Freezer cooking is all about saving time, and some of those appliances you rarely use might come in handy on your once a month cooking day! I use a food processor, mixer, pressure cooker, slow cooker, bread machine, griddle and more when I am cooking!

Lastly, how much freezer space do you have? This matters! If all you have is the top freezer in your refrigerator, you will need to consider how many recipes you can prepare, and what you are going to freeze them in; freezer bags vs. pans.

Stay tuned for tips on Cooking Day......beginning with getting organized to start your day off right!

Getting Started with Freezer Cooking

I have now been doing once a month cooking now since last June! I am completely addicted to it! I have cooked every month except for October and January. In those months, I had enough meals in the freezer from the month before so I didn't have to!

My ward Relief Society asked me if I would teach freezer cooking methods to the sisters during our monthly Relief Society night(what do they call that now? Enrichment? Homemaking?). Even though I am completely used to speaking in front of people because of my job, I was totally nervous to teach the sisters!

It was a decent turnout-about 20, and I had prepared a PowerPoint to go along with my presentation. As I went through the presentation, I felt a little scatter brained, due to the many questions they had about the whole idea. However, I think I organized my thoughts well enough on paper with the hand out I gave them. Since that night, I have had several people ask me for the handout, so I decided to post it here. Hope it helps you better understand the freezer cooking method!

Click on the link for the handout:  https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RFkyl26jRKCbxCsgoOP4BCmK17Lqq4lswCVUdQ7hFvE/pub