Freezer cooking 101

I have been freezer cooking for several years now. It is a great way to ensure that I get hot home cooked meals on the table even on busy nights. What is freezer cooking? Basically, it is preparing and storing meals in the freezer that are ready to thaw (full or partially) and cook. Some meals are cooked before freezing so that they just need reheated and some are assembled and frozen raw. It really depends on what is being cooked. I have been asked by many friends to explain how I do freezer cooking. I decided to share here what I do.

Fully stocked freezer with 22 meals, plus all the sides and veggies



Step 1: Make a plan
In order to prepare large quantities of food to be stored in the freezer you have to decide what you want to cook. Start by brainstorming your families favorite dinners. Head on over to Google to search for more ideas. Things to consider are to choose foods that freeze well. Even if a dinner has some ingredients that don't lend well to freezing, don't completely pass it by. Pasta does not hold up well in the freezer in my experience (unless it is lasagna or manicotti because those have special cooking instructions) but my family LOVES chicken alfredo. I will brown chopped grilled chicken breasts and add to a batch of yummy homemade alfredo sauce then freeze with instructions to pour over freshly boiled pasta. I can have a family favorite on the table in less than 30 minutes and clean up is a breeze!

Here is what I am planning to prepare and freeze over the next few weeks (updated to add links to the recipes that I used for inspiration, as usual I did tweak them to suit my families tastes and needs).

Lasagna w/ garlic bread
Pizza w/salad
Mac and Cheese (with cauliflower) w/broccoli
Pulled pork w/rolls and coleslaw (add horseradish to the slaw for a fun kick!)
Pork chops with Au gratin Potatoes w/peas
Salisbury Steaks w/mashed pots and corn (Used cube steaks instead of ground beef)
Teryaki Chicken with rice and broccoli
Turkey with stuffing and gravy w/ rolls (slices of turkey breast slow cooked in gravy served with stuffing and rolls)
Stromboli w/salad
Manicotti w/garlic bread and salad
Salsa Chicken w/tortilla and black beans
Brisket w/mashed potatoes and green beans (I puree the vegetables that are cooked with the brisket and use them with the pan drippings to make a gravy (cornstarch gravy)
Man Pleasing Chicken w/butternut squash and bread (no knead bread) (I use pre-cut squash in the steamer bags)
Forgotten Chicken w/peas
Chicken Tenders w/french fries
Bourbon Chicken w/fried rice
Balsamic Pork Tenderloin w/bread (no knead bread) and mashed potatoes
Rotisserie chicken (crock pot) w/salad
Spinach Lasagna rolls w/ salad
Chicken Alfredo
French Toast
Pancakes

I will also freeze several bags of cooked ground turkey and beef for insanely fast convenience meals and several bags of cooked grilled chicken to toss with salads.

Chocolate Chip cookie dough
Snicker doodle dough

Favorite recipes and shopping list (3 pages long) for all of the meals I have listed here.

Step 2: Write a shopping list
First gather up all your recipes for every meal you planned in step 1 (including sides that can be frozen). Write down all the ingredients you will need (I write them all down, then visit the pantry to take note on how much of each I have and if I have enough I cross it off, if not I write how much more I need). This is how I write the shopping list.

Chicken breast (boneless skinless): chix alfredo, man pleasing, bourbon, teryaki, forgotten, tenders, salsa chix
Milk: alfredo, mac&cheese
Flour: pizza dough, Stromboli dough
Rice: forgotten, teryaki, fried rice

I go ingredient by ingredient like this so that when I am looking at the chicken breasts I can quickly decide how many pounds I need to buy. Don't forget to write down items needed to STORE your food (freezer bags, foil, disposable Tupperware, foil pans, etc). Look at each recipe and decide the best way to freeze them (some recipes online will already have this information included).

Freezer bags?

Foil pans?

Step 3: Plan your cooking date(s)
Look at your calendar and decide when you want to do this. You will need to set aside about 45 mins per recipe (give or take). You will need to decide if you want to do a single marathon weekend or split it up into a couple weekends. Once you decide on your date(s) you can plan to go shopping a day or 2 before. If you are planning on splitting the cooking up make note of this on your shopping list. I go through my list and highlight the menu items for each weekend. So everything needed for weekend 1 will be green, weekend 2 yellow, etc.

*Important*
Make sure when planning that you look at HOW each recipe cooks. You do not want to commit to 2 long cooking crock pot meals on the same day.

Step 4: Go grocery shopping
Now you may wonder why I am writing about something as simple as shopping. Let me explain. If you are looking at batch freezer cooking there is a pretty good chance you have at least one rug rat. Shopping for this kind of cooking is INTENSE (unless you are just doing a couple meals). My advise is to leave the kids at home with daddy, or send them to grandmas for the afternoon. If you have to bring them along make sure they are well rested, fed and that you have some entertainment for them (I also bring a snack when I have to bring my 4 kidlets). Speaking of being well rested and fed, make sure you eat a good meal before you go. People shop smarter when they are not hungry, you will more likely stick to your list and not splurge. It is often helpful if you clean out your fridge and freezer before shopping so that you have plenty of space to store your loot till cooking and freezing it!

Step 5: Cooking day(s) eve
The night before your big cooking day make sure you have a loose schedule planned. I like to set my day up so that I do all of my handling of meat at the same time, all my veggie chopping at the same time and all my sauce making is done as needed during the cooking and assembling of the meals. I always get crock pot meals in the crock first! I say to make a loose schedule because even with everything planned out things happen and you may have to go out of order. Plan for easy meals for the cooking day(s). My last piece of advice for this night is to get to bed early. You will be getting up early and working hard all day!

Step 6: Cooking day(s):
Set your alarm for at least 2 hours earlier than your family normally wakes. I do my batch cooking on Saturdays and Sundays. My family normally is up by about 8am those days. I set my alarm for 5:30am. I get up put on a pot of fancy coffee, hop in for a quick shower then grab a quick bite to eat. I always shower first so that I am fully awake. You do not want to be following a bunch of recipes and handling sharp knives half asleep. I recommend getting up early so that you have 2 hours of uninterrupted time to knock out a lot of the prep work, cutting up the meats, veggies, etc. After that is done the rest of the day is all about assembling meals and cooking them if needed.

That's Freezer cooking in a nutshell (at least how it's done at my house).

A whole year?

Wow, time sure flies when you're having fun... or just really dang busy!

In the last year I returned to work... full time... It has been an adjustment to say the least. My job title has changed from toddler teacher to substitute teacher. I really like the latter (an current) job title. I am learning so much that will prepare me for my very own classroom. Fingers (and toes?) crossed that I get my own class soon!

This has been a terrible year for sickness. I can't even begin to count the number of times we have been down for the count with some form of a bacteria, virus or other parasite. YUCK!

Little man has had a rough year too. He ended up falling into a bookshelf at daycare (in the first couple weeks there too) and gashed his cheek open. He ended up with FIVE stitches. That was hard on this momma. 4 kidlets and the baby is the first to need stitches. More recently, he had to have quite a bit of dental work done (more on that later).

The girls are doing good. Sassy as ever and keeping their momma on her toes.

T started middle school this year. OMG! Where did the time go? Where did my baby girl go? She is adjusting well to the demands of growing up. She also is now the very proud owner of her own cell phone (it is necessary for her safety). She is still on the gifted track at school and her MAP test results are still off the charts. Proud momma here! She joined the 6th grade choir, knitting club, and art club! She is applying for the National Jr Honors Society!

E is in 2nd grade. She has now been identified as gifted in both math and reading on the MAP test. :) Proud momma grins! She is playing soccer and I am her soccer coach. Her biggest accomplishment though is she has finally stopped sucking her thumb! She will be getting her ears pierced very soon as a reward for sticking to her goal!

C is in first grade. School hasn't come as easily for her as it has for her big sisters. We are in the process of working with the speech therapist at school to see if her previous language delays have anything to do with the struggles she is facing. I also am going to have them evaluate her for dyslexia. She works hard at school and we have hope that with the right supports she will start to make better progress. I am still very proud of her! She is also playing soccer and I am her soccer coach. She is a natural at soccer. I think we have found her niche. When she is on the field with a ball she is a powerhouse that nothing can stop, she is fearless!

Daddy went back to school. He is working on getting several computer related certifications. A++ and some networking things. He is more than ready to jump out of the food service industry into a career in computers! We celebrated our 10th anniversary in June. He did a great job surprising me. It was a great day!

I am hoping that I can get back into the swing of posting more! Coming soon is a great post on how I do batch freezer cooking to make meals during the busy seasons faster and healthier than takeout!

The Pizzadog!

Ok, so after lots of requests for this somewhat crazy but oh so favorite food of my kidlets, I decided to post it here...

About 2 years ago, I dreamed up this concoction out of pure desperation. I was early in my pregnancy for little man (read Hyperemesis Gravidarum). The older kidlets wanted pizza, but mommy had zero energy to make a real pizza. I scavenged the kitchen for ideas for dinner, my head spinning, feeling as if I was going to puke, die or both. I saw the buns, cheese and pepperoni... BAM it hit me!

Thus the Pizza dog was born!

Pizzadog!
1 hotdog bun
Some shredded mozzarella cheese
Some pepperonis
Put cheese and pepperonis on the bun, microwave for about 30 seconds (cover with a damp paper towel to keep the bun soft)... serve with pizza sauce...

My kids love this! For the dairy free kidlet, I just use her vegan mozzarella cheese!

When it rains it pours

Pardon this post. I have a lot on my plate right now and I need to unload. I want to hit something really hard so I am just going to sit here and pound my heart out on this poor keyboard.

Owning a house, most would say it's the best investment you could make. It means that you have arrived you have established yourself in the world as a property owner. You own something that is a symbol of success.

HAHAHAHA!

Not if you are young and buying your first home and the professionals you intrust your money to lead you astray. Or in our case lead us right into a literal shithole. I know some people own crappy rundown old or ugly houses and refer to them as shitholes. But until you have to lay your kids to bed at night in a home that has raw sewage backing up into the lower level you have not arrived at shithole.

5 years ago we applied for a loan and were pre-approved for $90,000. We decided to do the mature thing and only buy as much home as we could comfortably afford on our modest income so we opted to stay in the $70,000 range. We didn't want to be house poor and struggling to rub 2 pennies together. We found an agent, and started the shopping process. I think we visited 30 houses. Some were too small, not enough bedrooms, really bad neighborhoods, so on. We finally decided on a lovely yellow house on an alley with a white picket fence. It was clean and had a nice kitchen and a big back yard for the kids. We put in our offer only to find out that the property was in a flood area and that due to hurricaine Katrina's recent rage our insurance premiums would up our monthly payment by nearly $600 a month... OUCH! We retracted our bid and took a second look at another home we had liked. When we walked away from that first home somewhere deep inside me I had a feeling that we should just pack it in and wait a little longer. I pushed that feeling aside asuming I was just experiencing jitters.

We looked at the house, spent some time talking and decided to put our bid in. The things we didn't like about the house should be easy fixes (no fence, ugly paint color, ect). We put our bid in and it was accepted. So we hired a home inspector by reccommendation of our realator. He looked over the house and gave us a report indicating that all was good in the hood. There were 2 items that needed fixed according to the inspection report (smoke dectectors had no batteries and the lower bath had no hot water) the seller had then fixed and we signed the paperwork and completed the sale.

Fast forward about a week when the insurance company came to inspect the property again and they announced that they could not insure us because we have old knob and tube wiring and that is a fire risk they are not willing to take. Damn it why didn't the house inspection uncover this?

Well since then in the 5 years we have lived here bandaid after bandaid has fallen off of some of the major systems in this house.

We discovered that the wiring is not only old as hell, but that we have rooms upstairs wired to rooms downstairs and it's basically a giant maze to figure out what is supposed to go where. Estimate to re-wire and bring everything up to code: $6500 OUCH! Why didn't the inspection catch this? You know I would like to know too!

The first winter we discovered that the "forced central air and heat" apply only to the first floor of the house. The ductwork are either not attached upstairs or attached so shoddily that no heat or cool air makes it up there. So in winter we use radiant space heaters and in summer window air units. What the hell? Again why didn't the inspection uncover this mess? I don't know either!

Now the plumbing is failing. It started with a blocked toilet. We called a plumber and they ran a snake and discovered that we had a busted sewage line. They leave promising to come back with a camera to estimate how much replacing/repairing would be. While we wait on them I had the city come and take a look. The man from the water office informs me that the city sewage tap placed in front of my lot in 1935 has not been connected to my house. Ok so how does a house supposedly built in 1940 NOT get connected to the public sewage? Lie number 1 this house was built before 1935...
Oh and to make matters worse the water guy told us that more than likely we are opperating on an ancient septic tank. SHIT literally! He goes on to tell me that we will be required to tie into the city sewage. Great!

I just checked my water bill... We have been paying for CITY SEWAGE for the last 5 years! How wonderful!

So today the plumbers show up with the pipe camera and start tracking the line to find the tank or the city line or really anything, at this point it wouldn't surprise me if the line empties into a pit in the yard and not a real septic tank.

So they run the camera through the interior pipes and hit mud (meaning they founf the break) right under my dining room. This area of the house was built over a concrete slab! GREAT my house is quite literally floating on shit! The plumbers can not gt the camera past the break because it happened at the bend where the pipe turns to exit the house. They inform us we need a contractor to come rip up our dining room floor and create access to the area. I asked how big of a hole they need. He points and the floor and says from here to here. Well that equates into a hole that is about 3 feet by 10 feet (maybe bigger, I'm estimating here). They hand me an estimate of $1500 to come back once the hole is cut in the floor to dig down to the pipes and track the line. It will cost about the same to have the floor ripped up and fixed afterwards.

At this point in time I quit! I can't do this! I have hated this house for too long to care about getting it fixed. I just want to pack my belongings and mail the bank the keys and forget I ever had this nightmare. But I am a responsible adult (damn it) and I will do the right thing and fugure it out till we get the house sold under a short sale.

I the meantime anyone know where I can shack up with my 4 kids and husband?

Parenting

a child with special needs.

I will start by saying that we have not had Cam officially diagnosed yet, but many of the signs and red flags are there.  I have talked to several knowledgeable professionals and the general consensus is that there are enough flags to move forward with the evaluation and diagnosis.

Cam probably has a form of high functioning Autism.

I have not said that definitively, to anyone outside of our immediate family and our team of doctors and therapists that she has been seeing since she was a baby.

Today, Scoot dropped off the "book" of paperwork to be initially review by the specialists at the Autism clinic. We will not wait anxiously for them to call us for the first round of assessments and evaluations.

While on one hand I am convinced that this is the answer we have been looking for to help explain the behaviors we have been dealing with for 3 years now. I am relieved that finally we may have an answer to give to the people who give us nasty looks at the grocery store when we are sitting on the floor of the frozen foods section her in complete melt down, me holding her with my arms and legs around her body preventing her from kicking and hitting or running off. While she spits on me and tries to bite me all while screaming at the top of her lungs, and I am at the end of my rope desperately clinging trying to hold onto control and not cry. I wish we could melt into the tiles as people walk by and give me the "you're a terrible parent" look, or "just spank her, she'll stop" looks. The thing is, spanking her will only make the tantrum worse. When she gets like this she is beyond reason.

On the other hand I worry that they will come back and tell me that she does not have a form of Autism and that we will be back at square one. Her current occupational therapy regimen is not meeting all of her needs.

I wish that I didn't have to buy a lock for my fridge to keep her from eating a whole 2 pound block of cheese in one sitting (cheese makes her very constipated and that is not fun to fix). I wish I didn't have to paddle lock the downstairs bathroom to keep her from destroying it with feces and urine. I wish I didn't have to lock her in her bedroom. If I didn't I wouldn't be able to sleep for fear that she would get out and destroy the house or wander out the front door. I wish her sisters enjoyed playing with her. I am thankful that most days she doesn't mind playing alone all day. I wish I didn't have to hold her ears when she goes potty in public restrooms. I wish we didn't have to spend a ton of time each week at therapy, instead of enjoying family things. I wish we could go out into the community and do things without fear of her melting.

I confess that even though life is really hard and frustrating at times, I adore her. I am scared about what her future holds. Will she do well in school? Will she have a career, family, friends? Or will she be alone and on the verge of meltdown...

Camping vent!!!

Ughhhh so we belong to a resort group that affords us REALLY cheap rental rates for cabins at the resort. We have access to all the mandatory stuff of camping such as fishing, hiking, ect. But the membership allows us the luxury of not sleeping in a tent on the ground in the dirt with bugs. This last part is vital to me. No matter how "crunchy" or "natural" I become, bug and other critters are two things I will never come to terms with. I try to leave things as nature intended as much as possible but when it comes to bugs my motto is "They stepped leg in my house so I have every right to smash them dead!"

So the last time we came camping we rented a really nice 2 bedroom cabin with a full living room, bathroom, and kitchen. It was spectacular! The best part? We were there for a WHOLE WEEK and saw only a couple insects inside (I think they were brought in by the dog to be honest). So this time we got a much smaller cabin (boo) it was still a 2 bedroom (If you call a closet that is filled with stacked full sized beds a room), it just was very tiny. So, not only was the cabin much smaller than expected, but it came filled with bugs! Flying bugs, crawling bugs... ewwww bugs! Seriously, I laid down on the main bed with little man to feed him and in the 20 minutes I was there I killed at least 20 ants that had crawled onto my body. 

I do not like bugs at all! I do not want to stay in this cabin anymore!

Extended breastfeeding...

aka nursing past 1 year...

Well today Little man turns 14 months as I sit here and type this blog I have to keep adjusting my position to accommodate the little man who keeps climbing into my lap for a quick ninny (nursing snack).

Oh the horrors of it!

It gets even better than that! Not only is he still nursing at 14 months old, but he is still nursing for a majority of his nutrition. He doesn't eat solids very well (he likes boiled chicken, and pureed fruits/veggies mixed with yogurt). So I allow him free access to the breast, which he takes advantage of at least 6 times during the day and at least 3 times over night. He nurses 9-12 times per 24 hour period. While he nurses as often as a newborn at least he can finish the job in 5-6 minutes.

Extended breastfeeding is not as weird or difficult as I once thought. Nursing him is actually easier than making him eat foods. Yes, once again I have confirmed (at least to myself) that breastfeeding is another way I can get away with being a "lazy" parent without negative consequences for my kids. I mean with 4 kids, going to school full time and running a household you gotta find ways to cut corners, right? Right? Right!

Breastfeeding also has other great perks too! Like being an INSTANT mute button! LMAO at that one! There have been several times (like when we took the kids to see HOP) when Little man would be getting fussy and as soon as I whip out the boob and latch him on its instant quiet. Or the time when he decided that head-butting the coffee table would be a good idea (it wasn't), he screamed bloody murder until the boobie was offered and magically all was right in his world again.

Nothing beats the warmth of your "big boy" crawling into your lap and suddenly melting into your "baby boy" again.

So even though he often pinches, scratches, bites and the wild and crazy toddler nursing acrobatics, I can honestly say that I love nursing my toddler!
Without further ado, I am going to share some of my favorite nursing photos. You have been fair warned that some of these pics may GASP show a little skin!

NIP: Nursing in Public at the local Strawberry festival!

Sleepy nursing!

What? I like my ninny!

Sleepy nursing (this happens a lot)!

Nursing a toddler boy often means him bringing his beloved matchbox cars to the meal!