Wednesday, January 1, 2014

Trying this freezer meal cooking plan

Happy New Year! On this first day of 2014, I am feeling so accomplished!  I tried the whole freezer meals thing.  And I did it all with food and stock from my pantry and fridge.  I didn't spend any money!  Warning:  if you want to keep reading, just know that this is kind of a long post.

So, here's the deal.  I get chicken from my dad.  Lots of it.  Anyway, I started with a bag of about 8 huge chicken breasts.  Not your typical ones from the grocery but actually turkey sized chicken breasts, probably about 12 pounds worth.  I put it all in a pot to boil.  While that was boiling, I was surfing the internet, playing Candy Crush saga, and just being lazy.  The kids had done the dishes so that was a big help before the big 5 hour mess got started!

I cooked and chopped and boiled and jarred so much food!  I actually can't believe what I accomplished.  Here's the only photo I took of my cooking adventure and I was about halfway into it.


Now, here's what I cooked or chopped:

About 12 lbs. of boneless chicken breasts
1 onion
1 lb. of carrots
4 boiled eggs
4 potatoes (I will be cutting and cooking the rest of the bag tomorrow.)

Here's what I used from my pantry/fridge:

2 soft tortilla shells
shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of chicken soup
1/2 container or sour cream
1 can corn
1 can green beans
1/2 packet club crackers
a few tablespoons of French's fried onions
salt and pepper and garlic salt
flour
baking powder
milk
butter
mayonaise
mustard

Now for the good part - Here's what I made from all of this:

1 chicken casserole
1 chicken pot pie
2 chicken burritos (yes, only 2.  I only had 2 tortilla shells! I wrapped them individually to grab for a quick school lunch.)
chicken salad
carrots, onion and potatoes already chopped to make deer meat stew (which is also already in the freezer)
2 quart sized bags of shredded chicken for tacos, nachos, soup, chicken chili, or whatever
3 jars of chicken broth
1 16 oz. container of cream of chicken soup
4 snack bags of carrots

Now, this also does not include the chicken broth or cream of chicken soup that I made to add to my casseroles since I only had one can in my cabinet.  Mine was so much better than the store bought canned stuff!

I froze most of it so that when baseball season starts in a month or so, I can just pop these things in the oven or crock pot and we have a good dinner in under half an hour.  I still have to cut and cook the potatoes tomorrow but that's okay.  I am so proud to have 8 complete meals ready to go.

Now to organize my freezer space a little better and I think I will do this every two weeks, maybe rotate chicken and beef.  I don't know if I can handle being in the kitchen to do all of it at once!

Jen