Freezer Meals-How To

The beauty of freezer cooking is that although I might spend a couple hours putting the original prep work into our meals, we are able to enjoy the next "however-many" nights with less stress and meltdown around the dinner hours.

My meals are practically complete by the time they are placed in the freezer! All I have to do is pull out the meal that we would like, thaw and follow the VERY SIMPLE instructions I wrote on the container.

In my previous post about freezer cooking, I did an experiment, so-to-say, on freezer to crock-pot cooking. There were about 22 meals and all of the recipe's came from someone else. This time around, I've decided to play with some of my own recipes and some adapted ones from the retirement center that I work at. Here, we will walk step by step through the process, of the time saving miracle that happened in my kitchen last night! (Read the post "Step by Step" to see an example of how I did the prep for an actual meal or two).

First Item on the Agenda: CREATE A MEAL PLAN! You don't have to stick to it day by day...feel free to mix it up a little bit (you wrote down "roast" for Wednesday, but hubby REALLY wants it on Sunday after church. Okay! Just pull it out Saturday night and pick a diff. meal out of your freezer for Wednesday). It is essential though, for so many reasons, that you create a "rough draft" if you want to call it that, so that you can move to step 2 which is,

MAKE A LIST. Create your shopping list of ingredients needed. If you are a little OCD like me, I coordinate my list by grocery departments (produce, meat, dairy, dry goods). This way when I'm shopping, no time is wasted on the constant back and forth across the aisles. Now go shopping. If you bring the kids, let them help you! Play in the produce section by touching and smelling the produce! It's a great place to learn colors and texture! If you get to go alone, LUCK YOU! Just for that, you deserve to grab a cup of coffee and enjoy a rare moment alone! Then be sure to laugh (on the inside) as you express sympathy for the other mom's with screaming children, while knowing you don't have to deal with that today. PS: While shopping, don't forget your storage containers (baggies, tins, foil, etc...)

Step 3: If you have a veggie that is used in multiple meals, go ahead and get that chopped up first and stick in a bowl so that you can just grab what you need, as you go. Prep your work station. Wash your produce, chop those veggies, fry up any hamburger (used as ground beef) that is going into casseroles or taco's...any kind of meal like that.

Do one recipe at a time. Write the name of your meal, along with any further instructions on the container/baggie. Prep your meal. Try to get as much air out of you container/baggie as possible, to help prevent freezer burn. Seal. Lay flat. Freeze. DONE! Now on to the next meal.....

Chalkboard Wall

Here's an easy DIY project that your

kids will thank you for,

for months and years to come!

 

 

I started this project while the girls were napping.

 I was just going to paint a smaller space as a chalkboard,

for V'leah to do 'school' with,

but we haven't worked on designing our kitchen yet,

so I mustered up some boldness and decided to do the whole wall.

Figured that if we hated it, we could just paint over it

when we did the rest of the kitchen/dining room.

 

 

Chalkboard paint can be messy, but it washes up easily.

For those of you who make large messes, like I do,

you will appreciate the fact that

it just wipes right up with a wet cloth.

 

The final result is a nice, rich black color.

Wade and I both really like it.

It actually looks pretty cool with our kitchen.

 

V'leah loves it too!

 

 

 





Fire Safety with V'leah

I absolutely love the look of wonderment

that children get in their eyes!

 



 

Last Saturday, we took V'leah to the local

Fire Department for an open house.

Earlier that morning she learned about fire safety at home.

 

She learned about firemen and the trucks, colored pictures and then learned that when she sees fire to say "fire, danger!!"

 

I set our fire alarm off in the house

(of course Josi loved the loud noise),

so that V'leah would know what it sounds like.

Then she learned "stop, drop and roll". She liked that part best.

After her lesson, we went to the Fire Department.

 

She had a blast!

 

 

She got her "Junior Fire-Fighter" badge, ate lunch in the garage sprayed the hose and even got to ride up the giant ladder.

She even talked mommy into going up

(which scared mommy half to death!).

 

 

We went ALL the way UP

 

 

It was well worth facing my fear of heights!

She's still thanking me for "the ladder".

 

 



The Thought Closet

Being that today is 9/11, I thought it appropriate to post about a comment I recently heard on the radio; I'll call it the "Thought Closet".

 

The christian radio program was interviewing members of First Responder teams, with the emphasis on the emotional effects their jobs have on them. I've always had respect for our service people, not only military but also our police teams, firemen squads, EMT's, etc... But I have never really given much thought on how they respond to calls of tragedy and danger and do not have a choice to say that they do not want to deal with certain disturbances. When their signal alerts them, they respond. No ifs, ands or buts about it. Off they go. However, many times the other end of that alert signal are images that are forever burned into the minds and hearts of these "responders".

 

Can you imagine being the one who retrieves the broken bodies from car wrecks? Or those who were burned to death in a fire? Finding the swollen body at the bottom of a lake? Removing the baby from a broken hearted, mother's hands as she desperately wishes that it were her that was instead being carried away, covered, on a stretcher? These are graphic images for most of us to even read about. Yet we have men and women who willfully respond to these situations, multiple times throughout their life/career!

 

That being said, I have to admit that when it comes to the horrific events of 9/11, I have never actually thought about how our hero's from that tragedy must have suffered, emotionally. I mean, you think about the lives that were lost and about how scary it must have been to be on the planes. I've recently even given more compassion to the family's of those who lost their loved ones. It's even easy to solute our responders and pay words of affirmation to the dedication and service they displayed. Yet, I have never once pondered the idea the images and sounds that must have penetrated their eyes and ears. How emotionally heart wrenching it must have been to see and hear what they did!

 

Can you imagine what it must have felt like to respond to the first call, be assisting as much as humanly possible to get the people to safety and then literally watch as the second plane flew right above you and smashed into the second building? To be calming the bystanders, directing traffic and pulling bodies to safety, as you actually see the buildings start to crumble and the people inside jumping from windows, to their death? Our responders were there to save lives (which they did!), but also had to witness the ending of many!

 

One of the responders on the radio program gave an analogy about stuffing our thought closets. He spoke about how in their job's, they see the unimaginable. Things that you do not ever, in a lifetime wish to see. The best way to deal with this is to stuff the thoughts and emotions into a closet. Each time a new image of sadness or horror is received, into the closet it goes. However, there gets to be a point when the closet is so full that when you open it again, everything comes flooding out.

 

This can bring people into depression, cause anxiety, even PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I've been thinking about this analogy over and over again, since I heard it. What I wonder is, how many of us stuff our "thought closets" and what are we putting inside them? Is our closet a place to hide memories of pain? Abuse? Addictions? Resentments? Tragic images? or does our closet look more like filing cabinets for memories of joy and love? Peace? Acts of kindness? Compassion?

 

There are images and memories that we will carry with us for the rest of our lives. Some of these are wonderful and some undesirable. We cannot always pick and chose what moments are archived into our minds. But we CAN choose to let them go. It is SO easy to stuff it all away into our over-flowing closets, but one day the closet will reach it's max capacity and everything will come pouring out. I suggest we give these things to God and find someone to talk to about the images, as they come. People need each other. We need to support each other. In a world where every second seems to be consumed and lives are so busy, it is vital that we take a few precious moments, grab a cup of tea and listen to one-another!

 

Today is 9/11. What will we remember? What will we teach our children? In rural Minnesota, we have practically no one that was directly tied to those events, but we do have our own First Responders right here who answer the calls to service those who cannot help themselves. What can we do to support these men and women, right here? How can we appreciate our Police Men and Women, our Fire squad, EMT's and all others who respond to life's tragic events? I encourage you to think with me, today (Patriot's Day), on how we can show love to these amazing and strong individuals.

 

Perfect Rice, Every Time!

So here's a tip for your leftover rice:

Each time we make rice, I make extra so that we can re-purpose it into tomorrows breakfast.

My family loves it and requests it often!

 

In my last post (about freezer meals) I showed you a picture from the Sausage and Peppers meal. This was served over hot rice. Since baby doesn't eat reg. food yet, we have a total of 2 adults and 1 toddler eating, therefor usually make about a cup of rice, each time.

 

Perfect Rice Every Time!

1. Start with a med sized sauce pan and some butter (canola oil will do the trick too)
2. Heat on Med/Med High and add rice (we used 1 cup dry Organic Jasmine Rice, you can use whatever kind you would like.)                            *Note* This also works well with brown rice
3. Cook rice in the butter/oil until it starts to slightly turn in color, then add your water. Do not follow the instructions on the bad, instead go with this: 1 cup dry rice= 2 cups water. I always double the water to the amount of dry rice.
4. Heat until rapid boiling, stirring once or twice. Then cover and turn burner to lowest setting.
5. White rice= cook 20-25 min. Brown rice= cook 30-35 min.
6. Remove from burner, fluff with fork and enjoy your perfect rice!!!

**When dinner is over, stick the lid back on your pot and store the whole thing in the fridge. You will use it in the morning!**

 

 

Re-purpose your left overs:

 

RICE AND RAISIN

 

1. Take your pot of cold rice and add enough milk to just cover the top of your rice. There is no measurement as it really depends on how much rice you have left.
2. So now that your rice is bathing in the milk, turn your burner to low/med-low.
3. Add raisins asap (you choose the amount your family will like), cinnamon and a little bit of sugar/sugar substitute
4. Stir frequently and as the milk cooks down into your rice, add more. This recipe does take a lot of milk, but it is SO worth it!
5. ENJOY! This nice, hot and yummy breakfast is delicious and will please your family (the KIDS especially will love it!)

Clean up? Easy...you used a pot and a couple bowls. You are the diva of the kitchen momma and just served your family a meal that seems as though it would take AT LEAST a half hour to cook,

in only 5 minutes!!!!!

 



 
 

 

Freezer to Crock-pot Meals~ The beginning

Now that you have the back-story on how I am trying to take back time,

here is the how to and results of my Freezer Meals project.

 

Before I post any pictures or add anything else, credit needs to be given to the woman who inspired this all. We have never met, however, Jaima's blog is very inspiring and is now in my list of favorites. Since I've never cooked for the freezer before, this first round of meals have all come out of her tips and recipes. She has a lot more recipes, besides the ones that I have used. Check out her toddler meals! They look awesome, but since we don't have a microwave (for natural living reasons), the toddler meals don't really make sense for us. You can find Jaima's blog and all of her wonderful tips, right here: http://www.ringaroundtherosies.net

Now, lets dig in to the project. After researching around and looking at multiple blogs and pages about freezer cooking, the norm of meals seems to be about a week or two's worth prepped and stored. The extremest that I am, chose 12 recipes that would make 24 meals for my family that consists of 2 adults, a toddler and baby. All 12 recipes chosen this round, came from Jaima's blog.

Freezer cooking is so simple! You prep your items (cutting veggies and meat), add in a few additional ingredients all into a freezer bag, mix together and store. DONE!

 

THE RESULTS (what I learned):

 

12 recipes take way longer than I thought they would! Wade was recruited to shop for half of our list, while V'leah and I grabbed a cart and picked up the other half. This took about an hour. Once home, I dug right in, ambitious to finally start this exciting project. Start to finish took about 4 1/2 hrs, including the snack and cuddle breaks taken with V'leah. Would I go big and do 12 recipes (24 meals) again? Probably not. However, I would def. try 6 (making 12 meals)!!! This would cut my grocery shopping from

once a week- at least 4 times a month, down to 2-3 times!

 

Here is the Sausage and Peppers recipe. This one is my favorite so far!

Wade was in charge of picking out the sausage.

He decided that instead of buying the exact sausage from the ingredients list, to pick out the kind he thought looked best, and it was!

 

 

This was a VERY simple, VERY yummy meal!!!

Even V'leah liked it (she ate the rice and sausage)

 

The VERY BEST part of freezer to crock-pot cooking is that my evening time is freed up! Instead of getting stressed out, while V'leah pulls at mommy for attention, Josi is crying for a bottle, daddy is trying to touch base with me ALL as I'm trying to put together a warm, healthy meal for my family....I now can be a multi-tasking diva and put down a delicious meal at the same time, with

NO STRESS!

Also, I'd like to mention that as a momma of a toddler and newborn, it's rare to have a hot meal for yourself. No fears mama! The crock-pot will keep it warm for you! No more cold meals for you, you amazing woman! You deserve a hot meal and extra time in your day!

Freezer meals is the way to get that!

 

***Check out the next blog entry for making the perfect rice every time and how to re-purpose extras into tomorrows breakfast (YOUR FAMILY WILL LOVE IT!)***

 

 

 

 

The great discovery!

How could 24 hrs go by any faster? It seems that ever since we've brought Josi home from the hospital, each day moves by more and more quickly!
Here's what feels like a normal day for me:

• 5-6am Wake up and start taking care of little girls, moving as fast as I can with Josi (who is always the first one up) in hopes that I can get her to take another snooze while I get in a bubble bath AND multitask by reading this weeks assigned homework reading for my college classes, all before V'leah wakes up and crashes my quiet time by wanting to throw on her bathing suit and jump in the "big one tubbie", as she calls it (she thinks my tub is her own little personal pool).
• Go to bed

That's is honestly how it feels, most days. Where did all of the rest of my day go? girls, Girls, GIRLS! I have two beautiful and loud girls who constantly desire mommy's attention. With the pipes they have, I really hope that at least one of them turns out to be a great singer!

Because of the organized chaos, which is now my life, our dinner meals began to decline and lunch became practically an uncharted territory, aside from the many varieties of Quesadilla's I made for V'leah. The poor kid ate a Quesadilla for lunch almost every day for a month! You would be amazed at the things you can stick in one of those! I would just rummage through the fridge and start grabbing anything I could to stick in the tortillas, add cheese, heat and eat. One variety had mozz. cheese and salami on it, so in desperate attempts to seem like I was giving her something different for lunch one day, I called it a "Pizza-dia". Lame. I know.

For those of you who know me pretty well, you've seen my kitchen and have likely either seen pictures of or tasted my cooking/baking at some point. I LOVE to be in my kitchen and love to have fresh produce on my counter....at least I DID love these things. My kitchen and I have had quite the separation since baby 2 entered the scene, who I might add is a far better trade off! However, I miss my time in the kitchen and I miss providing my family with healthy, delicious meals. (I also miss eating HOT meals, as mine has almost always been cold by the time I've gotten to it)

So this lead me on a quest to start taking back my time. God has given me 24hrs a day. No more, no less. What exactly am I doing with it? In one of the books I'm reading for school right now, "Amusing Ourselves To Death", Neil Postman (1985) writes about how we were once time-keepers, then we became time-savers and we are now time-servers. It is true, I am enslaved to time! But there has to be a better way than quesadilla's every day for the rest of our lives and half plates of some sort of edible something(s) from our fridge that are cold by the time I eat them, for dinner!

BUT ALAS! I found it! My oasis in the desert of unnoticed seconds that tick by each day that leave me only armed with goals and aspirations for the following day. This oasis seems so practical, how could I, A MOM, have never thought of this before? This oasis is slowly becoming part of the routine and new way a life for this household. We have ventured into the world of Freezer to Crock-pot meals!