Calzones!

We usually make at least one pizza for our monthly meal swap and for January, I decided to try making calzones! I'd never made them before but assumed they would be fairly easy as it really is just an inverted pizza. Typically, when we make a homemade pizza I would use the bread machine to prepare a nice thick dough but I knew this would not be as good for calzones.  So I searched around for a calzone recipe and found one here How To Make Calzones which linked me to a thin crust dough for pizzas.  I decided to stick with traditional pizza toppings (green pepper, mushrooms, onions and pepperoni) for this round but would consider attempting other variations in the future.  I initially made up three batches of dough and let it rise for several hours.  Each dough is supposed to make 6 large calzones or 8 smaller ones.  One batch of my dough seemed to remain quite tough, so I chucked it and just made two batches to sample. In my next round, I tripled the recipe to make three batches of dough and this worked out quite well.  I found that cooking the calzones as per the recipe left them a little too brown and overdone so I reduced the cooking time for subsequent batches.  I'd also used a marinara sauce that was a little too watery for the first batch so I switched to a thicker spaghetti sauce for the rest.  I would say the amount of dough made was correct, I made 6 large calzones with each dough.  I put the sauce on first, followed by the toppings and cheese and then folded them over.  I used a fork to try to seal the sides (some leaked anyway) and made slits with a knife to release some of the heat.  I cooked for 10 minutes on about 425 degrees and then moved them to a lower rack and cooked for another 10 minutes - this seemed just about right.  Our first sample tasted quite good and I look forward to making them again and trying some other toppings inside!

30 Day Plans

I haven't done much bulk cooking prior to our freezer meal swap group.  I didn't even have a deep freezer so I was limited to whatever I could fit into my refrigerator freezer.  I thought I preferred cooking fresh meals and have never really enjoyed a lot of frozen prepared foods....so I am very thankful that I have given freezer meals a second chance!

While it's been wonderful swapping meals with my friends, it's also made me want to do some additional preparations of my own.  Having a supply of home cooked meals in my freezer is a luxury that I had never realized would be so amazing!  I have had some good success with freezer-to-slow-cooker meals and although I enjoy the convenience and ease of slow cooked meals, I've never been a huge fan of the taste of slow cooked meals.  It is great for stews or soups etc; and I've enjoyed ribs and roasts in the slow cooker but chicken recipes have always been a bit disappointing for me.  Perhaps in another post I will review some of the freezer-to-slow-cooker meals that we've really enjoyed!

Yesterday afternoon, I pulled my recently purchased freezer meal resource book from the shelf to see what recipes I might be able to recreate from the author's 30 day meal plan.  The book is called, "Frozen Assets" by Deborah Taylor-Hough and I ordered it from Chapters a few weeks ago as it seemed to be the most highly rated freezer meal cookbook.  Although it's a bit dated - I think it was written in 1999 - the author offers some great tips for freezer cooking and saving money.  Truthfully, it is the ease and convenience of freezer cooking that appeals to be most but if I can save a little money too - it can't hurt me!

I began with a big batch of spaghetti sauce.  I loved the taste of this sauce and it made a fairly big portion.  The author uses this base sauce in a number of recipes, so it is one that I will make again.  I made two lasagnas and two servings of spaghetti sauce.  We ate one of the lasagnas for supper as I had been so busy bulk cooking that I never got around to making supper - and we all really enjoyed it.  Next I made the chicken broccoli which turned into 4 smaller portions which I'll more than likely use to make two meals (I like to get leftovers from my meals).  It was fairly quick and easy to make and could be served with pasta or rice.  Following this, I made some scalloped potatoes and ham - I'll be curious to see how these taste as potatoes seem to get mixed reviews on their 'freezability' score!  I bought a huge ham at Costco so I am roasting the rest of it for supper tonight and will freeze any extra left overs.  I also made several batches of Mexi-Chicken which interestingly calls for barley.  It looks similar to the taco soup I've been in the slow cooker and is suggested to be served with tortilla chips.  I will have to come back with my reviews on the rest of these meals.

It does appear that that author uses smaller servings than what I would consider a meal as I came no where near close to the recommended servings she was making; although I like to have a decent sized portion for our leftovers in lunches.  It really did not take me that long to put all these meals together and while one meal was cooking (like the spaghetti sauce), I was able to prepare another.  I estimate it took me about 4 hours in total.

I plan to try more recipes from this cook book in the New Year!

The Beginning

This all actually began a few months ago.  Several girlfriends on a road trip to see the Material Girl in Quebec City with nothing but hours of time on our hands to have thought provoking discussions and come up with brilliant ideas!  At some point, the idea of a meal swapping group was discussed and we all agreed that it was a wonderful idea!  After returning home from our weekend away, our little group, we lovingly refer to as "Meal Deals" was born.

Regretfully, we did not start blogging about our experiences right away but now that several months have passed, we recognize how useful it might have been to track the meals that we have prepared, reviews from our families and basically the lessons learned.  So in the interest of time and space, I am going to try to recap our first few months and hopefully continue from here!

Two things we did right away was to set up a private Facebook group for communication and discussions and then we had a meeting - with wine.  No cooking, just us, a few cookbooks and some wine.   Although Meal Deals would prove to be very beneficial to all our families, it was just as important that our group include elements of friendship and fun!

Membership was one of our first areas for discussion.  Five of us sat around the table to begin this process.  We come from varying size families (a family of 5 to a family of 2) and the unique challenge of having one family who are vegetarians.  Our solution was that four of us would swap two meals - one vegetarian, one with meat - while our vegetarian friend would only swap the vegetarian meal.  As a result, most of us would receive 9 meals each month including our own, 4 of which would be vegetarian.  We decided to hold our membership at five people until we got the hang of bulk cooking and a better understanding of the types of meals that would work well for freezing.

The second consideration was storage and identifying a system that would be portable and also not require a lot of space in the freezer.  A bit of research pointed us towards Ziploc bags for freezing liquids/soups and disposable tinfoil containers for casserole type meals.  We are still searching for the "perfect" system but generally use a combination of both of these storage systems.

We agreed to swap monthly as that would give everyone approximately 2-3 meals per week each month.  We also decided that at each swap, we would provide the recipes of what we had made and have some discussion as to what we would make next month to avoid duplications and solicit input on the types of meals preferred.  We also agreed that it would be virtually impossible to cater to each family's likes and dislikes so while we are mindful and try to accommodate dislikes when we can, there are no restrictions on ingredients (except the vegetarian meals).

September was the first month for cooking and we swapped meals on September 28/12.  The meals we prepared this month included: Chicken Enchiladas, Shephard's Pie, Meatloaf, Quinoa, Vegetarian Chili, Morroccan Stew, Spaghetti Sauce, Sesame Chicken, Thai Chicken Pizza.

The first meal swap was like Christmas! We were all giddy with excitement as we emptied our coolers and filled them back up with a variety of yummy foods.

In October we made: Squash Soup, Mushroom Risotto, Mexican Lasagna, Chicken Casserole, Spinach & Mushroom Quiche, Shrimp Pasta, Pizza Casserole, Beef Stew,  Meat Lasagna.  For this swap we met at a Thai restaurant and had a nice meal out before swapping in the parking lot!

This month, we did a mini-review of the meals that have gone over well with our families and may be worthwhile repeating and the meals that were less successful.  Popular meals include lasagnas, meatloaf, soups/stews and casseroles.  We learned that pasta has to be defrosted pretty fully before reheating or it will break apart and that sauces made with cornstarch tend to gel when reheated.   The quinoas and risottos did not retain their full flavor or texture and are a bit time intensive, so not likely the best return on our efforts.

So far, we've had a few hiccups: One group member has a freezer malfunction which almost resulted in lost food until a kindly neighbor helped out!  This past month, we really struggled to find a date that would work for everyone for a meal swap and as a result, we ended up doing a couple of swaps with limited socializing & fun involved...we're hoping this won't happen too often.

I will try to keep updating this blog with reviews of the meals we've prepared, the lessons we've learned and the fun we are having with our freezer meal swapping - I hope you will keep following along!