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!
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