Impromptu Freezer Cooking Session (light on the cooking)

My friend and her kids came over the other night.  She lives like 3 minutes from me and we just discovered each other about 6 months ago.  Can I tell you how I wish I would have known she was here all along?

I borrowed butter from her the other day.  Which I know doesn't sound exciting but I have lived in my house for 7 years and haven't had a neighbor I could borrow butter from.

I was super excited.

Anyway, she came over and lucky for me, her daughter loves to cook and bake.  So being a good friend I had to think of something for her to do - and she ended up doing this mostly herself with some assistance from me and my daughter.

She made brownie mixes first and then she made brownies.  I made the breakfast burritos while she was making the brownie mixes and then she made coconut baked oatmeal muffins.

And then after they left I made bread kits.

She inspired me.

I decided to have them come over every Sunday night.


 

Breakfast freezer cooking and weekly prepping

This week I knew I had to make some things for the freezer or we would be eating out way too much (like last week).

On Sunday night, I got down to business.

What we did:

• Fluffy Pancakes
• Chocolate Chip Honey Pumpkin Muffins

My daughter really wanted to help me and my boys were also in the kitchen - one playing at the table with toys and the other doing a computer game.

I made the Fluffy Pancake recipe (above) and decided to put maple syrup in the middle of the pancakes while they cooked - just make sure you don't let it drip off of the pancake because it tends to burn.  I did this for two reasons - maple syrup is expensive and they don't have to pour it on their pancakes now and it makes the pancakes sweeter and able to eat on the go.  I made mini ones so they are easier to handle and so that we had more.

 

While I was cooking pancakes, my daughter was measuring ingredients for the muffins (with my help).

We ended up making about 36 or so muffins and I don't even know how many pancakes for the freezer.

Then I went about prepping things for the week.  First I used mini jelly jars and made my homemade trail mix - 1 T. almonds, sunflower seeds, chocolate chips (dark), dried cranberries.

Then I made salads in a jar (just a few) and then I cut up some veggies and put them in a jar with hummus at the bottom (didn't work out really well as the hummus was hard to get to).  Then I put fruit in a jar to make it easy to grab and eat (and that worked out REALLY, REALLY well).

I had been getting away from prepping things on Sunday night and I really need to stick with it because it makes the week so much better.

Today I also made Baked Oatmeal cups so we could also freeze some of those.  I usually do the peanut butter ones but today I did cinnamon coconut baked oatmeal and the kids still really liked it.  My kids love these but they only will eat it if I do them in muffin cups instead of in a 9 x 13 in. pan.  Silly children.


 

Impromptu Freezer Breakfast Session

I needed to go grocery shopping and I was trying to think of how I could save some money and then it hit me - I have 50 lbs. of spelt in a bucket, I should use it.  I have a grain grinder so I used that to grind the spelt and experimented with it.  It does well in quick breads and muffins.  I did use some all purpose flour in the yeast recipes and they turned out yummy.

I just did this throughout the day as I did other things.  The bread machine works well without me so that is something that I can do and just let it go while it mixes up the dough.  I always bake my bread in the oven though.

Here are the recipes that I used:

Blender Batter Waffles
Chocolate Chip Honey Pumpkin Muffins
English Muffins in the Bread Machine
My Favorite Homemade Bread!

 

My waffle maker - it makes thinner waffles - easier to put in the toaster

Miss M helped me make the English Muffins

Most of the food (minus one plate of English muffins)

By far the favorite item that I made.  They always go quickly.

Do you have any favorite breakfast freezer recipes?

 

Breakfast Freezer Cooking Session

This week I decided I would do a "quicker" freezer cooking session of breakfasts.  I told my husband ahead of time and he was happy to help me by doing dishes and watching the kiddos - but I ended up doing most of it while he was running an errand so he cleaned the bigger bathroom for me instead which made me very happy.

I usually try to keep my kitchen stocked with basic supplies so I had everything on hand.  I also have my master muffin mix on hand and we actually only ever make the chocolate chip pumpkin muffins because EVERYONE likes those.

My list:

• Blender Batter Waffles
• Cooked bacon (*I didn't get to this)
• OAMC French toast sticks (for the freezer)
• Muffins - Using variations from the Master Muffin Mix from Home Joys with more variations

I started after breakfast.  My 5 year old daughter really loves helping in the kitchen and she honestly helped me a lot.  I used yesterday to teach her how to crack an egg and how to get egg shells out of said egg.

Making muffins - I use the reusable silicone muffin liners

I also use the blender batter waffle recipe - I never do the overnight soaking thing and lately I have been using oat groats because I have them on hand.

 I love my waffle maker because it makes 4 smaller thinner waffles which are great to put in the toaster oven straight from the freezer!

Here are the totals - 25 waffles, 17 muffins, 10 pieces of french toast and 25 french toast sticks.

I love having homemade breakfasts in the freezer.  It has taken a lot of trial and error to figure out the best breakfasts to make and freeze that the whole family will eat - but this list is a hit with everyone.

My advice to pull this off :

• Have an empty dishwasher and clean kitchen before you start.
• Get all ingredients and small appliances you are going to use out and on the table.
• Wash and reuse bowls, cups and spoons as you go so you don't have a kitchen full of dirty dishes when you are done.

I plan on making Monday my "make ahead day".  Next week I think I will do mixes.

I would encourage you to do this small version of freezer cooking once a week.  Think about how much this would have cost me if I had bought this at the store - even on sale Eggo waffles are about $1.50 to $2.50 and the ingredients are not nearly as healthy as mine and they come in a pack of 10.  

This post linked to Money Saving Mom's Frugal Photo Friday and Tammy's Recipes - Kitchen Tip Tuesday.

 

Lunchbox Freezer Cooking - English muffin mini pizzas (Day 1)

Crystal @ Money Saving Mom is doing a lunchbox freezer cooking series.  I thought I would participate so I would be motivated to get some more things in the freezer.   Today I am doing English muffin mini pizzas.  I had all of the ingredients on hand.

If you aren't familiar with them - you just take English muffins (I used whole wheat) and split them in half.  Cover them with sauce and whatever toppings you like, top them with cheese.  I pre-bake mine at 350 for 10 minutes and then flash freeze them.  When you want to make them from the freezer, just take them out frozen and bake at 350 for 15 minutes.

Easy peasy!

Aunt Celia's Peanut Butter Pie

Don't you love church cookbooks?  I do!  I especially love a certain church cookbook that I have.  It is from my husband's church growing up, which I also attended for quite a while.  I love this book because several of my husband's family members go there so their recipes are in the book.

This one I am sharing is from his Aunt Celia.  I personally think she is a great cook. Thanks, Celia for the great recipe.

Peanut Butter Pie

3 oz. of cream cheese, softened
1/2 c. peanut butter (smooth or crunchy)
8 oz. Cool Whip
1 c. powdered sugar
graham cracker crust or baked pie crust
chocolate syrup

Beat together cream cheese and peanut butter.  Fold Cool Whip and powdered sugar into cream cheese and peanut butter mixture.  Spread into crust.  Freeze.  Remove from freezer 30 minutes before serving.  Drizzle chocolate syrup over pie before cutting.

Hope you like it!

 

4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer - Versatile Beef Mix

Hello again!  I did another freezer meal that can be for both lunch and dinner.  It is one of my favorite easy to make freezer meals.  It is my Versatile Beef Mix.  With it I am able to make some little meatballs, some mini meatloaves and some Salisbury steak.

This time I made dinner for us using the Salisbury steak and then I made 5 extra patties for the freezer.  I then made meatballs and little meatloaves to be used for lunches or I can use the meatballs for spaghetti.

They don't look real pretty but they taste very good.  I even used homemade bread crumbs this time.  I had some crust in my freezer and I just threw it in our Vitamix and made my own.  I keep thinking I need to get out my food processor to do it but I forget about the Vitamix which is handier and easier to get out since we use it a lot for smoothies.

4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer: Peanut Butter & Jelly Sandwiches

I am behind posting because my computer only works about a third of the time and it is now being fixed (hopefully).  I made the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches one day while I was making dinner and of course they were super easy - see Crystal's tutorial here.

I try to use all natural bread, peanut butter and jelly - meaning no HFCS in any of the ingredients.  My kids don't love all natural peanut butter so I get natural that has sugar but doesn't have HFCS - baby steps right?

Did you do any freezer cooking this last week?

4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer, Day 4

You can see my original plan here. Finally the waffles are done. 

My favorite waffle recipe - Blender Batter Waffles

I used half oat groats and half wheat berries this time.  I don't do the overnight thing though - I just make them all at once.  I also added chocolate chips to some of them because my oldest loves them.

The kids were doing some school work while I did waffles.

I ended up with 20 waffles.  I tripled the recipe.  I really like my waffle iron because it makes these smaller, flatter waffles which are easier to toast in the toaster.  We love them!  I try to buy maple syrup but when cost is a factor I make my own syrup which is cheaper than buying the syrup in the stores anyway.

Now onto lunches!

Did you do any freezer cooking this last week?

4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer, Day 3

You can see my original plan here.  I almost forget to tell you about this very cool machine that my friend had.  You see I had lots of oat groats

 And I didn't want to have to go buy a ton of oatmeal  so I was talking with my friend who has the coolest kitchen tools (Hi, Nicole - she doesn't read my blog but I am still saying hi to her).  She told me she had a flaker.  It is part of the Bosch family and you can buy it along with the Bosch mixer.  And it is so cool to watch!  So I took a bunch of my oat groats over to her house and we flaked some groats.  Yes, we need serious help.

That is how I got my oatmeal flakes to use for my granola.  Aren't you glad I told you that story?

Then my daughter and I whipped up two giant batches of granola - Almond Coconut Granola and Peanut butter granola.  She loves to help me in the kitchen and she is getting better all the time.

I bought these gigantic bowls at a garage sale last year and I am so glad I did.  They come in handy every once in a while like today.  The granola is still baking as we speak.   I took some of it out to sample and it tastes pretty good.  I am not sure exactly how much I will get but it will be about 40 cups worth!

Tomorrow - waffles!

 

4 weeks to fill your freezer, Day 2

I am a day behind because, well, I'm just a day behind.  Today I did some Homemade Breakfast sandwiches.  You can see my original plan here.  I was able to make 9 today.  I had my usual helpers:

 I am going to get more eggs tonight so I will make more tomorrow and I also plan to do my granola too.

 

Freezer Cooking - Breakfast Week 1, Day 1 Wrap Up

Wow, that was a long title right?  Anyway, I am posting my wrap up of what I accomplished today.

My goal:  Using the master muffin mix, make 12 breakfast muffins, 12 Peanut Butter and Jelly muffins, 12 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, 12 blueberry streusel muffins. 

I was able to use the muffin mix to make all of the above and I still have muffin mix left over!  I really recommend that mix.  The muffins were really good.  I also was able to get about 16-18 muffins from each recipe instead of just 12.  I had a little "help" along the way.

With the mix it made making the muffins very easy.  I used just one bowl and washed it each time so there wasn't much clean up.

 

Back at the freezer cooking - Breakfast time

It has been a while since I did a big session of freezer cooking.  I just don't see that in my 8 weeks away from having baby number 4 future.  On the other hand I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE having food in my freezer for convenience sake so here is what I am doing.

• We have restarted our freezer cooking club but it only includes four members this time.  I have at least 4 meals per month that are in my freezer from that.
• I am doing a few things on the weekends or after the kids are asleep to keep in the freezer such as making more waffles or making homemade mixes.
• I am doubling up on meals when I can. - not actually whole meals but parts of meals like making extra beef and bean mixture when I made brown bag burritos for cooking club last week.
• In May, Money Saving Mom is challenging us to fill our freezers together in the 4 Weeks to Fill Your Freezer Challenge.  

She will be cooking or baking something every weekday and blogging about it.  She will be tackling breakfasts the first week, lunches the second week, dinners the third week, and snacks and desserts the fourth week.

Honestly, I had planned to do this anyway, but I might as well follow along right?  I will have to come up with my own plan because I now know what we really like from the freezer and what we really don't so I will be doing what works best for us.

Here is this week's plan - Breakfasts!

Monday - Make up Master Muffin Mix to be able to quickly put together several different types of muffins for the freezer.  This involved grinding my wheat and then throwing the rest of the ingredients together.  - Really easy, you could do this!  DONE

Tuesday - Using the master muffin mix, make 12 breakfast muffins, 12 Peanut Butter and Jelly muffins, 12 pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, 12 blueberry streusel muffins.  

Wednesday - Homemade Breakfast sandwiches!

Thursday - Make up Almond Coconut Granola or Peanut butter granola to be used on yogurt or in milk

Friday -  Taking a break

Saturday - Making lots of Blender Batter Waffles

There you have my freezer cooking breakfast plans.  What are your favorite breakfast items to make and freeze?  It might not be too late to add something.

Freezer Cooking - Artisan Bread in 5 Minutes a Day

I love, love, love Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day.  Did I mention that I love it - it is so easy and really delicious.  Its only downfall is that, you know, it has white flour instead of wheat but sometimes easy and homemade just work even if they aren't full of nutrients.  Someday I will make a quick and easy wheat bread but that day is not today.

If you want the master recipe you can find it here.  (*A note about the recipe:  if you use regular table salt - HALF IT!  I only use 1 T. of salt anyway.)  It is so easy to mix up.  I usually do two batches and then I form my loaves.  Below is a picture of when I made 6 loaves and then cut them in half and slathered them with a garlic herb butter (that I just mixed up).  I put them back together and wrapped them in foil and froze them. 

When I needed to use them I just pulled them out and cooked them in the foil at 350 for about 20 minutes or until it was heated through and lightly toasted.

I made more yesterday and decided that since I had the ingredients out I would go ahead and make some loaves but then I would also mix up some "Artisan bread mixes".  I just took a gallon size freezer bag, put in the dry ingredients and wrote "-just add 3 cups of lukewarm water" on each of the bags.

I was wanting my younger kids to be able to mix it up themselves, now they can!  They can just pull the bag from the freezer and dump it in the big container that I use for this bread.  Then they only have to measure out the 3 cups of warm water, dump it in and mix!

If you haven't tried this bread I highly recommend it.  It is easy and delicious.  If you have tried it - what do you think and what other things have you done with it?



 

Homemade Uncrustables Explained and How to make Homemade Croutons

I put homemade uncrustables on my menu plan for a while now.  I have tried it several ways.  If you don't take the crust off when you thaw the sandwiches the crust gets really, really hard.  At one point my friend, Ma, commented that she did not want to waste the crust so, this is for you Ma!

I decided to try this since seeing it out there - making uncrustables and then making croutons with the crust.

I don't have a fancy Pampered Chef cutter so I just got out our cookie cutters (the metal ones work best) and let the kids cut out shapes of the bread.  My stepmom had given me a free loaf of potato bread so we used that.

After cutting out the shapes I spread peanut butter over them (you can add jelly or jam too) and then I laid them on a cookie sheet to flash freeze.  Once frozen I put them in a container.  To serve you just put them in a bag in your kids lunch or set them in the fridge in the morning if you want to eat them by lunch time.  **If you have a peanut allergy I have heard that sunflower butter can be used instead.

After we made the sandwiches I cut the crusts up with my kitchen scissors.  I put the cut up crust into a Ziplock gallon size bag and drizzled it with olive oil and just shook some garlic salt and Italian seasoning onto them.  I baked them at 350 for 15 minutes, cooled and store them in a Ziplock bag in the cabinet.  They tasted pretty good.

I do make these sandwiches with my homemade bread but I haven't tried making the croutons with them yet, but I will now since it was pretty easy.