Homemade Macaroni and Cheese

Slowly but surely I have been working on replacing some of our favorite processed foods with homemade versions.  With two young kids, macaroni and cheese was a must.  Now, I have to admit.......this is a kid's only recipe in our house.  My husband and I are not big fans - we just LOVE Kraft Mac & Cheese way too much.  But the girls.....love it and would eat it every day if we allowed it.   This recipe is adapted from Deceptively Delicious: Simple Secrets to Get Your Kids Eating Good Food.

Here's what you'll need.......

*Box of Pasta - I usually use Rotini or Penne
*Nonstick cooking spray.
*1 Tbsp olive oil.
*1 Tbsp Flour - White or Wheat, I've used both
*1/2 cup Milk.
*1/2 - 1 cup of pureed sweet potato or pureed butternut squash - When I started with the recipe, I used just 1/2 cup but now use 1 cup.  It will turn out just fine either way but I figure with 1 cup, I get even more veggies into the meal!
*1 - 1 1/2 cups of cheddar cheese - Since I have added more of the veggie puree, I usually do 1 1/2 cups but, again, it will be fine on the lower end as well.
*4oz of cream cheese.
*salt and pepper to taste

Directions......
*Cook the pasta according to the package.
*The sauce can be a bit demanding so I usually start after the pasta has been cooked.
*Coat a saucepan with cooking spray.
*Once the saucepan has heated up, add the olive oil. 
*Add the flour and stir constantly for about a minute or two.  This part can be a bit delicate because you want it to be like a thick paste but not too long that it starts to brown.
*Add the milk and stir constantly for about 2 to 3 minutes until it begins to thicken. 
*Add the veggie puree, cream cheese, shredded cheddar cheese, salt and pepper.  Stir until all the cheese has melted.
*Pour the pasta into the sauce and stir together.

As you might imagine, this is not just lunch for the day.  I'm able to fill 3 or 4 small containers and throw them in the freezer for later!

We Made Freezer Corn.....Year Two!!

Over the weekend, I got together with my mom and grandma and made some freezer corn!
Last year we had a little help from Cailynn but this year...........

Papa was home and the girls wanted nothing to do with freezer corn!


So we went to work....just the three of us!  And we stepped it up a bit this year with 115 ears of corn (just 48 ears last year)!!  It took us all day but we ended up with around 40 bags of freezer corn!

Here's the recipe in case you are interested:
*8 cups raw corn
*1 cup water
*1 Tbsp salt
*1 Tbsp sugar
*1 stick (1/2 cup) margarine

Use large, heavy sauce pan and cook on high until it boils. Once it boils, cook for about 3 minutes. Make sure you are stirring the entire time. Cool quickly.

Can you believe that this is just one year apart!
We did make quite a bit more corn this year but I didn't want to drag it all out for the picture!

Freezer Meal Friday: Six Layer Mexican Casserole

Since joining a freezer meal swap with friends, I've tried quite a few freezer recipes. Some were flops while others were a success. Some took hours and required ingredients that had never been in my cabinets (and probably never would be again). The goal of Freezer Meal Friday is to offer simple freezer recipes with simple, everyday ingredients. Today's recipe is from my friend Kristi.  We had it this week and it was yummy!!

Ingredients:
*Can of tomatoes with green chilies
*1 cup white rice
*3/4 tsp oregano
*1 tsp cumin
*1 1/2 cups chicken stock
*2 Tbsp butter
*1/2 tsp garlic salt
*1lb ground beef
*1 pkg taco seasoning
*Can of refried beans
*1 cup Mexican shredded cheese
*Fritos

Prep/Freezing Instructions:
::Layer 1: Melt 1 Tbsp butter in sauce pan, add rice and brown for 3 minutes.  Add can of tomatoes with green chilies, 3/4 tsp oregano, 1 tsp cumin, 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, 1/2 tsp garlic salt and bring to a boil.  Cover and reduce heat to low, simmer 15-20 minutes.

::Layer 2: Brown 1lb ground beef and drain.  Add taco seasoning and cook as per package.

::Layer 3: Mix can of refried beans and 1 Tbsp melted butter in food processor.

::Layer 4: 1 cup Mexican shredded cheese.

Cooking Instructions:
::Thaw.
::Pour salsa over cheese.
::Bake in 350 degree oven for 45 minutes with foil loosely over top.
::Add Fritos and serve.

Interested in more freezer cooking recipes? Check out other recipes in Freezer Meal Fridays!

Freezer Meal Friday: Batch Cooking Guest Post

While I absolutely LOVE freezer cooking, I certainly don't end up with a month's worth of meals.  I cook enough for my meal swap each month and occasionally make a double batch when I'm cooking dinner.  Kelly, over at Kansas City Mamas, shares an alternative........batch cooking! 

Batch cooking:  When you batch cook, you cook certain meal ingredients (usually meat) ahead of time so that you can assemble meals quickly in the evening.

Crock Pot Taco Chicken.
Throw 3-6 lbs of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breast in the Crock Pot. Sprinkle with taco seasoning (1 packet for every pound to pound-and-a-half of meat) and turn on high. Let cook for six to eight hours or until meat is tender and can be shredded. Separate meat into 1 lb. portions and place in ziploc bags (or other storage containers) and freeze.

Good For: Chicken Enchiladas, Tacos, Nachos, Quesadillas, Taco Soup, or Southwestern Salad.

Crock Pot Chicken Breast.
Throw 3-6 lbs of frozen boneless, skinless chicken breast in the Crockpot. Sprinkle with chicken bullion (1 tsp for every pound to pound-and-a-half of meat) and turn on high. Let it cook for six to eight hours or until meat is tender and can be shredded. Separate meat into 1 lb. portions and place in ziploc bags (or other storage containers) and freeze.

Good For: Chicken Noodle Soup, Buffalo Chicken Dip, and pretty much anything that calls for canned chicken.

Crock Pot Beans/Chickpeas/Etc.
(Seriously, dried beans are SO much better than canned. And with the Crock Pot they are easy too.)

Rinse one pound of dried beans and sort out any duds from the group. Throw beans into Crock Pot. Pour enough water to cover beans and then add another inch or so of water. Turn on high and cook for six hours. Check on beans every now and again to make sure they have enough water. Once they are tender, either drain water and put a cup and a half in a ziploc bag or put beans/water in a cup and a half increments in ziploc storage container and freeze.

Good For: Side dishes, chili, taco soup (see above chicken), hummus, etc.

Ground Beef.
Cook as usual. Drain grease and place one pound increments in ziplocs and freeze.

Good For: Tacos, Spaghetti, or anything that calls for ground hamburger.

Interested in more freezer cooking recipes? Check out other recipes in Freezer Meal Fridays!

Kelly blogs over at Kansas City Mamas.  She is a "self-described foodie who loves a good bargain, a good glass of wine, and beautiful things. (And not necessarily in that order.)"

Freezer Meal Friday: Baked Parmesan Meatballs

Since joining a freezer meal swap with friends, I've tried quite a few freezer recipes. Some were flops while others were a success. Some took hours and required ingredients that had never been in my cabinets (and probably never would be again). The goal of Freezer Meal Friday is to offer simple freezer recipes with simple, everyday ingredients.  Today's recipe is from the back of the Kraft Parmesan Cheese canister!  I procrastinated and didn't decide on what recipe I would use until my parmesan cheese arrived last week. 

Ingredients:
*1lb ground beef
*1/2 cup grated parmesan cheese
*1/4 cup chopped fresh parsley
*1 egg
*1 clove garlic, minced
*jar of spaghetti sauce
*pasta

Prep/Freezing Instructions:
*Mix meat, cheese, parsley, egg and garlic.
*Shape into 12 meatballs and place into baking pan.
*Pour spaghetti sauce on top.
*Cover with plastic wrap and aluminum foil and freeze.

Cooking Instructions:
*Thaw in fridge.
*Preheat oven at 375 and bake for 25 minutes.
*While the meatballs are baking, cook pasta.
*Add  your pasta to the sauce........spaghetti and meatballs!

Interested in more freezer cooking recipes? Check out other recipes in Freezer Meal Fridays!

Freezer Meal Friday: Grilled Chicken and Potato Foil Packs

Since joining a freezer meal swap with friends, I've tried quite a few freezer recipes. Some were flops while others were a success. Some took hours and required ingredients that had never been in my cabinets (and probably never would be again). The goal of Freezer Meal Friday is to offer simple freezer recipes with simple, everyday ingredients!  Today's recipe is one that I made last summer for my meal swap group.  Since I know some of you are getting your grills out, I thought I would share one for the grill!  If you don't have a grill, you can cook it in your oven!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1/4 cup cider vinegar
2 Tbsps garlic powder
2 tsp black pepper
1 tsp salt
1 tsp dried basil
1 tsp dried thyme
4 skinless, boneless chicken breasts
4 large potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
1-2 large onions, cut into 1/4 inch thick slices
1-2 large green peppers, cut into 1/4 inch strips
2 cups sliced button mushrooms

Prep/Freezing Instructions:
*Stir together vegetable oil, vinegar, garlic powder, black pepper, salt, basil, and thyme.
*Pour half of the mixture in a baggie with the chicken breasts to marinate overnight.
*Cut aluminum foil into 12x12 squares.  Place the chicken in the center of each square and add potatoes and veggies.  Ladle the rest of the sauce onto each chicken/veggie.
*Fold the foil around the ingredients to seal it and place in freezer bag.

Cooking Instructions:
*Thaw in fridge overnight.  Place on a plate or baking sheet in case it leaks.
*Grill or bake until cooked through - about 30-45 minutes.

This recipe (and the picture) was adapted from AllRecipes.com!

Interested in more freezer cooking recipes? Check out other recipes in Freezer Meal Fridays!

Freezer Meal Friday: Beef Stroganoff

Photo Credit: Cooking For Engineers.

Since joining a freezer meal swap with friends, I've tried quite a few freezer recipes. Some were flops while others were a success. Some took hours and required ingredients that had never been in my cabinets (and probably never would be again). The goal of Freezer Meal Friday is to offer simple freezer recipes with simple, everyday ingredients!  This recipe comes from Girlfriends on the Go - A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals!  This cookbook has very simple recipes with everyday ingredients!

Ingredients:
*1/3 cup flour
*2 cups milk
*2 tsp beef bouillon granules
*1 lb stew meat
*1/2 packet of dry onion soup mix
*1 bay leaf
*1/2 cup water
*2 cups sour cream
*package of egg noodles

Prep/Freezing Instructions:
*Warm 1 1/2 cups of milk in a saucepan.  In a mixing bowl, add flour and beef bouillon. 
*Gradually add the remaining milk and stir until there are no lumps. 
*Slowly add it to the warm milk in the saucepan.  Stir constantly over medium heat and bring the sauce to a low boil.  Allow it to boil for one minute while stirring.
*Remove saucepan from the stove and add the rest of the ingredients (except the sour cream) to the sauce.
*Cool and place in a freezer bag. 

Cooking Instructions:
*Thaw in the fridge.
*Pour in a slow cooker for 6 hours on low heat or until the meat is tender.
*Add sour cream just before serving. 
*Serve over noodles.

Interested in more freezer cooking recipes? Check out other recipes in Freezer Meal Fridays!

Simply Organized: Meal Swap - Freezer Cooking with a Twist

For a long time, I really disliked cooking.  I was convinced that I just wasn't meant to be a cook. Then, one night, I was up late making a meal for a friend on bedrest and, when I finished, I wasn't crabby! Well, it turns out that I do, in fact, enjoy cooking. What I don't enjoy is cooking while my three year old is begging me to color with her and my one year old wants me to pick her up.

I decided it was time to give freezer cooking a try.  One thing led to another and a few friends and I started up our own meal swap!

What is a Meal Swap?
It's exactly how it sounds! We get together and swap meals! There are six of us in our group.  We each pick a freezable meal and make 6. Then, we get together, swap meals, and go home with 6 different meals.

What do you make?
Since we didn't want to come home from the meal swap with 6 different versions of lasagna, we decided to create 6 different categories that we rotate.

*American/European
*Breakfast for Dinner
*Chili/Soup/Stew
*Italian/Mediterranean
*Indian/Asian/Eastern
*Southwest/Mexican

How do you stay within your budget?
1) Use your stockpile: Look through your cupboards and then decide what you're making. If you pick a recipe before you check out your stockpile, you may end up needing to buy everything.

2) Plan ahead:  Because we have a rotation, I know which category I have for each month. I went through and decided on the meal that I would make within each category. I made a list with the ingredients I will need for each meal and I pick them up as they go on sale.

Where do I find freezer recipes?
While I have found that many of the recipes I already used freeze well, I have used a few freezer cookbooks.

Don't Panic - Dinner's in the Freezer: Great-Tasting Meals You Can Make Ahead.Girlfriends on the Go - A Busy Mom's Guide to Make-Ahead Meals.

Guest Post: I Don't Really Meal Plan....

....I Plan Quick Ways to Make a Meal

Guest Post by Sarah of Sarah's Deals

Okay, I'm going to attempt to better explain the way my family eats. I don't menu plan. Never have. We are also not a casserole family....not often anyway. Several years ago I put a lot of time into researching methods for quick, easy, balanced meals. I utilize my freezer and pantry space to the max to make this work for us. Some families prefer to cook from scratch and I'm sure that there are ways to make that easier too....like an afternoon of preping and freezing every couple weeks.

What I've come up with works well for us, this will not be the case for everyone. Each family is different, but maybe one or two meals a week planned this way will take some of the strain off if you are time crunched and always seem to be behind. I've managed to make this work for us after several years. It didn't happen overnight, but with this as a guide, maybe you can make something work for you.

I do some prep work and have my freezer and pantry set up for 20 minute and under meals. Dinners typically include a meat, a pasta or bread, and one or two veggies. Lunches are usually a meat/cheese, bread/pasta and fruit or veggies. Breakfast is usually cereal/pop tarts/toast and sometimes fruit. Snacks throughout the day are sometimes junk food, often fruits/veggies/pretzels/tortilla chips/granola bars.

You've already seen in this post the end result when I bulk cook hamburger. This hamburger can be quickly added to many things without the time to cook it. Some of my staple hamburger uses:

Hamburger Helper

Spaghetti (meat dumped in sauce to warm up)

Taco Meat

Goulash Sloppy Joes

Added to the few casseroles I do make

Chicken is typically purchased in bulk on sale, then put into bags with the marinade, then placed in the freezer. When we are having chicken for dinner, it comes out of the freezer in the morning, is placed in the fridge to thaw through the day and the meat marinates as it thaws.

I purchase 5# of precooked and pressed ham at Walmart for $7.88. I have the deli thick slice it for me (they do this as a free service), and I take it home and package it for individual meals. I get 8-9 meals worth of meat out of each package. These can thaw in the fridge, or since they are precooked, I can dip them in warm water and have them just thawed enough to pull part for cooking after 2 minutes!

I detailed the meat above because that is the largest amount of my prep/planning time most weeks.

To go along with the meat, we keep on hand:

Canned/frozen/fresh veggies

Canned/fresh fruit

Boxed/fresh potatos

Boxed/bagged pasta

Canned/jar sauces

Frozen/fresh/packaged rolls/bread

Canned soups

For smaller meals and snacks I keep on hand:

Chicken nuggets/fish sticks

Frozen pizza

Frozen fries/potatos

Chips/pretzels

Salsa/dips

Cheese sticks

Hot dogs/balogna/smoked sausage/lunchmeat

Mac and Cheese

and much more!

I take a visual inventory of my pantry every week. When I'm beginning to get low on something, I start watching for it to go on sale again. I often have enough alternatives that we can eat well even if we go without one particular item for a couple weeks. We are often just as happy with plain buttered noodles instead of Pasta Roni.

So, what's for dinner? Whatever we want....and it can usually be prepared in under 20 minutes and many times about 10.

My Thoughts: I do a combination of menu plan and Sarah's plan.  I like to get an idea of what I have for the week and then I decide in the morning what we are having for the evening.  It is so helpful to have meals frozen and ready to go or to have part of the cooking prepared ahead of time.  What do you do in your household?

Sarah helps others save money at Sarah's Deals.  She is a part time working mother of two who likes to share deals, frugal tips, inexpensive crafts and many other ideas. She has been clipping coupons for over eight years and sharing the adventure through blogging for almost two.

Guest Post: What I Do With Bulk Hamburger

Guest Post by Sarah of Sarah's Deals

It's hard to plan a full menu for our family with the way we come and go every week. My husband works Monday-Friday from 8-4 with occassional evening and weekend hours and takes and teaches some Karate various nights of the week. My son goes to school Monday-Friday from 8-3:15 and takes Karate on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. My daughter goes to preschool Monday/Wednesday/Friday from 9:15-11:45. And I work 3-5 nights or weekend days each week.

I precook and preprep a lot of stuff. We also rely on prepackaged items to make this all work. We utilize fresh, frozen and canned fruits and vegetables to round out our meals. We usually only end up sitting down for dinner as a family 2 nights a week and occassionally sneak in a breakfast or lunch family meal as well.

I'm posting some pictures for you to see how I spent one hour this morning preparing and cooking items that will make it easier for us to get by. This mornings adventure centered around the five pounds of hamburger I purchased last week at Walmart for $6.50. All other items came out of my pantry. The oats were a free after coupon purchase back in July that have been waiting for a day like this. The onion has been in the house for awhile as well and the eggs were purchased at Family Fare when they were on sale for $.99 and with a gift card.

I started with a plan for Meatloaf and just cooking down the remaining hamburger for use in other things later.

I put half of the roll into the pan.

I put the other half into the bowl and mixed it up with the other Meatloaf ingredients.

Then I just portioned it out into the pans I use and put it in gallon size zipper bags, removed as much air as possible, and put one in the fridge for tomorrow night and one in the freezer for next week.

Then I decided to make Goulash as well, so I pulled a box of elbow macaroni (free from Meijer earlier this year), tomato sauce ($.78 @ Walmart), tomato paste $.38 from Walmart) and other ingreidients out of the pantry.

Since I don't do Meatloaf very often, the pan doesn't look as full as it normally does when I do the full five pounds, but this is the hamburger cooking down. The pan was purchsed from Bed Bath and Beyond with coupons and a rebate for the final price of $3.90. They've put it on sale a couple times since I purchased mine, so keep an eye out for one. It has made bulk cooking a breeze.

After I drained the hamburger and the macaroni, I put the macaroni in the hamburger pan because there is more room to mix the extra ingerdients for the Goulash.

After adding the hamburger into the Goulash, I pulled containers out of my cupboard and set aside a family portion for the freezer and lunch portions for our lunches over the next week or two.

After the Meatloaf and Goulash were prepared, I still had enough hamburger left over to set aside two portions for the freezer. These will come out to be added to sauce for spaghetti, hamburger helper or lasagne, or they will be later turned into taco meat. Having them already cooked saves a lot of time later.

My Thoughts: Ever since I discovered freezer cooking and preparing in bulk, I have been addicted!  For me, it takes the stress out of trying to figure out what to make or to cook while the girls are in need of my attention.  I am able to do the preparations in the evening or on the weekend. 

Sarah helps others save money at Sarah's Deals.  She is a part time working mother of two who likes to share deals, frugal tips, inexpensive crafts and many other ideas. She has been clipping coupons for over eight years and sharing the adventure through blogging for almost two.

Meal Swap Cooking....Complete!

This month's category: Mexican

I decided to make Beef and Cheese Burritos!  My friend made these for us when we did our freezer cooking day in March and they were tasty!


Ingredients:(8) 8-10 inch flour tortillas
1.5 cups shredded cooked beef, chicken or pork
1 cup bottled salsa
(1) can of refried beans
2 cups shredded cheddar cheese or Monterey Jack cheese
shredded lettuce (optional)
dairy sour cream (optional)
bottled salsa (optional)


Directions:

1) Preheat oven to 400. Wrap tortillas in foil; heat in the preheated oven about 8 minutes or until heated through. Meanwhile, in a medium bowl stir together shredded bef and the 1 cup salsa.

2)To assemble, spread 2 tablespoons refined beans on each tortilla. Top bean dip with 1/4 cup beef mixture near one edge. Top beef mixture with 1/4 cup cheese. Fold in the sides of tortilla and roll up, starting from the edge with the filling. Place filled tortillas, seam sides down, in a greased 3 quart rectangular baking dish.

3)Bake, uncovered, in the preheated oven about 20 minutes or until heated through. If desired, serve with lettuce, sour cream, and additional salsa. Makes 8 servings.


This was by far my easiest meal swap meal!  It took me only an hour and half start to finish (including cleaning up) to make 6 meals!



It seems that I learn something with each meal I make.  This month, I learned that it is important to read the serving size before making the grocery list and heading to the store.  For our meal swap, we make our meals into 4 servings.  Well, I bought enough to make 12 meals!!  I did end up making 8 meals with the ingredients - we had one on Monday, I plan to freeze another one for later, and I'm going to bring the other extra one to a friend. As for the extra ingredients, I plan on freezing the extra taco shells that I bought.  The rest of the ingredients can be used in other recipes!

We added rice, corn, and some fruit to our dinner when we ate it!  Yum!

I Made Freezer Jam!!

Remember that GREAT deal on strawberries at Meijer last week? Of course you do! Well, I decided to buy a bunch and make freezer jam! It has been a busy weekend so I ended up going with the recipe that doesn't require cooking the strawberries (came with the package of Sure-Jell - super easy). I do plan to try the recipe (thanks, Tess) that does require cooking the strawberries with the next great sale to compare!

Cailynn was my helper and, as you can see in the picture above, she was all decked out in that Dora nightgown from the mom to mom sale! She had insisted on wearing it for nap and didn't want to take it off afterwards! Anyways, back to freezer jam! I was absolutely amazed at how simple it is to make! And it only requires 4 ingredients: strawberry, sugar, water, and pectin (Sure-Jell or other brand).

Start by crushing the strawberries or as Cailynn calls it "punching" the strawberries.

The recipe called for 2 cups of crushed strawberries which required just a little more than a container.

Once we had finished "punching" the strawberries, we added 4 cups (yes, 4 cups, I was shocked!) of sugar into the bowl with the strawberries and mix.  Since it was my first time making this recipe, I didn't want to make any changes but I may use less sugar the next time...wow!

While the strawberries and sugar sat for about 10 minutes, I mixed the package of pectin and water and brought it to a boil.  Read the directions from the package to get the specific instructions. 

Once it finished boiling for a minute, I stirred it in with the strawberry/sugar mix and stirred for about 3 minutes.  Then I poured it into some containers!  I thought that I was going to have to buy glass containers but I found out that plastic containers work just fine!  Yay!

Not too bad for my first time making freezer jam!  The recipe said to let it stand, room temperature for 24 hours.  I can't wait to see how it tastes tomorrow!

What did you do with all of those strawberries?

Meal Swap Cooking....Complete!

Chicken Tetrazzini

Photo Courtesy of $5 Dinners.com

I got the recipe for this meal from Erin over at $5 Dinners.com!  This is a great site to find recipes that cost under $5 and are healthy!

Here's a peek into my meal swap cooking evening!

Getting started!  For 6 meals, I spent under $25!! 

How did I do that?  A little planning....I bought the chicken a few weeks ago when it was on sale.  Used butter and pasta from my stockpile (butter = FREE, pasta = $.25 each) and I was lucky to get milk for $1.95 and carrots for $.49 at Aldi this week!

My wonderful husband saved me a lot of time by reminding me that our food processor would grate the carrots!  I was planning on using the grater!  Ahhh.....it would have taken forever!

I know I end up dirtying more dishes but I like to have it separated so that I don't get confused!

The final product!  Yum!

So, what did I learn this time around.....

*Meat can be expensive!  When choosing a meal to make, choose a meal that doesn't have meat as the main ingredient.  For this recipe, only 2 chicken breasts were used for each meal.  If I made a meal with chicken as the main ingredient, I would have needed double the chicken!

For other tips on organizing a meal swap and staying within your budget, go here!

Meal Swap Cooking.....Complete

This month, my Meal Swap category is Soup/Stew so I decided to make Baked Potato Soup.  One of the best things about Meal Swap is that I have been trying new recipes.  The bad thing about Meal Swap is that I have been trying new recipes and it takes me a little longer to figure things out.  Well, it's 1:02 AM and I'm waiting for the soup to cool down so that I can put it in baggies!

So, how did it go?  Well, if you read my earlier post, I had already sent my husband to the store twice, once unneccesarily.  Fortunately he didn't have to make any more trips.  And it was definitely a learning experience.  We attempted to make a batch that was much bigger than our pot.  It was a challenge to get it separated equally and then putting it back together.  Anyways, in the end, it turned out great!  I now have 6 bags of baked potato soup ready to go for our Meal Swap on Thursday!  The best part....getting together with friends, swapping meals, and putting 5 new meals into my freezer!

If you would like to read more about how we organize our Monthly Meal Swap, go here!

Meal Swap Cooking Oops!!

So tonight is my Meal Swap cooking night.  I went to the store today and grabbed the last few things I needed, put the kids to bed, and started washing potatoes for baked potato soup.  As I was washing the potatoes, I realized that I didn't have enough potatoes.  So, my sweet husband ran to the store to buy more potatoes.  He gets back with the potatoes and I have just finished peeling and cubing for the first batch.  Wow, that's a lot of potatoes for 3 meals!  So, its time to start making the rest of it and I'm short on milk.  How can that be?  I went to the store for milk today.  I figured it out and I need 18 cups, not 36.  That's when it hits me.  The recipe is for 8 servings and we make our meals for 4.  I had enough potatoes at the start.  But....I didn't have enough flour.  I had to send Jeff back out!  Oops!  So, I'm still working on the soup.  Hopefully I won't have to send Jeff back out to the store!

Addicted to Freezer Cooking!!

I LOVE freezer cooking!!  Especially freezer cooking with a friend!

I headed over to my friend's house this afternoon, bags packed with ingredients.  We had each picked 3 meals, doubled the recipes, and ended up with 6 meals for our freezers!

Sicilian Casserole
Chicken and Corn Enchiladas
Spinach Stuffed Pasta Shells
Chicken and Dumplings
Meatloaf
Beef and Bean Burritos

And it was so much fun cooking with a friend!  Not only did we get much needed "girl time," we made life easier with ready to go meals!

The only part that is not so much fun......

Meal Swap Preparation - Staying Within Your Budget

The meal swap is organized, now what?  Pick a recipe and buy the ingredients, right? 
Well, not exactly.  You still need to stay within your budget.  This is something that I'm still working on.  Here are some tips to stay within your budget:

*Look through your cupboards and then decide what you're making.  Use your stockpile.  If you pick a recipe before you check out your stockpile, you may end up needing to buy everything.  That is what I did last month....eek!!

*Plan ahead.  Because we have a rotation, I know which category I have for each month.  I went through and decided on the meal that I would make within each category.  I wrote down the ingredients I will need for each and I pick them up as they go on sale.

Stay tuned for more.....Meal Swap Marathon Cooking!

Meal Swaps: Freezer Cooking with a Twist - Organization

For a long time, I really disliked cooking.  Regardless of what my mood was before I started cooking, it was lousy by the time I was done.  I was convinced that I just wasn't meant to be a cook.  Then, one night, I was up late making a meal for a friend on bedrest and, when I was finished, I was still in a good mood.  Well, it turns out that I, do in fact, enjoy cooking.  What I don't enjoy is cooking while a two year old is begging for me to do another puzzle with her and a baby is crying to be held.  So, I knew that I needed to give freezer cooking a try.

I thought it would be fun to get my friends involved.  Maybe we could all get together and cook a few meals at someone's house. I really wasn't sure about the logistics but I wanted to try it with others.  So, I brought the idea up with my Mom's group.  One of my friends had "subbed" in another meal swap so she grabbed the idea and got us organized!

What is a Meal Swap?
It's exactly how it sounds!  We get together and swap meals!  There are six of us in a group and we each pick a meal and make 6.  Then, we get together, swap meals, and go home with 6 different meals.

What do you make?Since we didn't want to come home from the meal swap with 6 different versions of lasagna, we decided to create 6 different categories that we rotate.

*American/European
*Breakfast for Dinner
*Chili/Soup/Stew
*Italian/Mediterranean
*Indian/Asian/Eastern
*Southwest/Mexican

When we first started the meal swap, I was a little apprehensive.  My original thought was that we would all get together and cook.  I wasn't quite sure I wanted to do all the cooking by myself.  How boring!  But, because we make just one meal x6, it didn't take long at all.  I was able to do a lot of prep work all together.  We've only had two meal swaps so far but it has only taken, at most, 3 hours of cooking and preparation.  3 hours, 6 meals, no screaming children.....wonderful!

Get a meal swap started with your own friends!  Its a great excuse to get together and a wondeful help to have six meals sitting in the freezer waiting to be tossed in the oven or warmed up on the stove! 

If you have any questions, please let me know!

Stay tuned for more about getting prepared for a meal swap and staying within your budget!