Freezer Cooking

I've never been a huge fan of cooking! I like the end product but for the longest time I could just never figure out how to keep my family filled up without being in the kitchen *all the time*.

Then a friend posted a link to Once a Month Mom. I had heard about "once a month cooking" before but with 2 very young children I never imagined how I could possibly be able to spend an entire day in the kitchen cooking. But when I looked on this site I realized that you can also do 5 or 10 day freezer meal plans and only need to spend a few *hours* at a time in the kitchen to feed your family for 1 or 2 weeks!

This has been a huge blessing to me and my family! (I relapsed for a couple of weeks after being away and totally regretted it!)

This site has such a wide variety of menus: traditional, whole foods, gluten/dairy free, and more. They also have new menus up every month and this is all FREE! 

My first freezer cooking marathon was the Traditional April 5 day menu. This included Spaghetti bread, sloppy Joes, A slowcooker chicken chili, Chicken foil packets, and Pizza Meatloaf. All of these recipes turned out excellently! I doubled each recipe so that I had 10 meals in my freezer and it took me 1 Naptime of prep. and 1 evening of cooking to complete it. I don't have pictures of everything, but I did capture these beauties!

Assembling the Spaghetti Bread

Yum!

 I used a homemade pizza dough recipe instead of buying bread dough. And I also made it meatless. It would be really good with pizza toppings in it!! My husband wants me to make individual sizes, which would be very convenient if you need a meal on the go!

Assembling the Chicken Foil Packets

These were so delicious. There is stuffing mix, chicken, vegetable, bacon, ranch dressing and cheese all in a convenient little foil! Just throw in the oven and come back a couple hours later and voila! Would be great for singles too! I used frozen chicken breasts and just thawed them ever so slightly so that I could cut them in half. I then used frozen california mixed vegetables. and threw it all in the freezer. So good.

Pizza Meatloaf

 This does not look as good as it tasted....but it was really yummy!

Since then I have been trying to do as much extra cooking as I can once or twice a week. On Saturday I cooked 6 meals in 1 hour! 2 Ham-Pineapple casserole, 2 recipes for Sloppy joes, and A big pot of soup! It is such a relief to not have to cook every day. (For me anyways!)

And here are a few more pictures...

My sweet little boy! Love him!

And a little touch of spring!

linked to Growing Home

              Modest Mom
              Raising Arrows

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

We had a recipe/meal plan idea exchange at a Mom's group that I go to and this was one of the recipes that I decided to try...a little reluctantly, I should add! However, it turned out really great so I thought I would share it.

• Cut up a whole bunch of veggies. I used 1 lg sweet potato, 1 medium white potato, 3 carrots, 1 onion, and 1 cup of diced green pepper (from my freezer stash). You could also use beets, squash, zucchini, etc. (Carrots I cut quite small)
• Toss with oil and cook on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet at 400 for 20-30 min. I found that the carrots took the longest to cook so it would be best to separate them from the others. I had 2 cookie sheets full of veggies.
• I mixed the veggies with 1 can of 4 cheese pasta sauce and put in the fridge for the next day (I have to cook in stages these days)
• Cook your lasagna noodles according to pkg directions.
• Mix 1 container of cottage cheese (I like the lasagna style) or ricotta, 1 egg, and a bunch of cheese.
• Layer in a 9x13 pan: Cooked noodles, Cheese mixture, Vegetable mixture, noodles, cheese, vegetables, noodles, vegetable
• Cook in the oven at 350 for 30-40 min. Then top with some more cheese and bake another 10 or so minutes.

I was really surprised at how much I liked it considering that there is no meat, and veggies that I would have formerly thought very strange to be in a lasagna!

Tasty Tuesday - Cheesy Tuna Tortilla Melts

Today I would like to share a recipe that we recently enjoyed in our home. (I found the recipe in a coupon book for Carnation Milk.) Of course, you do need to like tuna and not everyone does!
But if you are a fish fan, this is really quite delicious.

Ingredients:
4 Large flour tortillas

Filling:
2 cans flaked tuna, drained
3/4 cups salsa
1/2 cup grated cheese

Sauce:
3 Tbsp oil
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, chopped (Or garlic powder)
1 tsp Chili powder
1 tsp paprika (optional)
1 Tbsp Flour
1 Can Fat free Evap Milk
1/4 cup grated cheese

Method
1. Preheat oven 350 F

2. Prepare filling: Combine Tuna, salsa, and cheese in a bowl. Scoop 1/4 of mixture into each of the 4 tortillas. Fold top and bottom of tortilla over filling and roll up. Place seam side down in a baking dish.

3. Prepare Sauce: Heat oil in a large saucepan on medium heat. Add onion and garlic. Cook until tender.
Add chili powder, paprika, and flour. Cook 3 min. stirring often.
Add evap. Milk, bring to boil, lower heat and cook until thickened. 3-5 min.

4. Pour sauce over tortillas in baking dish. Sprinkle with cheese.

5. Bake in preheated oven, 20-25 min.

Voila!

I served the tortillas with a Raspberry Spinach salad.
The dressing was made with about 1 tbsp of Homemade Raspberry/Blackberry jam (A tip from my sister-in-law!), some canola oil and some white vinegar. I then thawed some raspberries from the freezer and topped it all off with pumpkin seeds and sliced almonds. It was quite yummy!

I will also add that this was the first meal that I've actually enjoyed eating in about 2 months! ;-)

I'm Back!!

With Thanksgiving, it has been busy around our home! We were delighted to visit Peter's Parents last weekend, and when we returned, my Mom and Dad were at our home visiting! Add an anniversary in there (2 whole years!) and you have a week full of lots o' love, hugs, and good food! 

I have so many things that I would like to write about that I don't know where to begin!

Since I have been neglecting my blog, I will combine a recipe with a thrift tip!

Make your own Flour Tortillas!!

 (I got this recipe from http://www.hillbillyhousewife.com/flourtortillas.htm)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups white or whole wheat flour or half each
• 1-1/2 teaspoons salt
• 1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder (optional)
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 1 to 1-1/4 cups water
• oil

Method:
1. In a large bowl combine the flour, salt and baking powder.
2. Next cut in the shortening with a fork.
3. When the flour is crumbly, add the water. Stir the dough with your fork until it makes a cohesive ball of dough. You may need to add an extra small spoonful of water if the dough is too dry. Be careful not to add too much though.
4. When the dough forms a ball, knead it about 20 times. Then let it rest in the bowl for about 10 minutes. After it has rested, form it into 10 or 12 equal balls.
5. Roll each ball in a little flour, to coat the outside of it evenly.
6. Place a ball of dough on a clean, well floured surface. Roll the dough out into a a 6 or 7-inch circle. Try to get it as thin as you can. Loosen the tortilla from the rolling surface.
7. Flop it onto a lightly oiled, hot skillet. Cook about 30 seconds, until the under side is dry, with a few brown spots. Flip it and cook the other side the same way. Transfer the cooked tortilla to a plate, and cook the next one.

This recipe makes about a dozen tortillas.

You will likely need half an hour or more to complete this recipe as the rolling takes some practice! However, the savings are worth it. I haven't worked out the cost of home-made tortillas, however just the fact that you don't need to spend an extra 3-4 dollars every time you want tortillas seems to make it appealing!

The taste is better, but the texture isn't exactly like store bought, but I still think they are pretty good. :-)

Let me know what Food things you make to save money! 

If you have written about it on your own blog, 

feel free to share the link to your post in the comment box!

Tasty Tuesday - Vegetable Quinoa

Today I would like to share a recipe that I came across recently from the Company's Coming "Whole Grains" cook book.

We really like to incorporate whole grains into our diet as much as possible, so when I spotted this recipe, I figured I'd give it a try... We *loved* it! And sometimes, good whole grain recipes are hard to come by. The only downside is that quinoa can sometimes be expensive. I might try another grain at some point and see how it turns out! Either way, it makes a really great side dish to round out a meal (gotta have your fibre!) And it is also great if you are hosting a vegetarian guest!

Vegetable Quinoa

Ingredients:
1 tsp Canola Oil
1/2 cup chopped green pepper
1/2 cup chopped onion
1/2 cup finely chopped celery
1/4 cup finely chopped carrot

1 1/4 cups Vegetable cocktail juice (V8 for example)
3/4 cups Water
1/4 tsp Salt
1 cup Quinoa, rinsed and drained
(Note: Quinoa is a South American Grain that can usually be found in your local bulk foods store or sometimes in the grains department of your grocery store. To rinse it, I usually just place the grains in a fine sieve and rinse thoroughly.)

Method:
Heat canola oil in medium saucepan on medium heat. Add next 4 ingredients.
Cook, uncovered, for about 5 min., stirring often, until onion is softened.

Add next 3 ingredients. Stir. Bring to a boil. Add quinoa. Stir. Reduce heat to medium-low.
Simmer, covered, for about 25 minutes, without stirring, until quinoa is tender and liquid is absorbed.

Fluff with fork and serve!

Makes about 4 cups.
Nutritional Info (1cup): 202 Calories; 3.8 g fat (1.2g mono, 1.4g poly, 0.4g sat.); 0 mg cholesterol; 37 g carb; 4 g fibre; 7 g protein; 378 g sodium

Variations: If you don't have time to do the chopping of the vegetables, I have substituted with about 2 cups of a frozen vegetable mix (beans, carrots, peas, corn). It was still good! Although I do like the original suggestion for vegetables.