Giving Freezer Cooking a Try

First of all, I want to apologize that the picture is not of all the freezer food I made over the past 4 days. Both my food photography skills and the lighting in my kitchen are atrocious.  So, although I took pictures of everything I made, the pictures did not all turn out well.  The wonderful colors of the foods  have disappeared in most of my pictures and very few are even in focus.  So, I'm showing you the big salad I made, the hot dogs and chicken I grilled, the bread I baked and a spoonful of soup I pulled out of the pot to taste.   Onto freezer cooking…

I've wanted to do if for some time but was afraid - of the amount of time needed, the cost of buying all that food at once, the kitchen being such a disaster that I would run from the house, screaming.  See, I had this idea in my head that Freezer cooking meant cooking all the meals your family would eat for an entire month, all in one setting.  That was the wrong impression I got from all the articles and books out there from people who spend time, one day a month, freezer cooking.  I equated "freezer cooking once a month" to "cooking everything my family will eat for the next 30 days".  It's not so.  Phew!

I decided to start small on Thursday but it wasn't small enough for this scatterbrain, because I didn't cook everything I thought I would.  I didn't get upset, though, and did a little more on Friday.  I did well, so I did some more Saturday and today, too.  Although I don't have every meal, not even every dinner, my family will eat this week, I have some meals and a some meal elements in my freezer that I can go to on those days when life gets away from me.  Those days when I didn't plan ahead or I just don't feel like cooking.  I enjoyed it because I took baby steps and I'd like to do this regularly to keep my head above water in the kitchen.

BABY STEP #1: Doubling Up.  I made Salisbury Steak, mashed potatoes and roasted green beans for dinner on Thursday.  While I had the ingredients out and my hands were in raw meat, I decided to make enough steak for two dinners.  Just the Salisbury Steak, mind you, I didn't make extra potatoes nor green beans.  But the protein is always the hardest part of meal planning, for me; throwing sides together are easy.  So the extra portion of Salisbury Steak is in the freezer.

On Friday, I decided to make a fake-lasagna bake for lunch, so I doubled the recipe.  I dislike making lasagna.  The noodles are a pain to cook, they peel apart while I'm trying to put the lasagna together and all the layering is messy.  So now I just heat all the lasagna ingredients in a skillet, along with whatever shaped pasta I have on hand (B's fav is Rotini), pour into a baking dish, top with some more cheese and bake until the top gets some color on it.  The extra one went into a baking dish and received cheese on top, but went to the freezer before baking.

My Chicken Noodle Soup Dump Recipe For Kathy

• Dice up half an onion, 2 carrots, a couple of garlic cloves, and grate at least 1 tsp of fresh ginger. If I have shallots on hand, I'll dice up one of those, too.
•  Salt and pepper 1/2 of a chicken breast and cook it in a pan with the fat of your choice.  Set aside on a cutting board.
• Add a little more fat to pan you cooked chicken breast in and then add your onion, carrot, garlic ginger and shallot.  Saute until onions are translucent.  If I have leftover cooked veggies from dinners in the fridge, I add them now and then saute for another minute or two.
• If you have any spices or herbs you'd like to add for extra flavor, this is the time to do it!  Drop them in with your sauteed veggies and stir to coat and heat them up, releasing their flavors.  I find I get more flavor out of herbs and spices when I add them before liquids then I get when adding them at the end.  Salt and pepper, however, should be added at the end.
• Add 3 - 4 cups of Kitchen Basics Unsalted Chicken Cooking Stock and bring up to a boil.
• Once stock and veggies are boiling, add a handful or 2, at the most, of your choice of pasta, turn the flame down so that stock just simmers and cook until the pasta is al dente.  I pick a small pasta, like ditalini, alphabets, mini shells, mini farfalle, orecchiette, or elbows if that's the smallest I have.  You can even break up spaghetti into small pieces.  Add a pasta too big or too much pasta and it will absorb all or most of your stock.
• While pasta cooks, dice up your chicken breast.
• When pasta is al dente, turn off the heat, add in your diced chicken breast to warm it back up and taste your broth.  Do you want to add salt and or pepper?  I add both, to my taste.

Depending on how much I serve myself, I get 3 - 4 bowls from this.  If I have a chicken or turkey carcass around, I'll make a pot of stock from that, make a big pot of soup without the pasta, and freeze in quart-size, zip-top bags.  Take out when you are ready to eat, thaw, bring up to boil, toss in your pasta and then simmer until al dente.  Or freeze in gallon-size bags and use when you want to take a family a meal.

Chicken Noodle Soup for the Soul

I have felt like crap for a week.  Like most people around here, I seem to be developing allergies in my old age.  My nose is running like a faucet, my lungs are full of gunk that I cannot blow out my nose quick enough, I had the croup for 2 days last week and have a cough that keeps me up.  I have gotten very little sleep which has made me short-tempered and very crabby.  I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired!


I've had no energy nor desire to cook while I've been sick.  You know I have got to be pretty bad off
to not want to cook!  Cooking is my happy place, my stress reliever.  As I lay awake Friday night, I realized I needed some homemade chicken noodle soup.  In addition to tasting good, making you feel all warm and full and reminding you of your childhood sick days when mom fussed over you, chicken noodle soup really does have "magical" properties that help get you better physically.  I usually make soups from scratch, starting with homemade stock, but had none in the freezer.  *sigh*

Recipes: Baked Potato and Sausage Soup with Beer Biscuits

The soup is a dump recipe I made up a couple of years ago as the result of a craving.

Baked Potato & Sausage Soup

2 baking potatoes, baked and cooled 

8oz smoked sausage, sliced 1/2" thick and then quartered 

1/2 tbsp butter 

1/2 a small onion, diced 

2 tbsp flour 

3 cups milk or chicken stock

3/4 cup frozen corn, rinse to thaw

1/2 cup shredded cheddar cheese (optional)

Fresh ground pepper, salt and onion powder, to taste 

Cook sausage in dutch oven until brown; remove. Add onion to same pot and cook in sausage fat until soft. Add butter if needed in order to cook onions. While they are cooking, cut cooled baked potatoes up and mash with a fork. Once onions are cooked, sprinkle with flour, stir to coat and cook for a few minutes to cook off the flour taste. Gradually add milk or stock, stirring constantly to avoid lumps.

Continue to stir until mixture thickens, scraping the brown bits off the bottom of the pan. Add potato, sausage, corn and cheese to mixture and stir until cheese melts and everything is heated through. Add pepper, salt and onion powder and/or whatever other spice to suit your taste.

Do you know Paula Deen?  She ranks right up there with The Pioneer Woman, in my book.  Ben used to think she was really Mrs. Claus and Paula Deen was her alias.  I made her wonderful Beer Biscuits to go with the soup.  I usually half the recipe and bake 6 biscuits when it's just us.  The hubs then eats the leftover biscuits for snacks.

Beer Biscuits

4 cup Bisquick 

1/2 cup sugar 

1 12-ounce can of beer 

2 tablespoon butter, melted 

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Mix all ingredients well. Pour into well-greased muffin tins. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes. Serve with honey butter. Makes 12 - 16 biscuits. 

Honey butter: mix room temperature butter with honey in a 3:1 or 2:1 ratio, depending on your taste.