Whew!
One big morning of shopping…one crazy-busy afternoon of baking and cooking…and one slightly calmer morning to finish up.
And a whole lot of big messes!
All in all, I'm very pleased with how my fill-the-freezer frenzy went. I didn't end up making everything on my list (no marinated fajita steak because I forgot to buy the meat and no spiced nuts because I decided I didn't need them), but here's the breakdown of what I did end up with:
- Stir Fry Chicken – 2 meals
- Marinated Pork Chops – 3 meals
- Taco Meat – 2 meals
- Shredded Beef – 2 meals (plus dinner Friday night) – will share what I call my White Girl Barbacoa recipe soon!
- Tuscan Lemon Chicken – 2 meals
- Chicken Stock - 2 quarts
- Enchilada Sauce – 2 quarts
- Applesauce – 2 quarts
- Kidney Beans – 2 bags (2 c. each)
- Black Beans – 2 bags (2 c. each)
- Tortillas – 40
- BRC Burritos - 8
- Chicken Burritos – 10
- Breakfast Cake – 1, froze half
- Banana Nut Muffins – 2 dozen
- Blueberry Muffins – 2 dozen
- Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough – enough for 4 dozen cookies
- Brown Rice – 3 bags (3.5 c each)
- Ranch Mix – 1 jar
- Almond Milk (an experiment) – 2 quarts
- Sandwich Rolls (another experiment) – one dozen
- Calzones (supposed to be an experiment, ended up as lunch) – 4
- Macaroni and cheese - 2 trays
All together, components for about a dozen meals. Not too shabby!
A few thoughts…
I couldn't have done this without Tom or the tortilla press. He worked on tortillas for about 2 hours (maybe more), freeing me up to work on other items. The press made the tortillas a little bit thicker than I'd expected – but they're still great for tacos and I'm going to try making flat bread pizzas out of them, too.
Next time, I will definitely buy more frozen blueberries – between smoothies, blueberry muffins and Tom's love for them, we've almost gone through the big BJ's sized bag since Friday. Also, blueberry muffins work great with sucanat instead of white sugar.
I'm no longer afraid of coconut oil – these healthier chocolate chip cookies are amazing. Next month, I'll be replacing all of the oils in my baking with coconut!
Planning dinners that used foods we'd already prepped that day was a blessing. I was wiped out by Friday evening, and all I had to do was pull out a little of the shredded beef and homemade tortillas. Not exactly the best presentation, but they were delicious!
To quote Caleb, "speriments are good". My experiments all worked out pretty well – we love the homemade almond milk and it's at least a third cheaper making it at home than buying it at the grocery store. My bread dough works great for little sandwich rolls, which I'll definitely be making more of considering my test batch is almost gone. I realized recently that I buy loaves of bread at the grocery store and then throw them away because we don't eat them. I guess I'm just so programmed to buy bread that I didn't realize the waste! I always have bread dough in the fridge, and the kids prefer rolls to sliced bread anyway.
And I don't know why, but it's just really fun to make your own almond milk. I have a feeling we're going to be seeing soaking almonds in our kitchen on at least a weekly basis! We decided not to strain ours since we knew we'd be using it within a day or two and would have thrown the almond meal in the smoothies.
Calzones were another experiment. These four were gobbled up as soon as they'd cooled enough to eat, and on that level they were a success. I had hoped to see how they'd freeze, but didn't quite get the chance. And I need to work on sealing them a bit better – as Hanna pointed out, these all look like they're "puking on each other"…not exactly the response I want to hear about food. I still might make these for my next baking day but if I have my bread dough ready, they only take a few minutes to throw together and I can use all sorts of leftovers for fillings. They're definitely going in my "we need pizza now!" file.
Next time, though, I'll remember not experiment with my experiments before I've made them at least once following the recipe. The macaroni and cheese was okay with spelt pasta, but Tom and the kids would have really loved it with regular. That's how I'll do it next time.
A few notes as I'm looking toward next month…I'm interested to see exactly how long all of this will last us. I need to find another easy meal for Tom's lunch. We both like burritos, but not 3 or 4 times a week. I threw all of my recipes and notes from this round into my homemaking binder for next time. I also created a little freezer inventory sheet and am crossing things off as we eat them.
WHEW!!! I’m tired just looking at this! I’m not sure I could do this…working makes me not want to spend an entire day baking and cooking…but I think I can modify your approach somewhat…I think when I cook, for example, a batch of taco meat or shredded beef or spaghetti sauce, I can very easily double the batch without adding to my cooking time and freeze one portion while we use the other. I may not be able to stock the freezer so much, but I can certainly give us some “fast food” options that are healthy. LOVE this idea!! I’m interested in 1) does it save you money to do it this way? 2) how long will your dozen meals last.
I used to do “bento box” style lunches once upon a time…I haven’t done them in awhile…but it used to be fun to sort of pack bits of this and that into a little box and take it to work. I wonder if such a concept could be modified so that you could pack a weeks worth or a few days worth at a time and then just put them in your fridge to be pulled out as needed…
So interested to see where this takes you! I’m so not able to do all that you do, but all of your experiments and adventures give me ideas that I can use in my own house. Awesome!
Love your blog! You did a great job with your freezer cooking/baking.
A few questions:
-Have you posted the cookie recipe with coconut oil? I bought some, but haven’t used it. The thickness is throwing me off.
-I made homemade tortillas with a rolling bin and they were also too thick. I was thinking of getting a tortilla press. What kind do you have that made them too thick?
-I also made some homemade almond milk and could not believe how creamy and delicious it was. The problem was that for our family of six, four boys, it would be quite expensive to make it consistently. Do you buy the almonds in bulk?
Keep up the good work!
Love your blog! You did a great job with your freezer cooking/baking.
A few questions:
-Have you posted the cookie recipe with coconut oil? I bought some, but haven’t used it. The thickness is throwing me off.
-I made homemade tortillas with a rolling bin and they were also too thick. I was thinking of getting a tortilla press. What kind do you have that made them too thick?
-I also made some homemade almond milk and could not believe how creamy and delicious it was. The problem was that for our family of six, four boys, it would be quite expensive to make it consistently. Do you buy the almonds in bulk?
Keep up the good work!
Felecia, I’ve always tried to double as much as possible when I make casseroles or things like chili and even that little bit is sooo helpful! A new idea to me is get my chicken or pork chops in marinades and bag them up in what I’d consider to be family sized meal portions. Then all I have to do is pull them out of the freezer, add a side and a vegetable. Takes a lot of the thinking out for me.
I don’t really do traditional freezer cooking, because I don’t make entire meals. Tom won’t eat them. I look at it more as getting a lot of the prep work out of the way.
I’m not sure how long this batch will last. I can’t see myself doing this more than once a month, so I’m hoping that long. By adding in our once a week breakfast for dinner, a leftover night and soup once every two weeks, I have enough meat either cooked or marinated for a month’s worth of meals. The baked goods, I’m not so sure about. Ideally, the muffins and breakfast bread should last a month interspersed with pancakes and smoothies. Whether they will or not, I can’t say.
Does it save me money? I spent about $350 on Friday shopping, but that also included a lot of toiletries and other household necessities for the month as well as some purchases that we know will last 3-4 months (I write dates on top of bulk purchases to see how long they really last us). We do the bulk of our shopping for the month at once and then pick up fresh produce and other items as needed. Where I can really see it saving me money is in the fact that instead of ordering a pizza on days when I’m especially tired or worn out, I have the fixings for so many meals already prepped that can be ready in less time than it takes that pizza to get here.
Felecia, I’ve always tried to double as much as possible when I make casseroles or things like chili and even that little bit is sooo helpful! A new idea to me is get my chicken or pork chops in marinades and bag them up in what I’d consider to be family sized meal portions. Then all I have to do is pull them out of the freezer, add a side and a vegetable. Takes a lot of the thinking out for me.
I don’t really do traditional freezer cooking, because I don’t make entire meals. Tom won’t eat them. I look at it more as getting a lot of the prep work out of the way.
I’m not sure how long this batch will last. I can’t see myself doing this more than once a month, so I’m hoping that long. By adding in our once a week breakfast for dinner, a leftover night and soup once every two weeks, I have enough meat either cooked or marinated for a month’s worth of meals. The baked goods, I’m not so sure about. Ideally, the muffins and breakfast bread should last a month interspersed with pancakes and smoothies. Whether they will or not, I can’t say.
Does it save me money? I spent about $350 on Friday shopping, but that also included a lot of toiletries and other household necessities for the month as well as some purchases that we know will last 3-4 months (I write dates on top of bulk purchases to see how long they really last us). We do the bulk of our shopping for the month at once and then pick up fresh produce and other items as needed. Where I can really see it saving me money is in the fact that instead of ordering a pizza on days when I’m especially tired or worn out, I have the fixings for so many meals already prepped that can be ready in less time than it takes that pizza to get here.
Thanks, Jennifer!
I haven’t posted the cookie recipe, but it’s linked in a freezer cooking post from last month. I did make some changes to the recipe that I’m and I will try to get that shared this week some time. I’m still pretty new to coconut oil, but for this recipe I melted it before adding it to the cookie dough. I’ve got another post I’m working on for coconut oil too.
I’m not sure what the brand is on my tortilla press – I got it at my local Mexican grocery and I wasn’t familiar with any of them. I was told to get the heaviest one I could find, and this one definitely is! I think the thickness issue might have been due to the whole wheat flour because the pressed nice and thin, but then thickened up as soon as they were off the press. I might try adding a few sheets of cardstock in the press under some plastic wrap to see if we can get them a little thinner next time.
The “bulkiest” I’ve found for almonds is at BJ’s and I think it’s a 5 pound bag. I’m on the lookout for a better deal, though. We all drink smoothies every day and I need to find a way to make it even cheaper of possible. I do know it worked out to about a third of the price of buying it in the store but between that and my husband’s frozen blueberry addiction, it gets pricey!