About Me

I am a 42 yr old mother to 3 beautiful children, ages 19, 15,and 9. (two have type 1 diabetes.) I am married to my best friend for over 18 yrs. My life has been amazingly turned around by the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Life is busy & difficult at times, but I try to remember how very blessed we are. This blog is where I talk about homemaking, homeschooling, struggles we face with our daughter and the challanges of day to day life with juvenile diabetes.

Friday, February 5, 2010

Filling the freezer day 1 -

Inspired by OAMC (once a month cooking) and baking day blogs, I decided to spend a day cooking and see how many meals I could ready for the next couple weeks. Wednesday I did the bulk of my cooking,
I started by putting beans in the crock pot to make refried beans,
next I put a whole chicken in my soup pot and added seasoning,
then 3 lbs (out of a 5 lb roll) of ground beef was browned and divided in half.
While things are cooking I mixed up dough for a loaf of bread and an extra large roll of Cinnamon rolls ( I plan on making for breakfast this weekend when Z's friends are here for a sleep over).
Half the burger I mixed with taco seasoning and bagged for the freezer for quick tacos
the other half I used to make a lasagna for the freezer.
The remaining 2 lbs of ground beef I made into 2 meatloaves and froze.
When the bread came out of the oven Caden and I made monster cookies, 1 dz we made to eat now and another 3 dz we flash froze before cooking and put in the freezer.
I mixed up the dry ingredients for pizza dough and put in a Ziploc in the pantry.
Then I cooled and shredded the chicken, bagged and froze for a quick chicken meal. I was able to freeze 2 lg containers of broth to use in soups and dumplings (homemade broth is so much better than canned).
Finally I finished the beans bagging some for the freezer and keeping some out for bean and cheese burritos.

Filling the freezer day 2 -

Yesterday I made pancakes for breakfast, I made a triple batch of batter and ended up with a dz pancakes to flash freeze and bag for quick breakfasts.
Then I cooked rice and when cool bagged to lg bags to freeze ( frozen rice works great added to casseroles or dishes ) I also use it to make rice pudding.
I made 3 banana breads (one is gone already, we love this banana bread).
Cut up a roast I had bought on sale, half Harry used for beef and noodles, the rest we froze to use for stew.

Today I will finish up by cooking chicken breast in the crock pot to chunk up, mix with mushroom soup and freeze for chicken and rice
I will also be cooking a deer roast in the dutch oven to shred, BBQ sauce and freeze for future BBQ sandwiches.
Finally today I will make tortillas and put together the bean and cheese burritos and freeze.

All said It went well, I spent about 5 hrs on day one and 2-3 hrs the other days, I think in the future I could do it all in just 2 days. It really helps having things fixed and ready for meals on the days that I am so busy and needing to study... Here is what I have for the next 2 weeks

1. taco meat, shredded cheese, refried beans (ready to go) just add shells and toppings
2. Chicken and rice (ready to dump in crock pot and go)
3. lasagna with garlic bread( ready to bake)
4. stew meat and veggies (ready to dump in pot and season) will need to add tomato sauce.
5. meatloaf x2
6. bean and cheese burritos
7. BBQ sandwich x2 (ready to heat and eat)
8. chicken and broth for chicken and dumplings
9. shells and cheese with garlic bread (ready to bake)
10. pizza

plus breakfast items of pancakes, banana bread, rice for rice pudding and Cinnamon rolls.
Done!