Freezer Meals

My friend asked about freezer meals, which reminded me that I am planning on freezing a lot of the dinners that I'll be making in the next few weeks. So, I'm going to try to feature those as often as possible.

In the meantime, I've updated my Recipes entry with all of my old recipes (thanks goes to my little sis for saving my old blog: it made bringing back the old recipes a lot more efficient). I've also added astericks to the recipes that I've frozen before.


Here are some tips I learned for the recipes I've listed that I've frozen:

1. Let the dinner/bread thaw completely before warming it up. You can do this in the microwave, otherwise let it thaw completely in the fridge (which may mean taking it out of the freezer the morning of the day before you are going to eat it for dinner, make sense?).


2. When freezing a casserole, line the casserole dish with foil. After the casserole has cooled partly, place the dish in the freezer. When the casserole is frozen, lift the casserole out of the dish and wrap the casserole in foil. Then, place it in your freezer.


3. Soups can be frozen in freezer bags, or in rigid containers. These are great to have in the freezer because they are easily thawed and cooked in the microwave. (Tip: My Chunky Red Pasta Sauce can be dumped right into a crock-pot and cooked all day.)


4. Always, always, always label with the type of meal and the date! Never eat anything that has been in the freezer for more than three months.


5. When using a frozen cake, frost it before it thaws ... it cuts down on the amount of crumbs you get in your frosting.


6. If you use frozen chicken breasts, or frozen meatballs, just dump the meat into a freezer bag and pour the sauce on top.


7. If you can, flatten out what you put in freezer bags and place it on a shelf in the freezer. Once frozen, you can tilt them up on their sides to save space.


8. Do not freeze potatoes! You can freeze mashed potatoes okay, but any other kind of potatoes gets a little yucky. I wish I knew how they make frozen hashbrowns and such to turn out okay. Everything else I've tried doesn't. Oh, you can freeze twice-baked potatoes since you take the pulp of the potatoes out and mash it before you put it back in the skin.

Those are all the tips I can think of right now. If you have any tips, or if any I've put up here don't work for you, please let me know in the comments! And, if you have any freezer meal recipes you've tried, I want them!!! Send them my way! I would love this to be a place for idea sharing!

Also, this is one of my favorite websites for freezer meal recipes:

30 Day Gourmet

Fudge Sauce

So, on Sunday it was our turn to feed our missionaries. And, for some reason I hate having them come for dinner and not serving them some form of a dessert. The best part about dessert on this particular Sunday was that I had a craving ... and was able to follow through, even if I had to make a substitution. I was craving my grandmother's fudge sauce on ice cream.

Occasionally when we'd visit with my grandmother she would give us ice cream (in some glass dishes that I inherited from her when she moved), then drizzle on her homemade fudge sauce. It seriously is the best fudge sauce, ever! (It even makes great chocolate milk!)

GRANDMA’S FUDGE SAUCE

What you need:

1 large can evaporated milk
2 cups sugar
3 squares unsweetened chocolate
1 tsp. vanilla


How to do it:

Bring to boil over medium heat milk, sugar, and chocolate. Cook for 5 minutes, stirring vigorously. Remove from heat; add vanilla. Beat with rotary type beater for 1 minute. Add additional evaporated milk for a thinner sauce.


Okay, so if you look closely at this picture, you will notice some cocoa powder on the range next to the saucepan. That is my substitute. When I opened my box of unsweetened chocolate squares I only had one square. So, I substituted with 3 Tbsp. cocoa powder and 1 Tbsp. butter (for each square I needed, so a total of 6 Tbsp. cocoa and 2 Tbsp. butter because I needed 2 squares). Trust me, the sauce tastes much better if you don’t have to substitute. Not that it tasted badly, there’s just a distinct flavor that was only an aftertaste, rather than tasting it the whole time.



Now this picture is just to show you that you can’t use a small saucepan very well. My mistake. I couldn’t stir the sauce very vigorously because it was threatening to spill over. So, I just cooked it a little longer because I like my sauce thicker rather than thin.


Tip: Fudge sauce is basically a syrup, and to make your syrup/sauce thicker you need to cook it until it reaches between 230-235° on a candy thermometer. At least, this is what helped me to cook my mom’s syrup to the right consistency.


And, here’s how much fudge sauce you’ll get in the end! Please excuse the attractive vacuumer in the background … our floor was pretty crumbly. (Side note: isn’t it awesome that my hubby will vacuum for me so I can have fun cooking things like fudge sauce without having to walk all over the crumbs on the floor?)

I don't think everyone who had this on their ice cream appreciated it as much as I did ... but, I will always remember times in my grandma's kitchen eating ice cream with her sauce ... YUM!

Cheesy Chicken Noodle Soup

Okay, so I know I should probably wait until next Tuesday to post this recipe, but we had this tonight for dinner and it was so good I just couldn't wait to pass it along! You know when a recipe is good when your husband takes one bite and says, "Ooh, this is good." Anyway, enjoy!

CHEESY CHICKEN NOODLE SOUP

What you need:
4 chicken breasts
2 celery stalks, sliced
1 onion, chopped
1 lb. carrots, sliced
2 cans cream of chicken soup
8-10 oz. Velveeta, cubed
16 oz. frozen peas
1 (12 oz.) bag Reemes frozen egg noodles

(Optional: 1-2 cans chicken broth)

How you do it:
Cook chicken in boiling water for 30 minutes. Remove chicken and strain cooking water, replacing the water in the pot. Add celery, onion, and carrots to pot. Let cook until tender. Add cut-up chicken, cream of chicken soup, egg noodles and Velveeta. Let simmer until Velveeta is melted. Throw in the peas before serving.

What I did differently than above:
I used 2 cans chicken broth instead of the chicken water. I also used probably 13 ounces of Velveeta, and instead of the frozen egg noodles I used some mini fusili. I cooked the fusili separate from the soup, then added it later ... this made the soup thinner and more like a soup. (The first time I had this soup it was at a soup potluck and it was pretty creamy, almost stew-like.)

White Chili

I started a tradition a few years ago: chili for dinner on Halloween night. The first couple of times I did this, I tried two different recipes and we weren’t really keen on either. Then, I had this White Chili at my friend’s house during a card exchange. So, I got the recipe from my friend, and the last couple of years this is what we’ve had for our traditional Halloween Chili Dinner. It’s super yummy … you just have to try it.

WHITE CHILI

What you need:

2 lbs. chicken, cooked and cut into bite-sized pieces
1 onion, diced
1 lb. Velveeta, cubed
½ lb. Monterey Jack cheese, cubed
1 can white corn, or 1 cup frozen corn
1-3 cans tomatoes with green chilies, drained really well*
2 cans white beans (great northern)
2 cans cream of chicken soup
1 can chicken broth

*This is what makes it spicy; the more cans you use, the spicier it will be.

How you do it:

Combine all ingredients. Let simmer until warmed through. Serve with tortilla chips.

Semi-Step by Step:

I’ve combined my steps. The following are in the pot: chicken, onion, Velveeta, Monterey Jack cheese, and frozen corn.

Now I’ve added: 1 can petite diced tomatoes, 1 can diced green chilies (this is how I control the spiciness), 2 cans great northern beans, and 2 cans cream of chicken soup.

Note: The first time I made this I did not drain my tomatoes and the chili turned out a very orange color (not very aesthetically pleasing … totally made me lose my appetite). So, since then, I get out my strainer and get rid of as much liquid as possible (both the tomatoes and the chilies). Seriously, it makes a difference.

Then, I poured in the chicken broth and stirred it together.

I let it simmer for a few hours, then I couldn’t wait for the trick-or-treaters to come home before I dug in. My favorite chips with this are the scoop-like tortilla chips. My friend, who gave me the recipe, served this with Fritos.