Tag: food

Ready to Eat Freezer Meals

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I have been seeing so many posts about freezer meals recently.  One thing that has surprised me the most about freezer meals is that they take a lot of work!  All of the posts make it seem easy and time saving but I’m not buying it.  You take hours one day to prep all of your meals and put them in the freezer.  Then, when the time comes to prepare your meal, you still have to find the right cookware and thaw and cook it which could take just about as long as just starting from scratch.

I’ve been doing my own version of freezer meals for years.  The difference is that I completely cook the food before I put it in the freezer.  I remember being young and my mom would do this with things like chili, spaghetti and meatballs sauce, and sloppy joes.  She would freeze portions for one family meal already cooked and just needing to be reheated.

Now, I don’t have ‘family meals’ in my household because Nick and I are hardly every home to eat at the same time.  So, I prepare all of the meals for the week or longer on one day and then All we have to do is microwave and put the container in the dishwasher.

One thing to note is that I only do this with foods that work well freezing and reheating.  I use two types of tupperware for my meals.  The larger tupperware are the ones that come with lunchmeat in the deli section.  The smaller ones are in the image below.

The Tupperware I use (I have these in Red and Teal)

The food

I thought I’d share an unedited photo to show that this is not a perfect process. Portion size is different for Nick and I but this made enough food for each of us to have 16 meals.

The Meals:

Turkey Noodle Casserole
Spaghetti
Oven Chicken with Tomatoes
Honey Soy Pulled Pork
Teriyaki Chicken
Turkey and cheese Wraps
BBQ Uglies
Cinnamon Rolls

In the back left, there is a stack of small and large tupperware.  These have turkey noodle casserole made with left over turkey and spaghetti.

The middle tupperware have  Oven Chicken with Tomatoes.

The two stacks of tupperware on the far left have Honey Soy Pork and some Teriyaki chicken just made with a store-bought sauce.

I used Ellie’s recipe to make a dough for all of the items in the front.  One thing to note is that I did not let the dough rise for a second time for any of these meals.

On the far left front, There’s wrapped leftover turkey and cheese.

The two wrapped meals in the middle are both BBQ Uglies just made in a different shape.  For the left ones, I used a large muffin pan and for the right ones I used a small pastry press.

Of course, I had some extra dough and decided to make cinnamon rolls.  These were not part of the freezer meals but definitely part of my reward for doing all this cooking in one evening!

Do you make freezer meals?  If you do, do you cook them before or after you freeze them?

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BBQ Uglies Recipe Review

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Uglies Recipe Review

I give this recipe FIVE STARS ★★★★★

The other day I was making stuffed tomatoes and realized I had double the amount of beef that would fit into the tomatoes.  Luckily, I had just seen this recipe and the first few steps for each are exactly the same.  Turns out, we liked the Uglies so much better than the stuffed tomatoes.

This recipe can be found at AllRecipes.com.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound ground beef chuck
  • 1/2 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 1 1/2 cups barbeque sauce
  • 1 (10 ounce) package refrigerated biscuit dough
  • 2 cups shredded Cheddar cheese

Here’s are the brands that I specifically used for this recipe:

  • KC Masterpiece BBQ Sauce
  • Pillsbury Butter Grands
  • Kraft marbled cheddar

5 Things I Loved Most About This Recipe:

  1. Uglies are cheap.
  2. Uglies are delicious, even though they look like a mess.
  3. Uglies are easy to make.
  4. Uglies are freezable, although they do taste so much better fresh
  5. Uglies are something everyone in the family loves.

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Cream Cheese Monkey Bread

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I saw a recipe on Pintrest that looked amazing so I decided to give it a try.  My comments and review are at the end.

Here’s the original from Pip & Ebby, I’ve modified a bit Cream Cheese Monkey Bread.

 Ingredients
Dinner Rolls
Cream Cheese
Butter
Cinnamon
Sugar
Brown Sugar

Quick Steps

1. Put the rolls into a pan.  I used a round pan because it would be easier to clean than a bunt pan as used in the original.

2. Use your finger to make a divot in the rolls then add some cream cheese.

3. Melt enough butter to cover.

4. Sprinkle a good amount of cinnamon, sugar, and brown sugar over the top.

 5. Bake until complete.  I know it’s done because the smell begins to fill my house.

See the final cooked product at the top of the page.





Review and Comments

The picture in the original recipe looked so much better than mine!  Overall, I think I should have added MORE SUGAR!!!

1. I don’t think I used enough sugar.  More sugars would have made it have more of a consistent taste.

2. There is too much bread!  When I’m eating something sweet, I don’t like much of the original dough to be un-coated. Because the dinner rolls are thick, much of the inside of the bread tasted just like a typical dinner roll.

3. The cream cheese threw off the flavor a bit.  I’m a big fan of cream cheese but I think because the cream cheese was just inside a large piece of dough, it was a bit boring and bland.  A suggestion to remedy this and add flavor is to use a flavored cream cheese, Brown sugar and Maple would have been a great choice.

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