Sunday, January 9, 2011

January 2011 Freezer Cooking Results

Time for my results from the January 2011 Freezer Cooking Days, hosted by FishMama at Life as MOM.

Since I'm participating in the Clean Out the Cupboards Challenge (please join us!), I didn't want to run out and buy a bunch of ingredients to use to make food for the freezer, refrigerator, and pantry.  So, I went with what I had.

If you had followed me on Twitter, you'd already know that I made the following:

  • 3 meal-sized packages of dry kidney beans cooked in the crockpot
  • 3 meal-sized packages of dry black beans cooked in the crockpot
  • 2 meal-sized packages of cooked chicken (from a roasted whole chicken - we also ate part of it for dinner on Friday night)
  • 4 quarts chicken broth (some will be made into chicken broth ice cubes)
  • 1 quart salsa (not in the picture - oops!)
  • 3 freezer cookie dough rolls (I ended up making snickerdoodles instead of the chewy chocolatey cookies)
  • 1 loaf whole wheat garlic bread (I made two loaves for dinner Saturday night, but only used one up)
The only thing I didn't end up making was instant oatmeal packets.  That's because all the recipes I found for it called for quick oats, whereas I only had old-fashioned oats in the house.  I may make some granola from the oats instead.

It's not a month's worth of food (I am in awe of those of you who do a full Once a Month Cooking), but it certainly will help us get through this month!  I hope my meager results inspire you to give freezer cooking a try, if you've never tried it before.  You don't have to make a couple dozen meals - you can just make items that will help you make meals faster and cheaper.

See you on the first weekend of February for more freezer cooking!



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5 comments:

Anonymous,  January 10, 2011 at 1:16 AM  

Im doing some "do ahead" stuff during the challenge as well.. but about the instant oatmeal...

I JUST figured out a really great and easy way of making it! I am planning to post about it but havent yet, so let me tell you how easy this is!

Use the old fashioned oats for every half cup add 1-2 TBS brown sugar and a pinch of salt. Blitz it in the food processor for three pulses. Not more than that, so it doesnt turn to flour! It breaks up the oats just enough, that all you have to do is pour boiling water over and let it set for a couple minutes (just like instant!!). I like to top mine with a touch of real maple syrup (maple and brown sugar oatmeal=love!) and some dried fruit and pecans or walnuts. You can definitely store them in individual serving size baggies. Im sure its easy to do other flavors as well, like dried apples and cinnamon or raisins and pie spice.

Unknown January 10, 2011 at 9:06 PM  

@honeybeecooksjackfruit - Thank you for the pointer on using the old-fashioned oats! I will definitely give that a try next chance I have!

Jenny January 11, 2011 at 9:32 AM  

Great session. I just started cooking my own beans and freezing them. Used the first of my red kidney beans in Taco Soup last night and wow, they were so much better than the canned ones.

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