Homemaking Organized Blog

Posts Tagged ‘freezer cooking’

Save from 10% to 50% on most everything at the Saving Dinner Shop this weekend (except Menu-Mailers, Clubs, and Gift Certificates).

If you’ve been wanting to try Saving Dinners delicious menu planning recipes now’s the time to pick up some at a savings.

Leanne has a deal going. Pick a coupon code…any code…and the savings will be anything from 10% off to %50 off but she’s not telling which coupon code is for which discount.

So go pack your Saving Dinner online shopping cart with the menus of your choice and enter any one of the following codes  to see how much you can save.

Coupon Codes:

turkey

gravy

stuffing

cranberry

hotrolls

Find Menus on…

Freezer Menus: Delicious recipes for the freezer using your chosen meat. In the 10 for the Freezer ebook pick Beef & Chicken, Chicken and Fish, or Chicken and Beef part two (Vol. 3). Much, much more.

Morphing Menus : These are now and later menus. Cook one now for dinner tonight and prepare another for the freezer.

Weight Loss : If you’re trying to lose weight  I highly recommend go the route of Leanne. There’s the Detoxing Plan, Losing it With Leanne, Gluten Free Volumes (plural), and so much more.

Ebooks

Find much more to tempt your palate at Saving Dinner

So I have a new freezer and I’ve been spending some time hugging getting to know it. I’m a little shocked that after emptying the above the refrigerator freezer into it that it is more than half full already. I think that’s pretty telling of how packed my above the refrigerator freezer was.

So here are some great tips and resources I found that might help you too.

Organization

I knew that although the freezer came with two hanging baskets the real job is organized below that. The stuff at the bottom. After reading around I discovered that those plastic crates you find in office supply stores can work pretty well. I have an 8.8 cu ft freezer and was able to fit two of these in there. I designated one of those for raw meats and the other for prepared meals. I will admit that I have a tiny bit of frost on the sides of my freezer and when I pulled up one of the crates it grated against that little bit of ice and ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr it was like nails on a blackboard. I can still ‘hear’ it now… ssshhhhiiiivvvveeerrrrrr

I also have smaller baskets that I’m using for butter, veggies, fruits, and my specialty flours (buckwheat, barley, graham, teff) . I have room for a few more baskets and I know I’m still getting accustomed to the whole thing.

Filling it Up

My goal for the freezer is preparing those meals that will help save time in the future and storing good buys and excess from the garden.

For great tips on preserving your foods from all sorts of sources I found this site Pick Your Own it’s about pick your own farms, how to can, freeze, dry and more.

For ideas on what kinds of meals to put away I have quite a few resources, mostly books. There is this nice article to give you an idea of what you can put away.

Then these are the books I’m using for recipes.

Frozen Assets Lite and Easy: Cook for a Day, Eat for a Month: I’m like the way this books is organized. By mini sessions by meat. For example I’m eyeing the ground turkey mini session. It’s all laid out with recipes, shopping lists and preparation instructions. I never thought our menus were so light but I could work with this book.  I’m checking it out from the library.

Make-A-Mix: I don’t use all the recipes in this book but I do like the cookie and the baking mixes. I own this one.
More Make Your Own Groceries: This is an excellent book for freezer cooking and making staples. I have no idea why it is so expensive on Amazon. I own a copy. There are two editions, 1 and 2. I have both. 2 is the cover of the link and 1 has a yellow cover. They are both excellent.

Keeping Track

For keeping up on what’s inside I printed up a new sheet from my planner (yes I use Vintage Household Notes too) and put it in a sleeve. For now I taped it to the top but I’m looking at other ways to attach it. I opted for writing the ususal suspects in pen and then hash marks in pencil for how many I have going there.

I hope some of this has been a help to someone.

PICS

I admit to taking a spin on the book Use What You Have Decorating. When I say Use What You Have Cooking I’m talking about garden produce and items in your pantry.

As the summer begins to make it’s merry way into hibernation I find myself baking and cooking a bit more.  Also making extra meals for the freezer.

I recently sent one of my best friends a couple of my favorite freezer and mix cooking books so she could make ample use of her extra garden produce and stock her freezer with delicious meals and snacks.

As much as like cooking for the freezer I just don’t have the energy to make a day of it. Strangely enough I tend to make my freezer meals the day I come from  grocery shopping. I have all my ingredients fresh and ready to go.

Here is a list of what you’ll usually find in my freezer…

Lasagne (great tasting dinner the freezes well)

Parmesan Chicken (from The Freezer Cooking Manual from 30 Day Gourmet)

Beef and Ground Turkey Blend Meatballs (based off of the swedish meatball recipe in the Joy of Cooking

Master Beef Mix which I turn into soup (from Make-A-Mix)

And that’s it for completed meals. I also have homemade frozen cinnamon rolls and wheat blend dinner rolls that will be set out to rise and then bake.

This is all sandwiched by my ice cream, frozen chopped onions, carrots and celery. And frozen packages of ground beef, buffalo (my sister got me started on this), some steak.

So what is in your freezer?