Creamy Beef Stew

I found this spectacular recipe for a hearty, creamy stew. It freezes VERY well!! All of the veggies were still nice and crisp (I don't like them mushy..), and even the noodles held their texture! Enjoy :)

Creamy Beef and Pasta Stew
(original recipe here)

• 2 cans (10-3/4 ounces each) condensed cream of mushroom soup, undiluted
• 2 cups (8 ounces) shredded cheddar or part-skim mozzarella cheese
• 1 pound ground beef, cooked and drained
• 1 cup chopped potatoes (quick cooked)
• 1/2 cup chopped raw carrots
• 1/2 cup chopped raw celery
• 1/4 cup chopped raw onions 
• handful of spinach or kale (optional)
• 2 cups uncooked small pasta (whole wheat for extra healthiness) 
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon onion powder
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon garlic powder
• 1/2 to 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 to 1/2 teaspoon pepper
• 2 cups milk

Directions

Cook beef. Wash and chop all veggies. Boil potatoes for about 3 minutes, drain. Combine all ingredients EXCEPT 2 cups milk. Store in ziplock bag in freezer. On the day you want to eat it,  dump frozen stew mixture into crock pot and pour 2 cups milk over it. This will thaw it just enough so you can break it apart with a spoon to fit into your crock pot. Cook on low for 6 hours or so, until veggies are to your desired tenderness. Give it a stir a half hour or so before you serve to make sure everything is well mixed. Makes roughly 4-6 servings.

Waffles with Spiced Blackberry Sauce

Fresh hot waffles smothered in a delicious blackberry sauce... what a scrumptious way to start off the day. But let's be realistic-- who has the time to make that up before work, school or church? Well, with these freeze-ahead recipes you don't have to have time! It's already made for you!
And the best part is, this ready-to-eat breakfast is packed with nutrition. The waffles are whole wheat, and the sauce is well.. whole berry ;) Now let's be realistic. Is this as fantastic as fresh from the iron waffles? No. But when you need a quick breakfast, this is a lovely option.


Everyday Whole Wheat Waffles
(this is a jumbo batch so you can stock the freezer. Psst.. use leftover potato water in place of milk. Makes them extra fluffy!)

5 1/4 cups whole wheat flour
3 Tbl baking powder
1 1/2 tsp salt
6 eggs
5 1/4 cups milk
1 1/2 cups oil
--------------------
Combine wet ingredients, beating thoroughly. Add salt and baking powder, again mixing thoroughly. Gradually add flour. Cook in waffle iron to desired crispness. After cooling, pack individual waffles between wax paper in a freezer ziploc bag. Store in freezer. Makes roughly 2 1/2 dozen 4" waffles. 

Spiced Blackberry Sauce
My daughter's purple face is a testimony to the yumminess of this nutritious sauce!
4 cups frozen blackberries
1/2 cup water
1/3 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbs cornstarch mixed with 2 Tbs water
---
Place berries and water in a medium saucepan over medium/high heat. Once the berries have thawed, add sugar and cinnamon. Bring to a boil, and boil until berries fall apart easily. Remove from heat and puree in food processor, or smash with a potato masher for a chunkier texture. Return to a boil and add the cornstarch water mixture. Stir constantly until thickened. Remove from heat and cool. Pour into a container with enough room to allow for expansion and store in freezer. Thaw in refrigerator before use. Reheat before serving for maximum yumminess. Makes roughly 2 1/2 cups of sauce.

Freezer Biscuits

There's nothing like fresh hot biscuits slathered in butter and honey to go alongside a steamy soup. But who wants to dirty up the kitchen counter with sticky flour every evening? These make ahead biscuits are a perfect last minute addition to the bounty of your crock pot. My sister introduced me to the concept, and it works wonderfully with my favorite biscuit recipe!

Freezer Biscuits
Original recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.













4 cups all purpose flour
2 Tbl baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup butter
1 1/2 to 2 cups milk
-----

Mix together all dry ingredients. Cut in butter until size of small peas. Add milk and mix gently. Dough should be very sticky and moist. Plop onto floured surface and pat down quickly with hands until about 3/4-1" thick. Cut out and place on an ungreased cookie sheet. Cover with plastic wrap and place in the freezer. Once frozen, remove from pan and toss biscuits into a freezer ziploc bag. Store in freezer.
When making supper, preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place frozen biscuits on a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until golden brown and biscuit springs back after a light press. Devour happily. Makes roughly 16 medium biscuits.
**For whole wheat biscuits I recommend using King Arthur's White Whole Wheat flour. It has all the nutrition of whole wheat, but a texture and flavor more akin to white.
**I use my food processor to cut in the butter--saves a lot of time.

Recipes for the freezer!

I absolutely love make-ahead crockpot meals. This gal has wonderful posts on crock pot once-a-month cooking...totally inspired me! Go check it out! http://lovingmynest.com/learning-activities/freezer-crock-pot-cooking-day/

I also found this board on pinterest that looks like a treasure trove of freezer recipes--http://pinterest.com/cunderwoodboyd/crockpot-and-once-a-month-and-freezer-cooking-idea/


 For my meals however, I didn't want all of them to be stews and soups. Remember how I said this was a MINIMAL effort solution, not a NO effort one? As you read these recipes, you'll see what I meant. I'm afraid I always forget to write down my recipes, so at present I only have one with actual measurements. But check back, I'll have more! =D

My mom used to make this spectacular casserole. It's always a hit when I serve it to guests, and I have discovered it's a good candidate for once-a-month cooking!

Mrs. Senn's Casserole

1 lb cooked cubed chicken
1 can cream of chicken soup
4 oz sour cream
1-2 cups (up to you) shredded cheddar cheese
1 bag (12 oz) frozen califoria mix veggies.
1-2 cups bread cubes tossed in melted butter (not sure of amount, you'll have to eyeball it)

Mix up all ingredients except bread cubes. Dump into an 8x8 baking pan. Cover with tin foil. If you feel you need to, wrap the whole thing in plastic wrap so it won't leak at all before it freezes. You can either bag and freeze the bread cubes now, or wait on that till the day you cook the casserole. I recommend placing the breadcubes on top about 45 minutes before it's DONE... that way they won't get burnt before the whole casserole heats through. Bake uncovered at 350. If frozen, allow at least 2 hours.
*Note.  I'll be honest, I'm so new at this I'm not sure exactly how long it'll take if thawed...but I would still allow 2 hours just in case. You can always just keep it hot if it's done sooner :) But it thaws beautifully and tastes great!
*Effort--Add the bread cubes and butter during the bake time. Not much to do :)

January's Cook Day

Wash. Chop. Sautee. Simmer. Stir. Set off smoke alarm. Repeat.

Call me lazy, but I just don't want to do that several times a week. As much as I love eating...cooking multiple times a week falls into the 'life's too short' category. I was whining about it to my mom-in-law, and finally decided on a solution. Once a month cooking!

  The idea? Schedule one day a month to prepare all your suppers for 30 days, and if you're really ambitious, get your baking and lunches done too! (ahem..I'm not.) Pack the meals away in the freezer, ready to use when you need them. I tried it for the first time in December and fell in love. Cue romantic violin music. Ahh, I never realized how much time I lost every evening (and how stressed I was!) until I didn't have to do it. Sweet premade bliss!

  And so, I'm going to pass along the things I've learned so far in my new style of cooking. But let me clarify one thing... this is not a NO work solution..this is a MINIMAL work solution. You may need to add water to your crock pot, or shred up the chicken once it's cooked, maybe make a pot of rice, that sort of thing...but that's nothing to starting from scratch every meal!

  Well, let's get started!  Sorry that this is so incomplete... hopefully you'll get the idea. Here's how my January menu came together.

 First, I chose my recipes. On the menu this month is sloppy joes, a mexi-style pot pie, beef and noodle stew, baked beans and pineapple, teriyaki burgers, chicken casserole, pizza, and a few instant meals of grilled cheese (for when I forget to thaw the food out..). Every Saturday we have breakfast dinners so that we have breakfast already made for Sunday morning..soo I put together a potato egg casserole.  I also discovered that I had a few meals left over from last month (since we ate with other folks for the holidays). So I got a freebie of fajitas and a soup. I also had an accidental lunch. Yes..accidental. Seasoned once-a-month cookers, no hatin' please..it's only my second time! Almost everything is from scratch, including the buns and pizza crust. I'll post the recipes that turn out!

I then made a master grocery list based on my recipes.
*Note, do NOT shop on the same day you're gonna cook! An evil goblin will pop out of your pantry and knock you on the head with a rolling pin. Ok fine, not really, but it's still a bad idea! You'll need all the time you can get for your cooking day.

 Time to get it cooked! I prefer to get the hardest things out of the way first while I have the most energy.

 First I got the dough mixing in my bread machine for my sandwich bread and hamburger buns. You can find the recipe for the whole wheat hamburger buns here, its lovely! I used all whole wheat flour however, I didn't split it with the white. They tasted a bit more like fluffy rolls than hamburger buns, but they were still good :) I also got a raisin quickbread baking.

 Then I got all the nasty meat cooked up. ( I detest handling raw meat... ) I had forgotten to thaw the meat the night before, so I placed it in a sinkful of hot water. Lost some time there :( I browned the hamburger meat and boiled the chicken.

  While the dough is mixing and the meat is cooking, I washed and chopped up all my veggies.

 By this time the dough is ready to shape and bake.
 Now that my buns were in the oven, I got my pizza dough mixing and I finished up what was left of  the veggie and meat prep.

  I got my storage containers labeled (I use ziplocks for anything that goes in the crockpot) and began distributing the meat, veggies, pasta, canned soups and seasonings into the appropriate containers. I included on the containers a note of any additional work to be done when it came time to heat them up (for example, on the soup, add x amount of water. Preheat oven to x degrees..) I mixed together the casserole and pie fillings, dumping them into the baking pans. *Note..I took this picture once everything was done because I forgot to do it during the process! There's my beautiful homemade frozen pizza, ready to bake!

  My buns came out beautifully!

  At some point I shaped and baked my pizza crust.

 Somewhere in all this muddle of cooking I made my pastry crust for my pot pie.

 My accident meal was a last minute rearranging of ingredients to get some meat pastries for my hubby's lunches. I had some extra canned beans and things in my pantry I decided to use up :)

 I'll admit it. I'm still learning to make a plan of what to do when...once I do it a few more times I'm sure it will be more efficient! Yesterday sort of became a blur because I only planned the first half out.

  I was originally going to get all my waffles and muffins made for our breakfasts, but I don't mind doing that during the week. And my daughter loves to help make them!

  After all this, I got my kitchen cleaned up and collapsed. I sure was beat... but now I won't have to do a bunch of cooking for a whole month! Weelll...with one exception. I had forgotten to get my beans soaking for my baked beans and pineapple...so I will have to do that sometimes or else have one extra night of grilled cheese and do baked beans next month :)

  I know this post is very incomplete of how it all happens, but it's really quite simple. Just read your recipes and think through of what needs to happen when...and be smarter than me. WRITE IT DOWN. Then you won't stand there with a carrot in one hand and a rolling pin in the other wondering what to do next. There's quite a bit of multi-tasking going on, but eventually you get through it :)

Tips--

 --Any water you cook veggies or meats in on your cook day, save it! Freeze it in a large container to allow for expansion, and add it to your soups. There are lots of nutrients in that water, it'd be sad to waste them. Potato water is WONDERFUL for pancakes, makes them super fluffy!

--Don't bother cutting up raw chicken for crock pot meals. Just let it cook whole, it'll only take a second to shred once it's cooked and saves work on your prep day.

--When cooking a soup, throw in an extra chicken breast or two. Once it's cooked, take it out and shred it. It makes great sandwich meat (and no, it won't taste like the soup..). It's very moist, and won't dirty up any extra dishes since it cooked with your soup. My husband loved it, and didn't realize why it tasted so good!

--To make your own frozen pizza, pre-bake the crust for about half the total bake time. Then add your sauce and toppings, wrap it up and freeze it :) Then the crust won't get overbaked, but it'll be stiff enough to load with toppings.

--I haven't seen this personally, but I've heard that freezing raw potatoes will turn them black. Won't go bad..they just don't look good. Some people recommend giving your potatoes a real quick boil (not a full cooking) before you freeze them.

--Here's a resource for freezing foods and ingredients http://www.simpleorganizedliving.com/2011/02/10/freezable-foods/

-- I have found that cream soups do not freeze very well, unless made from canned cream soups. Not sure why! But you can still do all your other prep work of veggies and seasonings, adding the cream last minute. It'll still save you lots of time!
 

Welp, as we thaw and cook our meals, I'll post the recipes that worked nicely. So check back, and hopefully in Februrary I'll have a more organized presentation on this wonderful style of cooking.