Meal Ministry

Having meals in the freezer ready to go is VERY convenient when the need arises to bring a meal to a family in need. I brought over some crispy chicken (previously cooked and flash-frozen), apple-mashed potatoes and baby carrots - with homemade applesauce (frozen for her to thaw) for dessert - to a friend and her family tonight. All she had to do prep-wise was reheat the chicken in the over, and reheat the potatoes and carrots in the microwave. Most people just don't think to prepare food this way! In addition to the meal for tonight, I also brought her a pre-seasoned whole frozen chicken to keep in her freezer for another night that she didn't have time to cook. They're in the process of moving, nothing really serious, but it's tough when you have small children and limited time.

Tis the season for pot pie!

The absolute best way to freeze pot pie is to assemble the filling, precook the liquid part, mix it into the filling, and then dump the whole thing in a gallon ziplock bag and freeze flat for convenient freezer storage. When you're ready to make the pie, just prepare the bottom crust, thaw the filling & dump it in the crust, top with a top crust, and bake! This is a huge time saver!

Here's my recipe - see if it gives you any ideas for freezing your own recipe!

Makes:
1-9" deep dish pie
Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour
Ready In: 1 hour 20 minutes
Servings: 6

Ingredients:
2 refrigerated pie crusts
4 tbsp. butter
4 tbsp. flour
2-1/2 c. milk
1 tsp. granulated chicken bouillion
salt & pepper to taste
1/4 cup finely chopped onion
2 potatoes, peeled & diced
2 carrots, peeled & sliced
1/2 cup frozen cut green beans
2 cups chopped cooked chicken

Directions:
Place bottom pie crust in a deep 9" round pie plate. Put potatoes, carrots, green beans, chicken and onion in pie plate and mix up a bit.
Melt butter in 2-qt. saucepan. Add flour & cook for 1 minute. Add milk, chicken bouillion, salt and pepper. Heat and stir until thickened. Pour sauce all over pie filling. Top with 2nd crust and seal edges. Cut slits in the top to vent, and bake at 375 degrees for 1 hour.

Meats in marinade

Take your favorite cuts of meat, add your favorite marinade - put meal-sized portions of meat and plenty of marinade in a gallon ziplock bag, squeeze out the air, and freeze! The meat will continue to marinate in the freezer, and the liquid protects the meat from things like freezer burn. To prepare - simply thaw it out and grill, broil, or whatever the cut of meat calls for.

This preparation method saves time, money, and produces a much more flavorful piece of meat!

Examples:

Quick & Lazy BBQ Pork Chops

Place 4-6 pork chops in a gallon ziplock bag. Dump in a bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce. Work the sauce through the bag until chops are coated thoroughly. Squeeze air out of the bag and freeze. Yes - it's that simple!

Lemon-Rosemary Grilled Chicken

Whisk together 1/4 cup EVOO, 1/4 cup lemon juice, 2 Tbsp. honey, 1 tsp. dried rosemary, dash garlic powder, salt & pepper to taste. Place 4-6 boneless, skinless breast halves in a ziplock bag, dump in the marinade, work through the chicken, squeeze out air, and freeze. This one's a family favorite!

Spaghetti sauce is a breeze to freeze!

No need to ever buy prepared jarred sauce again. Even if it's just basic tomatoes and spices - you can always thaw it and add other ingredients (ground beef, sausage, vegetables) later - the time-consuming work and pre-cooking will have already been done by the time it hits the freezer.

No need for a vacuum sealer - just put it in a gallon size Ziplock. REMEMBER! Freeze the sauce FLAT!! This will save on both freezer space (making the bags stackable) and thawing time by increasing the surface area.

Don't forget to also freeze some smaller amounts of sauce as well for things like calzones, homemade pizza, and sauce for dipping.

Freezing meatloaf

I've tried every method out there - cooking first and freezing, freezing uncooked in the pan and wrapping the "brick" up for freezer storage - but the following method is by far THE BEST all around method.

Stock up the next time those ground meats go on sale. Assemble your favorite meatloaf recipe, and after it's all mixed up and ready to put into the pan - put it in a gallon ziplock bag instead. Flatten it out completely in the bag, which easily pushes most of the air out - and seal. Freeze ready-to-go meatloaf this way, and you can stack them on top of one another, saving oodles of freezer space. This method also cuts down greatly on the time it takes to thaw the meatloaf, because it's such a thin, flat package.

When the package thaws, you have the option of adding more ingredients to it, or just dump it into a meatloaf pan and bake as usual.

Simple Whole Roasted Chicken

Whole chickens are one of the most economical meals you can make for your family, especially when they are on sale for 69 cents per pound...or sometimes even less! You can stock up on whole birds IF you have the freezer space, and you know how to properly freeze them for quick thawing and easy preparation later.

Open up the packages, and remove all the giblets. I freeze the giblets separately for making soup/broth later on. Rinse the chicken inside and out with cold water, and then pat dry with paper towel. Now rub a generous amount of spice mixture all over the bird...here are several concoctions below, but you can tailor any blend of spices to suit your own tastes:

For roast "sticky chicken" like you find rotisserie-style in the grocery store, here's the spice mixture for a 6-7 lb. bird. When you cook the bird, stuff the cavity with chopped onion, and baste the bird frequently with the pan juices, which will contain a good amount of carmelized onion.

4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons paprika
1 teaspoon onion powder
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

For a very different flavored chicken - try this! Seriously, and don't laugh, it is delicious!

4 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons white sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

There are many different things you can season whole chickens with - a quick internet search will lead you to some winners, I'm sure!

After the chicken is seasoned, vacuum seal it and freeze. The seasoning gets into the chicken really well during the freezing process, and the chicken gets even more tender than if you made it fresh.

Freezing cooked pumpkin

Pumpkins are so versitile, and they're everywhere this time of year! Now is a great time to bake some up, scrape it out, and freeze it in 2-cup (or whatever your recipes call for) portions - ziplock bags work just fine for this, because it's pretty easy to get all the air out of something as squishy as squash.

Imagine - baking pumpkin pie, or making pumpkin bread or muffins with fresh pumpkin at any time of year!

All winter squash freezes very well after it's been baked - acorn, butternut, etc., so take advantage of autumn's bounty.