Freezer Dinner 7-13-08 - Almost Wicked Quick Spaghetti & Meatballs

I had no spaghetti sauce in the freezer, so I made a quick batch from scratch. Here's how easy it is:

2 - 15 oz. cans stewed tomatoes
1 - 15 oz can diced tomatoes

Puree these all together and dump in a 4-qt. saucepan. Sauce will be very thin! Add a 4 oz. can of tomato paste if you like thicker sauce. Add the following stir to blend (these amounts are approximate):

1 tbsp dried minced onion
1 tsp garlic powder
2 tsp dried oregano
2 tsp dried basil
2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp salt
2 tbsp olive oil
2 tbsp dry red wine

Drop in 12 pre-cooked frozen 2" meatballs. Simmer for 30 minutes.

If I were making "Wicked Quick Spaghetti & Meatballs" - I would have pulled out my already prepared sauce from the freezer - but this really is almost as quick.

Even better - pull out a frozen loaf of italian or portugese bread and pop it in the oven at 325 degrees for 30 minutes while the sauce is simmering. Poof! Hot bread whenever you want it. Loaves of bread should always, ALWAYS be in your freezer! Wrap whole loaves (do NOT pre-slice them) tightly in foil, label them with a Sharpie, and you'll always be ready with a hot loaf of bread for any occasion.

Flash-frozen convenience chicken

Unexpected company (my sister, niece and nephew) for dinner the other night made me realize how something so simple can sometimes be invaluable. I'm talking flash-frozen convenience chicken.

Sam's Club has 6.5 lb. packages of chicken thighs and legs. Many times I've placed 9-10 pieces in a gallon ziplock bag, dumped in some BBQ sauce or marinade, and frozen it like that - and when it thaws, it's already marinated and ready for the grill. But if you're like my family, we like BBQ sauces & marinades with high sugar contents, and I noticed that the sauce will be black by the time the chicken's done cooking. You can't really baste it with the sauce in the bag...raw chicken bacteria, salmonella & all...ick.

Freezing just the plain pieces of chicken is OK - but when you thaw it out, you still have raw chicken to cook. I'm all about saving time as well as money.

So my solution is to pre-cook the chicken in the oven. I season it with a little salt, pepper and onion powder and bake it at 350 degrees for 45 minutes. When it cools, I transfer it to a cookie sheet lined with waxed paper, and freeze the chicken pieces separately. When frozen, I store them in a ziplock bag, and then I can pull out only what I need to thaw and reheat later.

While reheating the chicken on my grill (on LOW!), I can baste it with bbq sauce whenever I want, and it won't burn. Reheating the chicken takes @ 30 minutes.

Note - my sister said there was no way they could tell it was previously frozen. In addition to the chicken, I threw some rice into the rice cooker, grilled some zucchini and summer squash, cut up a whole slew of raw veggies, and opened a can of baked beans, My nephew made sure he told me he had cleaned his plate. :-)

Unexpected company doesn't have to send you into a panic, or to the phone for take-out. Having food in the freezer for convenience means you can entertain AND enjoy your company at the same time.