NEW RECIPES

I just met a gal yesterday who has been doing freezer meals for 7 years!!  She has obviously gone through her recipe book several times and made adjustments/eliminations.  I asked her so sweetly to help our little group and I just got the email!!  I will be going through them in the next few weeks and posting a bunch more recipes.  She told me her group does 18 meals for around $90 a month, so it looks like they have cut out a bunch of costs as well.

At first glance, there aren't too many casserole style dishes (yeah), and a bunch of marinades which sounds fantastic to me! Stay tuned and we will meet soon to discuss future adventures with out little group! I miss you guys & my freezer is missing you all too!! 

Chicken Primavera

**This is a half recipe**
1 can (10 ¾ oz.) Condensed Cream of Mushroom Soup
¾  cup milk
¼  cup grated Parmesan cheese
1/8 tsp. Garlic powder
1/8 tsp. pepper
2 cups broccoli flowerets (I use frozen)
2 medium carrots, sliced (I use frozen pre-cut carrots)
2 ½ cups cooked corkscrew or elbow macaroni
2 cans (5 oz. each) Chunk White Chicken, drained OR 2 cups shredded chicken

ASSEMBLY:  Dump all ingredients except macaroni into 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag.  Lay flat in freezer.

COOKING:  Place thawed dinner in a pot over medium heat, heat to a boil. Cover and cook over low heat 30 min. or until vegetables are tender-crisp, stirring occasionally (it won’t actually take this long, since the veggies have been frozen). Stir in macaroni and chicken and heat through.

Sweet and Sour Chicken

1- 8 oz. Fat Free French Dressing
1- 8 Oz. can Jelly (whole) cranberry sauce
1 package – Dried Onion Soup Mix
4 Boneless Chicken Breasts (you can add more or less – cut into cube pieces)
2-3 cups of stir-fry vegetables

ASSEMBLE:  Dump all ingredients into 1 gallon Ziploc freezer bag.  Lay flat in freezer.

COOKING:  Mix all ingredients in a 13 x 9 glass pan. Cover with tin foil.  Bake 350 degrees for 45 minutes.  Stir and serve over rice or noodles.

Small change

Hey ladies-
So I was looking at the receipe for poppy seed chicken and it looked like it was horribly unhealthy, so I taked it over with a couple of the other girls in our group and I decided to make a few changes. It mostly the same kind of dish- chicken with rice, but instead of the heavy poppy seed sauce with buttery crackers on top, it's a similar, low fat sauce with capers. It's actually Kelly's receipe, so if it tastes wonderful, she gets the credit, if it's bad- then you can totally blame my cooking...haha. So the sauce has cream of chicken soup, low fat sour cream and skim milk in it with capers and some salt and pepper. It should cook for similar times as other dishes- 375 for about a hour. But that's just a guess, because I've never made this before, or frozen it before. I hope the change is okay with you guys, if not, let me know and I'll put together a poppy seed chicken just for you- sorry about the late notice.... see you all at the trade!

April 29 Freezer Meal Swap

1. This month we will prepare 11 half/5.5 full meals.  Use your judgement on how much to buy concerning that extra half recipe.  Because we are making 1.5 recipes less, our cap this month is $55.  

2. Jessi, Cathy and Karen are not doing the group this month.  Karen is moving the middle of May :(

3.  There are only seven of us this month.  We want to keep the swap around ten meals, so if you are willing to make two different recipes-particularly those who get the full meals-let me know.  Jen and I are planning on making two, so that already puts us at 9 meals.  Anyone else?  Anyone? Anyone!

4. YOU MUST HAVE YOUR TOTALS IN TO JEN BY MONDAY, APRIL 26.  Don't forget that we will be squaring up for last month, so you may end up owing more or getting more back than usual.  Don't forget to bring your exact total to the swap.  Jen will get the totals to you by Wednesday.

5. Kelly has pans and bags for pick-up. We are going to disperse the $120 total (500 pans and a huge box of bags) over 5 months. (This will be month two.) This way if you leave or someone new joins, it will be fair to all. Assuming we use 100 pans a month ( we should use less than that) they will last more than five months. Pretty much, you'll pay a couple dollars a month for supplies each month you participate.

6.  Don't forget that we decided last month, if you are more than 15 minutes late to the swap you will be responsible to get everyone their meals individually.  

7. Make sure to go and rate all your meals that you ate this month so we can ditch them or keep 'em. Then we'll clear up that space for next month's recipes.

8.  Are you still loving this?!?!?  Leave comments, or make posts and let us know how your feeling!  Last month I timed how long it took me to cook AND clean up because I really wanted to be sure that it was worth it.  An hour and forty five minutes is SO worth it to me to have ten meals prepared for the month.  I for one, am still loving this!

9.  This is it I promise!!!  Next month we are getting in to the hot summer months.  I don't think we should do many soups, if any, in the summer.  I also think that we should do as many crock pot meals as possible so that we don't have to use our ovens as much.  What do you think?

See ya soon!

Round Pans Tip

Here's another tip for the round pan lids: 

Spray a bit of Pam on the foil side of the lid before you cover the food.  After it is frozen it won't stick to the food.

Cooking Cautions For Round Pans

FYI

Be sure to remove the cardboard cover to the round pans, they burn and the foil part will bubble and smell like burnt plastic.