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. 

March Totals

Here are the totals for March. We will settle them at our swap at the end of April. If that does not work for any of you, let me know. Just remember, if you have half meals you should get a little back. If you have full meals (two halves) you will owe money.

Our total cost for each half meal was $3.93 (including packaging).  Not too shabby!

Don't forget, the cap for meals is $60. This ensures that our costs always stay under $4 per half meal. As we add more people, and have more meals, the total may go up. If you absolutely cannot keep your recipe costs under this, you can swap recipes or see if everyone is willing to pay a little more for the amazing meal. Note: Jessi's total is over $60 because she was 2 meals short so I added the cost of two half meals to her total for reimbursement.

(Click to enlarge)

February Poll Results

Any meal with more than 3 "Once in a Lifetime" votes was booted. I figure that is a third of the group and is enough to try a new meal in its place. Thanks everyone!

Keeper
Cathy - Chicken Enchiladas
Cyntha - Chicken Pot Pie
Jen - Peaches and Cream Stuffed Pork Chops
Jessi - Cheesy Tomato Penne Bake
Karen - Sloppy Chicken Sandwiches
Kelly - Chicken Noodle Soup
Keri - New England Pot Roast
Lindsay - Sweet Pork

Once in a Lifetime
Kristy - Ham Casserole

March Polls are now updated for all our new meals! Enjoy!

Hey Ladies! Can you believe the time is coming up again for our swap?!?? Here are some items of business to look over for March...

1. If you want a different amount of food (i.e. go from 1/2 meal to whole or vice versa) let me know by tomorrow. If I don't hear from you by late afternoon, I'll assume your all good with the amount you had in March.

2. Christina Sherrin-Helm joined the group so now we will have 10 prepared meals each month (10 members=10 meals)!!!

3. I will post the total amount of meals to you by tomorrow night, so you have all week to shop. (right now it will be 16 half/8 full meals, unless someone changes.)

4. YOU MUST HAVE YOUR TOTALS IN TO JEN BY MONDAY, MARCH 22. SHE GOES IN FOR HER C-SECTION ON THE 23RD SO IN ORDER FOR OUR TOTALS TO BE ACCURATE ON THURSDAY'S SWAP, SHE NEEDS THEM ON THE 22ND AT A DECENT HOUR ;).


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 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. Let me know what your preference is on the amount of people in the group. I know some say the more the merrier and others think too many is overwhelming. I think about 12 people would be ideal, but leave a comment below and let me know.

7. Lastly, 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.

I think that is it!

Aluminum Pans

They are here. I have a huge box of them.

Cook It Frozen

For those of you who have not figured it out, the meals that are completely cooked and in the aluminum pans can be cooked frozen.  I cooked it at 450 for about 30+ min. 

So far I have done this with the:
Cheesy Tomato Penne Bake (cook with foil on so it won't dry out)
Chicken Enchilada (cook either way I did half on half off)
Chicken Pot Pie (be sure to remove plastic wrap under foil.  I cooked it with foil off too)

Ziploc Bags and Aluminum Pans

I ordered 9" round aluminum pans with cardboard lids. They are being shipped now. I also have a bevy of ziploc bags from Sam's Club that I bought for our group. Let me know what you need and how much. You will be able to come by and pick it up. I am hoping by next week. I will let you know when they get here.

Are you loving this as much as I am?!?!?

Hey all, our next exchange will be

Thursday, March 25 at 8 p.m.-Topaz Pavillion

Start looking for sales now on your ingredients to try and keep the costs as low as possible. If you know of anyone else who wants to join, they must be committed by March 15 so that we can prepare the amount of ingredients. At that time, we will make official how many meals to prepare.

Ham & Brocolli Rice Bake

This recipe is super easy beacuse the servings are really up to you!! First, just figure out how many servings you need and start by making the rice. So for example, for my family, (3 kids, 2 adults) I do about 3-4 cups (uncooked) rice. When its done, first mix in 2 cans cream of mushroom soup, 1/2 cup milk, next chop up and add 2-3 cups of ham, about one head of brocolli and 2 yellow squash, (both steamed). Mix together, add cheese if you want and spread it out in casserole dish and top with shreddedd cheese. Bake at 350 for 30 min or until heated through and ENJOY!!!! :)

MEAT SALE!!

Smiths is having a big meat sale this week, and Alberstons has some great deals too... check out your recipes for the upcoming months and see if there is anything here you need!

February Total Costs

Here are the totals for February.  We can keep track of the costs of the meals too, so if one seems to be consistently more expensive, we can choose to eliminate it.  Not too shabby though for our first round and for having only 1 week to prepare!!  It can only get better from here!

 

(Click on the image to see it larger)

First Exchange

Well, how do you think we did for our first go around???  I for one thought it was SUPER fun!!  It was like Halloween for grown ups! 

If you have any suggestions as to how we can make it better/easier for next month, leave a quick comment.  Thanks so much for all your hard work!!  I can't wait to get chowin' down!!

Meeting Notes 2/20

We made a few key decisions at our first meeting.  Here is a brief synopsis of what we discussed.

• We will be choosing 3 meals at a time to prepare over the next few months.  This will give us an opportunity to keep our costs low by watching and buying ingredients when they are on sale.

• We will have a $60 cap to the dollar amount of the meals you are preparing.  Do your best to make it as cheap as possible (the whole point of this group), but in rare occasions you can spend a little more on meats, etc.  Should be around $50 each meal, but no more than $60.

• You will email Jen (jcrewmommy@cox.net) on the last Monday of the month your total amount spent.  

• Jen will email you on Wednesday how much you will owe or be refunded at the exchange.  If you owe, please bring exact change in cash since the amounts will zero out at the end.

• We will meet to exchange meals on the last Thursday of each month at 8pm at the Topaz Chapel on Pebble and Topaz.

• Everyone will have authorship on this blog.  Please make comments under the recipes if they took a long time to prepare, if there were some ingredients that didn't work out, or if something didn't freeze very well.  

• We will put polls up for each recipe for the month and you can vote on whether or not we will keep that recipe in our "recipe box" or if it will be retired.  

• When adding recipes, please put a label on the post that begins: Recipe-blah, blah, blah.  This will make it easy for us to look up the recipe when we need it. 

Finding Great Deals

I thought I would put a little tutorial together on the best way to watch for the sales.  

Every Wednesday, the new ads come out for the grocery stores.  Go to www.grocerysmarts.com and put in my code g89cjm.  When you get the NV page, follow the red arrow to the store selection and choose "All In One".  This will pull EVERY list for NV, and will make it very easy to compare prices for different stores.  (Note: The Alphabetical Coupon Index is a great place to look and see if there are coupons for any of the ingredients you need, just click on that and start typing in your ingredient - pretty cool).

When you get to the All In One list, click the START button in the top right, then click on each store heading.  Then go back and look for the meat or other product you want to compare.  In this example, I was looking for prices on pork chops.  So, I selected each store's deal for pork chops.  Then clicked on the SHRINK button back at the top.  Now, I can clearly view all my options and see that Vons has the best deal this week so that's where I will get the meat (unless Costco or Sam's Club is somehow cheaper). 

Hopefully that helps you a little, so get your list together for the next few recipes you are preparing and watch the ads for great prices!  Happy Cooking!!