She gave me a packet that she made with tips on how to make freezer meals. It had a few recipes in it so decided to try 2 of them on my own. The first one I made was breakfast burritos. I forgot to take a pic sorry! They were so simple yet so delish! The second one I did was a chicken broccoli bake. This was oh so delish! I cant even tell you how good it was. I did make a few changes to the recipe which I will note below with the recipes. I did manage to get of pic of this one but not until after it was in the freezer and frozen. I am going to be making meatballs some time this week and will post when I get those done.
Breakfast Burritos
1 # bacon cut into 1/2" slices (I would have used 2 #)
1 lg onion ( I LOVE onion and bacon together so I would have used 2)
lg roll/pkg of sausage (I used Jimmy Deans big roll)
2 1/2 dozen eggs (I used 1 1/2 and had extra but we dont like lots of egg)
1 c. milk
salt 'n' pepper
1/2-1 # cheese grated
24 flour tortillas (about)
Cook the bacon and onion until the onions are nicely caramelized and bacon is crispy. Drain the fat. Put a paper towel into a bowl and put the bacon/onion on that. Cook sausage into crumbles. Place in a bowl. Beat the eggs with milk, salt 'n' pepper. Melt 2 Tbs. butter in a LARGE pan. (I did 1/2 of the eggs at a time to cook quicker) Cook until eggs are done. Put into a large bowl.
Now you will assemble your burritos. You can do this however you like. For ours I put a little cheese, egg, bacon/onion & sausage in each. You can do just one of the meats in each one or you can mix the 2 together. I did find that 1 or 2 spoon fulls of each topping was plenty. Then you just roll them like a burrito.
I then wrapped them individually in plastic wrap and placed them in gallon size FREEZER ziploc bags. Make sure you write on the bags BEFORE filling them! Write what they are, how to reheat them and the date so you know exactly how to use them when the time comes. Thats it, you are done!
When you are ready to use these reheat one at a time in a microwave wrapped in a paper towel for about 2 min.
Chicken Broccoli Bake
(Makes 16 servings)
1 c. butter
1 c. flour
8 c. milk
salt 'n' pepper
4 c. cooked diced chicken (I will use 8c next time. Not enough for each. I would also have cooked with garlic of some sort and salt 'n' pepper)
2 # steamed broccoli
2 # grated cheese
Make white sauce: melt butter in a LARGE pot. Add flour stirring constantly. When boils cook for 30 seconds then slowly add milk, mixing constantly with a wire whisk. Stir till thick. Remove from heat.
Place chicken into 4 square tin pans or a gallon size freezer ziplock bag. Divide broccoli among pans or bags. Pour 2 c. white sauce over chicken/broccoli. Place grated cheese into 4 equal quart sz freezer bags. Label and freeze.
To use: Thaw, bake 350 for 30 minutes. Serve over cooked rice or spaghetti noodles.
One thing I would do differently next time is instead of putting the cheese in a separate bag I would have added it to my white sauce to make it a cheesy sauce. You would basically have the same taste as adding it on top when you are ready to cook it.
I find that the eggs froze and reheated really well. The tortillas however, if overheated get rubbery and hard, so be careful. Even so, these are still very tasty and handy to have for a morning on the run or a midnight snack.
ReplyDeleteThe beauty of the burritos, or so many other recipes is that they can be adapted to what you like and can eat. You can buy frozen burritos at the store, but they have what the factory deems appropriate or tasty instead of what we want. So why not make our own. We all have people in our lives who have various tastes and allergies to deal with. Thus, customization is a good thing. When I made these it took me about an hour from start to finish and we got 3 bags of burritos out of it. Not too bad for an hour of no-TV family time!
Remember to individually wrap them or freeze them separately first, then bag them.
Here are some more tips on Freezer Cooking.
When you are adapting one of your own recipes to a freezer meal there are a couple of things to think about.
*How well does this recipe double or triple? (If you are going to take the time to make it and freeze it, why not make more than one, takes just about the same amount of time.)
*How much cooking is involved before and after the assembly of the dish? (the more time it cooks afterward the more you have to under-cook the dish beforehand - otherwise it will just turn to mush!)
*Can I separate the dish out to make it easier? (You can bag the sauce & noodles [i.e. Spaghetti] separately so that they can be heated individually and not risk overcooking)
*Am I willing to make the rice or pasta the day of instead of beforehand? (You can freeze rice and pasta, but it tastes much better when made fresh for dinner to serve with the sauces [like Spaghetti or Chicken a la King].)
*Will I be willing to heat this up and eat it? (I have actually made dishes that I didn't particularly like and then never felt in the "mood" to heat it up, so it just gets freezer burned after a while and I had to throw it away. What a waste!)
*Will the dish be better or worse when the flavor mingle? (Frozen dishes like Spaghetti seem to get better with time as the flavors mingle together. There are some dishes that need to have their own separate flavors. In that instance it would probably be better to package things separately.)
*Will the ingredients in there change and make it gross to eat? (Remember that potatoes get mushy, sour cream sauces separate and fried food gets soggy. I do make beef stew, but I don't mind the potatoes being soft in that. Although you could always make stew without potatoes and then cut up a baked potato and add that to the reheated stew.)
*When reheating a baked dish remember that you are starting from a cold dish, not hot like in the original recipe. You will have to bake for about 150% of the time. So, for example 45 min instead of 30 min.
For more recipes and tips you can look up my blog.... marcellasoamc.blogspot.com