Monday, July 14, 2014

Freezer Meals: aka, staying sane thru life with two jobs.

You may be asking, “BK, how in the world do you find time to have a 45-hour a week job, own The Scoop, manage a household, (periodically) update this blog, and still find time to cook?”
The answer?  I don’t.  I’m human…as human as anyone, and I CANNOT do it all.  Thankfully, the Hubs manages most of our household finances and the more “businessy” side of The Scoop so I can focus on marketing & creating specials, and oh, yeah, also periodically feeding our own faces.  It also helps that his “office” is in our home, so if he’s slow at work, he can do laundry, load the dishwasher, etc.  But, during Scoop-season, our schedules stay pretty packed, with very little down time for blogging and getting creative with our own meal options.  I typically use the weekends to make a big batch of something in the Crockpot & then we eat leftovers most of the week.  Not exactly glamorous, but it’s nourishment and it keeps us from having to eat at The Scoop as often, since sadly, Nathan Dogs, while famous, are not all that good for you.
And I also have my friend Meghan to thank for convincing me to start using my weekends to make freezer meals. 
For my first round, I decided to go with three “casserole” type dishes and some breakfast burritos, since I am notorious for not eating breakfast in the mornings if I’m in a rush & then stopping to get fast food.  At least if I make the breakfast burrito myself, I can control what’s in it.
Rather than recreating all these recipes here, I’ll just give you the links to the helpful blogs I used:
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We filled ours with scrambled eggs, cheddar, crumbled sausage, hash browns, bacon, and jalapenos (well, some with jalapeno—some mornings I’m too wimpy for that).  The tip the blogger posts about nuking it for 1 minute, letting it rest, then 1 more minute?  Perfect. Makes these soooo easy to re-heat.  Sans aluminum foil, of course.
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A girl from work brought in a birthday cake in an aluminum pan, so when it had all disappeared I pilfered the pan, washed & reused it for this dish. (Yay, recycling!)
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I made two of these, since one of our church friends just had a baby, so that we could take one over to them. (Even though I know they were REALLY hoping I’d send over a pot of jambalaya.)
Creamy Ham Noodle Casserole Recipe
(Apparently I forgot to take a photo while prepping this one.)  We decided to make include this one because we had a HUGE ham steak in the freezer—so part of it went into the chicken cordon bleu casserole, part into this, and the rest into sandwiches.
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So that’s our lil’ stockpile.  Most of those are gone now (the burritos disappeared fast), but it’s really helped during this season of The Scoop when we just get a little too busy but don’t want to have to eat take out.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the shout out! I have some freezer meals to make this week too, Chicken Huts & Tater Tot Casserole! You should come up to St. Louis one day and hit up Time for Dinner! :) My freezer is already full, but I want a few more items to get us through my first few crazy months back at work.

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    1. Mmm, tater tot casserole, that's one I love! I've always made it fresh, never as a freezer meal, but I totally should! The burritos were really handy--I need to make more of those.

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