Freezer Mashed Potatoes

I LOVE real mashed taters. It's true. They are amazing. But I have always hated the effort. Lazy, I know.

I've made this recipe a few times for others and am finally getting around to making a BIG amount to freeze later. Usually I half or even third the original recipe when making it, but this time I went all out with 11 small-medium potatoes. To save even more time, I don't cube them, I just toss them in whole. That's probably bad chef-fery, BUT I'd rather spend time in the kiddie pool with Sophia.

Ingredients

• 9 Large Potatoes
• 6 oz Cream Cheese (softened OR cubed)
• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 2 Tbsp Butter
• 2 tsp Onion Powder
• 1 tsp Salt
• 1/4 tsp Pepper

Directions

1. Boil potatoes until tender but firm. (I have NO idea how things can be tender AND firm....but it sounds good.)
2. Drain.
3. Add the remaining ingredients.
4. Mash until smooth. (I usually get out my hand mixer, apply the lowest setting, and mix until everything is JUST combined.)
5. Spoon out into greased baking containers.
6. Seal up and don't forget to write the name, date, and "next steps" on your container.
7. When ready, thaw in fridge and bake for 30-40 minutes (or until heated through) at 350F.

This recipe filled two 9-inch cake tins (handy for storing sides, not just cake) from the dollar store. The author suggests using 1 and 1/2 cup servings for storage so that you can pull out exactly what you need, but again, the weather is gorgeous and that kiddie pool was calling our names.

Crock Pot Hibachi Chicken & White Sauce Recipes

This isn't a common recipe on the web. Sure, there are lots of recipes for Hibachi, but VERY FEW for crockpots. So I wasn't really sure what I was going to get when I dumped all the ingredients into a gallon ziplock the night before. Here's the original recipe from Designed by Dawn Nicole. Here's my version.

Ingredients

• 2 pounds boneless skinless chicken thighs (breasts work too), trimmed of fat and cut into bite size pieces
• 1/2 cup soy sauce
• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp sesame oil
• 3 cloves garlic, minced
• 1/2 cup thinly sliced scallions (optional)
• 1 tbsp toasted sesame seeds (optional)
• 4-6 cups white rice (can be made ahead of time and frozen)
• 1 onion, medium and sliced
• 1 zucchini, large and sliced
• 1 cup mushrooms
• 1 cup cabbage or baby bok choy
• 2 tbsp oil for frying

Directions

1. Combine chicken, soy sauce, brown sugar, sesame oil, and garlic in gallon bag. (Can be made ahead of time and frozen.)
2. Toss contents of bag into crockpot on HIGH for 2 hours. Your chicken may need to cook longer, but CHECK IT at 2 hours. It should definitely not need more than 3 hours.
3. Meanwhile, steam the onion, zucchini, mushrooms, and cabbage. (I don't really care for cabbage, so I just stuck with the other 3 for steaming.) When finished, toss into the crockpot to soak up some of that sweet sauce!
4. Fry your white rice in a bit of soy sauce for flavor and color.
5. Plate your crockpot creation over fried rice.

Clearly, you're missing the best part of the meal if you stop here. Please read on! Drizzle (or POUR if you're me) the coveted white sauce over the plate. Here's the recipe I used for mine. It makes just over a cup of sauce. You MIGHT have some left over after the meal depending on how much you love white sauce.

Ingredients

• 1-1/4 cup Hellman's mayo (HAS to be Hellman's)
• 1/4 cup water
• 1 tbsp butter, melted
• 1 tsp tomato paste (HAS to be paste)
• 1 tsp white sugar
• 1/2 tsp garlic powder
• 1/4 tsp paprika
• dash cayenne pepper (you can get away with skipping this, but it won't be perfect)

Directions

1. Combine all ingredients and wisk together.
2. Refrigerate overnight. (But in a pinch, you can make it an hour before.)
3. Serve room temp.

Crock Pot Pork Tenderloin Recipe

This recipe from AllRecipes.com was nothing short of AH-Mazing! We used the 2-pack of tenderloins from Costco and planned to have a good amount of leftovers....but that didn't happen. It went well with some mashed potatoes and broccoli (with cheese, because we are cheese lovers).

Ingredients:

• 2lb pork tenderloin
• 1 envelope dry onion soup mix
• 1c water
• 3/4c red wine (or 1 mini bottle)
• 3Tbs minced garlic
• 3Tbs soy sauce, reduced sodium
• freshly ground black pepper to taste

Directions:

• Place all ingredients in crock pot
• Cook on High for 3.5hr

One special change you'll want to make is to cook this on HIGH for 3.5 hours, not LOW for 4. I think the original poster must have made a mistake. For the red wine, we used a cabernet sauvignon. Since we don't typically keep alcohol in the house, we usually buy the mini-bar bottles that come in 4-packs when a recipe calls for it. We've tried the "cooking wines" in the past, and those are full of salt (as a preservative). It's better to just get the real stuff in smaller quantities, albeit less cost effective. This recipe is a great freezer meal. Simply combine all ingredients in a gallon ziplock bag and freeze until you're ready. Thaw overnight. You can also freeze the marinade part separately if you want to make up a few bags using a full size bottle of wine. The marinade portions fit nicely into quart ziplock bags. If you've got leftovers, try pulling the pork and saving for later to use on sandwiches with your favorite BBQ sauce.

As a side note, let's take a moment to talk about fresh minced garlic. There. Is. No. Substitute. Do not use one of those bottles of minced garlic. Don't grab the dehydrated flakes. Fresh garlic is amazing and will change your life. When you go to the grocery store, buy a head of garlic (looks like a white ball with some roots coming out of the bottom). When ready to use, pull off a few small cloves (look like oval pieces). Next, peel them. You can easily peel the skin off of the individual cloves by pinching the clove or rolling it around on the countertop. Finally, place your skinless cloves into your press. I love my Pampered Chef garlic press, specifically because it comes with a cleaning brush that clips into the handle when not in use. If you don't have one of these, get one. ...And while you're at it, buy one for a friend too!

Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole Recipe

Chicken Broccoli Rice Casserole by Money Saving Mom has a few more steps than I like in preparing a freezer meal, but I LOVE that Crystal's recipe makes 4 batches. That's right, I said FOUR! One for you and three to give away!

Her recipe calls for cooked amounts of food, which wasn't very helpful to someone like me who doesn't know a whole lot about how much raw is required to make cooked portions. Thank goodness for Google....and my own mistakes :)

For reference, 10c cooked rice is made from 7.5c of uncooked rice, and 4c cooked chicken is made from 3 breasts. I really like the way she bakes her chicken. She chops it then bakes it on a cookie sheet! Genious! I rubbed poultry seasoning on my chicken before baking. It took about 10 minutes to bake, turning about halfway through. I also baked my chicken on a Silpat so that I didn't have to worry about the chicken sticking. Love my Silpats!

In the future, I would cook the rice in chicken stock rather than water for more flavor. Additionally, I found the defost time of 8 hours to be too short if you're pulling this out of a chest freezer. I also increased the cook time to 60 minutes instead of 30 to get my casserole nice and bubbly.

Crock Pot Mongolian Beef Recipe

This recipe by Who Needs a Cape was SO simple to assemble and did not require any prep beyond opening containers. In short, this is my kind of recipe! I made two bags since you'll use a full jar of hoisin sauce with a double recipe. For this meal, I only defrosted and cooked one of the bags.

I followed the recipe with only one substitution (shallots in place of onions), and the crockpot was smelling like a tasty Asian restaurant after about 3hr on low in my crockpot. I continued to cook on low until we hit 6hr. In my opinion, we should have eaten this dish at 3-4hr. By six, the meat was chewy and the smell wasn't as appetizing. It was just overdone. I added 1/4c of water around 4 hours because I thought it looked a bit dry, but that didn't prevent the resulting dry meat.

Before serving, I heated up a steamer bag of broccoli and tossed it (drained, of course) into the crockpot so the broccoli could soak up some of that delicious sauce. Then I plated the beef and broccoli over white rice.

This meal froze, defrosted, and cooked beautifully (despite the suggested cook time being too long). Definitely an EASY freezer/crock-pot meal to file away for the future!

Pioneer Woman's Hamburger Soup Recipe

This recipe was GREAT. Despite the time it took to chop everything, it was easy to throw together for the actual cooking part. It helped that I could chop throughout the day as time permitted. It made a ton! The wonderful thing about cooked soup is that it is perfect for freezing. I was able to make two gallon freezer bags (with 4 cups each) in addition to what we ate for dinner that night. Those two bags went into the freezer!

Before I tossed them in to freeze, I wrote the date and directions for reheating on the bags. I also wrote down suggested sides. My goal with these freezer portions is two-fold:

• Make dinners for myself a snap!
• Have meals on hand to deliver to others, that don't require being eaten the same day.

In the last 7 days, Brian and I have heard of 4 families that could use a meal. Two families just got more foster kiddos, one welcomed a new baby this past weekend, and the fourth family just needs a break. Looking forward to this new ministry of freezer meals thanks to the inspiration of Roshena over at Grey House Green Door who has blessed us REPEATEDLY with freezer/fridge meals and desserts!

Twice Baked Potatoes - Freezer Style

My husband LOVES twice baked potatoes. Are you shocked we've never made them? They look like sooooooo much work, and you have to bake them not once but TWO TIMES! I don't think so.

However, when my stepmom was here for Thanksgiving, she let us in on a little secret. She makes bunches of those tasty sides at a time. Here are her simple steps:

1. "Bake your potatoes like normal." (What's normal? Check this out!)
2. "Scoop out the insides." (I used an ice cream scoop, but a spoon works great too.)
3. "Put all the potatoes, sour cream, cheese, bacon, and milk in a bowl and mash." (I used a hand mixer to speed up the process, but the key is to keep those potatoes looking mashed rather than mixed.)
4. "Fill up your potato boats." (Literally scoop heaping amounts of the delicious potato blend back into their skins.)
5. "Stick 'em in the freezer." (She said you can pop them wherever they will sit upright long enough to firm up. I left mine on a cookie sheet and laid it on one of the freezer drawers.)
6. "Bag 'em." (Storing them in a gallon size bag in the freezer allows you to use as many as you need for a meal or snack.)
7. "Bake them the second time." (When you're ready to use them, pop them in the oven for 20 minutes or so once they come up to room temperature.)

I did read one warning about green onions not freezing well....I trust Pioneer Woman, so I'd skip those onions if I were you.