Sorry for the silence...

But I kind of have a good excuse....I had a baby! She arrived on 11/14. 8 days early.

I'm going to try to keep up with STK but for now I'm not doing a ton of cooking. We are pretty much eating the freezer meals I made a few weeks back. Which, I must say have been a Godsend. Also, many of our fantastic friends have brought over food which has been awesome too.

You can check out my freezer meals here and here .

To tide you over until I get back in the test kitchen here is a recipe for a great crockpot dinner from Sunset Magazine. It was really easy and tasty. The leftovers were good too.

Braised pork with lemon and sage

Serve with: sauteed carrots and asparagus risotto {from Trader Joe's}

Cooks notes: I didn't have sage so used thyme. Also, I strained the sauce before serving to make it smooth. The milk makes it a little chunky.

{enjoy!}

A months worth of dinners in 2 days! {Part 2 - cooking marathon}

OK...I admit. When I said {part 2} was going to come the day after {part 1} I was lying. Sorry! I know you'll forgive me. I have pregnancy brain and cant concentrate on anything for more than 5 seconds these days :)

Alright...here we go.

After you get yourself organized as mentioned in {part 1} of my "making freezer meals" post...its time to cook!!!

The recipes I decided to use are ones I have tried in the past so I know they tasted yummy and would work straight out of the freezer. The first 3 recipes are ones I have blogged about previously so you can click on the links to see them. The enchiladas I just kind of made up so excuse my super non technical recipe.

Artichoke Manicotti with pesto cream sauce

* Note: I tweaked this one a bit since the first time I made it. I decided I was to lazy to make the pesto myself so used store bought and combined it with Parmesan and heavy cream in the blender. I thought it turned out pretty good. I just kept tasting it until the pesto/cream ratio was perfect.

* Another note: I doubled the filling and cream sauce but think that I will triple it next time because I wasn't able to fill as many shells as I wanted.

Chili con carne

Basic pasta sauce

Chicken Enchiladas {here is my attempt at remembering how I made them}

Ingredients:

- 4 chicken breasts
- 2 small cans of diced green chilis
- Sour cream
- 4 cups shredded cheese ( I used the Mexican blend)
- 1 large can of enchilada sauce
- 20 pack of white corn tortillas

1. Bake chicken breasts - place in a shallow baking pan, sprinkle with salt and pepper. Fill pan with water to almost cover chicken then bake at 350 degrees for 40 min or until cooked through. Let cool.

2. Once chicken is cool shred with a fork and place in a large bowl. Mix in green chili's, sour cream and about half of the shredded cheese {this is the part I don't really measure. Just keep adding until it tastes good. I like mine creamy so put in lots of sour cream}

3. Start rolling filling inside corn tortillas, place in bake pans then top with enchilada sauce and cheese. {Tip: its helps to warm tortillas a bit so they don't break when rolling}

4. When cooking from frozen - cover with foil and place in 400 degree oven for about 40 min.

* Note: When I was cooking I only made 2 meals at the same time to avoid confusion. I started off by popping chicken in oven for enchiladas since it took a while to cook and cool then I began on the chili and tomato sauce. Once they were done I started up on assembling the enchiladas and manicotti.

Now its time to package your meals! Be sure everything is cool prior to sealing up containers and placing in freezer.

The manicotti was portioned out 4 per tray.

I packaged the Chili in the round soup containers. Be sure to label and date them!

Enchiladas were in the tins. I was able to fit 3 per pan.

The zip top bags are great for the tomato sauce because they close tight and wont leak plus you can stack them flat in the freezer so they don't take up much space. I measured out 2 cups of sauce per bag. I find that's a good amount for a 2 person pasta dinner.

One other thing I did was buy 5 loaves of the Columbo garlic bread. I sliced each loaf in half then placed in freezer bags. Now we have 10 portions of garlic bread we can easily use to accompany either the chili or pasta dinners.

Now we are all set for a few weeks once the baby comes. But, trust me you dont need to be having a baby to prepare make ahead meals. This is a great plan for every busy household. What could be better than always having a stash of easy no fuss dinners on hand.

Oh, and also this coming week im picking up the share of beef we resesrved a few months ago through the Bay Area Meat CSA. So, in addition to having all of the prepared meals we will have loads of prepackaged grass fed beef to cook too!

A months worth of dinners in 2 days! {Part 1- the prep}

Part 1 - The PREP WORK

Since our little bundle of joy will be arriving soon (3 weeks!) I decided it was about time that I stocked up on freezer meals. I mentioned in a previous post that I wanted to do this but am now just getting around to it.

Believe it or not, it was pretty easy. You just have to be prepared and dedicate the time. It took me about 6 straight hours of marathon cooking but I know the time invested will pay off later when we are sleep deprived. Once the baby arrives all we will have to do is pop the premade stuff in the oven or microwave. That's it!

I know we could just buy frozen dinners or order take out but making the meals yourself is much healthier and saves money.

The plan:

1. Buy containers so you can portion out the meals. I love the ones they have at Dollar Tree. I get the aluminum trays, plastic soup containers and zip top bags. I noticed that at Dollar Tree only certain types of the plastic containers are microwave safe so be sure to read the label. I spent $15 on all of the packaging and have a few left over if I decide to make more meals later on.





2. Go shopping! Have your list prepared for what you need at the grocery store. If you forget anything its going to put a cramp in the marathon session. FYI- the grocery bill for all the meals I made was $122. Not bad.


3. Got freezer space? Hopefully you have an extra freezer in the garage like we do. :)

Stay tuned tomorrow for the recipes so you can make your grocery list and get started!

Fall is here!

I know, I know...Ive been lagging on blogging. I have a good excuse though. I got a job! After 8 months of being unemployed I'm now back to the working world. Don't worry, I'll try not to let it cut into my cooking time. We still have to eat right??

While you are waiting for my next great recipe how about a cup of cocoa? Fall is here! Time to get cozy and enjoy the start of cooler weather before the Holiday craziness begins







Things I have coming up....preparing for baby and making freezer meals. Also, my most favorite crock pot recipe.