I visited ye ole Wally World (also known as the pit of hell) Sunday afternoon after lunch at Mema's and spent a grand total of $227 on groceries (along with paper products and a few other things) for the entire month then returned to my house to get to cookin'.
First on the list was actually not a freezer meal, but more of a "make ahead to cook later this week" meal since I knew I wanted to go ahead and have it on Monday night.
"Baked Shrimp Scampi" from "What's Cookin', Chicago?"
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| ingredients, yes that is two whole sticks of butter (one melted) |
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| Single I was planning on eating this Monday night, I just put it in foilware and covered with (some very festive) cling wrap |
Then I ventured into the real freezer meals...
Apple Pie Porkchops from "Once a Month Mom"
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| sorry, I forgot to take a picture of the ingredients for this one |
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| all mixed up |
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| can we pretend like I didn't put the wrong date on every single one of my freezer bags? it was definitely 01/29 not 01/30 |
Sweet & Sour Pork from....
crap I really don't remember where I got this from, promise to find it for ya'll though!
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| the extra "pour over" sauce, which I froze separately. |
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| ready to freeze |
Orange Beef Stew from Mama and Baby Love
I defrosted this and put it in the crockpot Tuesday morning so it could cook while I was at work. Josh loved it, but I wasn't a real big fan. It didn't taste very "orangey" to me, next time I may put some actual oranges in there with it.
Curry Chicken from Mama and Baby Love
Some helpful advice:
While I realize this is my first time even trying this so I am probably not the best source for advice, I do have a few suggestions.
- Make sure you write down exactly how many you need of each thing. For example, the apple pie porkchop recipe called for 8 apples, well I just wrote "apples" and ended up about 4 apples short and had to go BACK to the store.
- Check your cabinets before you make your official grocery list so you don't end up with multiple jars or items (I now have like 5 containers of cinnamon).
- Set aside a WHOLE day for this. I thought I could grocery shop and cook all this stuff in 3 hours, but shopping along took me an hour and a half then cooking took longer than expected followed by this problem:
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| since I don't have a dishware I had to stand over that sink for 45 minutes (at 10pm) to turn this picture into.... |
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| ....this picture. |
So that is my first experience in the world of freezing/cooking ahead, I plan on doing more this coming up Saturday too.
Also, don't forget to enter my giveaway, it ends tomorrow!
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