Freezer Meals Trial 1

***See my NEW blog post with more recipes and freezer/meal ideas!***

So I made my first crockpot freezer meals today.  I did a huge shopping trip to winco then spent about two hours prepping and bagging everything.  I have 10 freezer meals made to start myself off.  We'll see how this goes!  But so far, I'm pretty happy how its turned out.  The proportions look great for our family and I love that all my produce is fresh and everything is cut up and ready to be thrown into the crockpot!

Some of my vegetables all chopped

Teriyaki Mix (None of my mixes have the meat, I keep that separate).  The teriyaki mix has yellow onions, broccoli, and carrots with 1/2 cup of Teriyaki sauce.

This chicken crockpot mix is carrots, red potatoes, and celery.  And we love the flavor of "Crockery Gourmet; Seasoning Mix for chicken".  I used one cup of each vegetable in my freezer bag, then froze.  When I'm ready to use it, I unthaw it along with 3 frozen chicken breasts (I buy the 20lb bag of chicken breasts by Foster Farms from Costco).  It takes about 3-4 hours to unthaw it all, then throw it in the crockpot with your desired seasoning mix (I use HALF of the package for one bag) and cook.  This serves three people.  And I usually cook some biscuits to serve with it.  One of our favorites for the weekends!

This beef stew mix has celery, carrots, yellow onion and red potatoes.  And I use McCormick Hearty Beef Stew slower cooker mix.  

These are my ten freezer meals.  The top two bags are a Healthy BBQ Chicken.  I followed Healthy Mama BBQ Chicken

I also buy ground beef, and pork roasts in large portions from costco, divide them up in 1 lb bags for later use, using my vacuum seal food saver.  I love having meat on hand to save me from going to the grocery store.  I always date the date it was frozen and make sure I use it within 3 months.  One of my frozen bags of ground beef is always seasoned for meatballs.  You can see my other post that has the information for the meatballs, but they are simple and always delicious.  They go well with a red potato wedge seasoned with olive oil, garlic and Rosemary or Parmesan.

Some other meals I like to make with the frozen ground beef which are easy and quick to prepare are Mexican Casserole and Stuffed Red Bell Peppers.

The Mexican Casserole is 1 lb of ground beef browned, then add 1 can (8 oz) of tomato sauce, 1 cup of salsa, 1 teaspoon of chile powder, and 2 cans of kidney beans.  Mix in a pan, then throw it in the oven for 40 minutes.  Then throw on some cheddar and jack cheese for a few minutes in the oven, and dinner is served.  We like to add some sour cream to top it off, and occasionally eat it like a nacho with some chips.  Easy, quick, and tastes great!