Friday, May 20, 2016

Potato Chorizo Tacos with Avocado Salsa

This has been one of my favorite meals for years, so imagine how happy I was to discover that both the filling and the salsa freeze well.  It's an easy meal, but it's all the easier to just thaw and reheat.  It's also nice that it's inexpensive.  If you have any leftovers, the filling is absolutely delicious scrambled with some eggs for breakfast.


When I lived in Colorado, several brands of chorizo sausage was readily available at every supermarket.  Now that I live in the South, it is not so easy to find. If you also live in an area where it is not commonly found, don't give up hope.  I eventually found a local butcher shop that sells chorizo, or you can check out Mexican grocery stores.  There is a chorizo sausage that is frequently sold in grocery stores that comes in a long, thin tube.  Cacique is one such brand, but there may be others.  Do not buy the long, thin tube chorizo sausage.  It's not very good

Friday, May 13, 2016

Bacon Muffins

I was intrigued by this idea of an egg baked inside a savory muffin.  I was hoping it might be like an easier form of egg pockets.  The recipe would require a couple changes to work for my purposes: 1.  The recipe calls for the eggs to be baked whole.  This doesn't work for freezing.  Scrambled eggs freeze fine, but when whole, cooked eggs are frozen, the white gets weird.  2. I don't have the giant muffin tins required to make a muffin large enough to have a whole egg inside of it.  So, I decided to create a well in the batter of each standard-sized muffin, fill the well with beaten eggs instead of whole, top with a lid of batter and still have a muffin with cooked egg in the center.  Except it didn't work.

I haven't made the muffins with a whole egg inside of it, but I imagine that since a whole egg kind of holds together that it is possible to top that egg with thick muffin batter and have the egg stay put.  That does not work for beaten eggs.  Since the eggs are liquid and they no longer hold together due to being beaten, the eggs just rise up and run all over when another batter is place on top of them.  Eventually I scraped the idea of having an egg-filled muffin and just cooked the batter as regular muffins.  They still make a delicious and convenient breakfast.  At some point I may revisit them and stir in already cooked, scrambled eggs into the batter and see if I can achieve an egg-filled muffin.


Difficulty: Easy
Category: Breakfast
Recipe Column: R


Get the recipe here: Bacon and Egg Breakfast Muffins

To make them for the freezer, make the batter as called for but ignore the part about putting the egg in the middle.  Just spray your muffin tins with oil and scoop the batter into the tins as you would any other muffin.  Also it's easier to cook your bacon in the oven than on top of the stove.

A triple batch made 2 dozen muffins.  In the future I might make a quadruple batch so I can use up and entire package of bacon.

To freeze:
Freeze the muffins on a sheet tray until solid.  Transfer to a bag or container for storage.

To serve:
Thaw the muffin overnight in the fridge.  Cover and microwave on high for 1 minute until heated all the way through.  Or cover and microwave a frozen muffin for 2 minutes at 60% power.


Pierogi

These potato pierogi were a staple for us last summer.  They were my first freezer to pan meal.  Last summer when I was tired or forgot to thaw something for dinner, I would throw a few of these in a pan and have a quick and easy dinner.  They are time consuming to make, but they're cheap and super convenient once they are made.  I think these could also be tasty with up to half the potatoes replaced by cauliflower.  I was going to give it a try last time I made them, but the cauliflower was looking pretty sad when I went to the store.



Difficulty: Moderate
Category: Freezer to Pan

Recipe Column: AK

Friday, May 6, 2016

Black Bean Burgers

These black bean burgers are inexpensive and tasty.  Plus they can be cooked straight from the freezer, making them very convenient as well.


From: Veganomicon
Difficulty: Easy
Category: Freezer to Pan

Recipe Column: BR