Day 7: Pierogi, Lentil Joes and Black Bean Burgers

On Tuesday I took a break from cooking.  I took my kids to an event in the park, we had a picnic and we ran errands, including picking up ground turkey for my SW Burgers (more on that next post).  On Wednesday I got back to cooking with a big project, pierogi.

Day 4: Veggie Crepes, Potato Tacos and Gyros

Saturday

Day 1: Shopping
Day 2: Chicken and Brisket
Day 3: Jambalaya and More Brisket
Day 4: Veggie Crepes, Potato Tacos and Gyros
Days 5 & 6: Veggie Crepes Continued and Thai Chicken
Day 7: Pierogi, Lentil Joes, and Black Bean Burgers
Final Days and Summary

Microwave Side Dishes

I am not a great microwave cook.  Until recently I only considered the microwave good for melting and reheating, not for cooking.  That attitude is gradually changing.  While the microwave may not be great for baking, it can be a useful tool in making easy side dishes to go with freezer meals.  Plus grocery store have started selling rice or pasta pouches that are already cooked and can be reheated in the microwave.  I haven't tried the pasta pouches, but I have tried a couple of the rice ones and found them useful.  I don't plan to use them all the time since they're more expensive, but having a few in the pantry would be handy as a back up.

For making my own microwave sides, I started with the obvious, potatoes.  I have been microwaving potatoes and sweet potatoes to serve as a side since long before I started making freezer meals.  When I started doing freezer meals I sometimes needed a vegetable side for a meal.  This lead me to using the ready-to-microwave bags of green beans or broccoli that are found in the supermarket produce section.  It took me a while to get over not prepping my own veggies, but these are convenient and tasty with a little butter, salt and pepper.

Mashed Potatoes

So... I... uh... this post is supposed to a recipe for freezer mashed potatoes to accompany my meatloaf post.  I made a large batch of mashed potatoes and froze it in dinner-sized portions and apparently neglected to write down the proportions of the ingredients I used.  It's a simple dish though that most of you likely know how to make.  If you don't, this recipe looks similar to what I do.

Really the point of this post more than giving you a recipe is to let you know that creamy mashed potatoes do freeze well and make a great side to have in the freezer for a number of dishes.  Next time I make them I will write down the recipe.  Sorry.

Roasted Chicken Tikka

Life has been crazy busy for us lately.  In October my husband learned that his company would be closing down in December and began job hunting.  A new job for him meant a move would be likely for our family.  We started packing, and I stopped adding freezer meals to our freezer.  He received a job offer and left for New York shortly before Christmas.  We already had plans to go on a cruise for Christmas, so he flew back to join us for that.  After the cruise we drove back to Mississippi to get the rest of our stuff and then drove on to New York.  We had a month of relaxed packing followed by a month of frantic packing followed by an awesome and relaxing cruise and ended it all with 4 days of driving through 9 different states.

As soon as I learned about his company closing I stopped adding meals to my freezer and switched to a focus on eating what we had.  It was great to not need to cook on top of everything else we had going on.  We didn't quite make it through all the meals we had in the freezer, and I gave the last of them to a woman I knew who had just had a baby.  Now we are in temporary housing while we wait to move into the house we are in the process of buying.  That means no freezer meals for us right now.  I miss them.  Life is much simpler when dinner is ready and in the freezer every day.  I do have a couple recipes that I made in my last batch of freezer cooking that I haven't gotten around to posting yet what with all the frantic packing. So I have something to post while I wait to get back to my freezer cooking.

This isn't a chicken tikka like you might be thinking about with chunks of chicken in a creamy tomato sauce that is served over rice, although I do have a freezer version of chicken tikka masala if that is what you are looking for.  No, this is chicken marinated in a yogurt marinade and roasted with potatoes and cauliflower.  It is delicious.  I served this to guests a few months ago and one in particular raved about it continually.  

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

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

Breakfast Burritos

My husband eats one or two of these burritos every morning on his way to work.  They are a very convenient and filling breakfast, so I'm making a batch of them every few weeks.  They're also very flexible.  You can change a lot of things to your personal preferences.  You can switch up the meat or eliminate it altogether.  You can leave out the green chiles and add salsa to each burrito as you assemble them.  You can omit the beans and add peppers or veggies.  You can also change up the proportions.  Do some experimenting and find the burrito you like.

Sausage Potatoes

This is another recipe that I was making long before I started doing once a month cooking and was delighted to discover freezes well. They make a convenient addition to a once a month cooking plan when you have a lot of work to do because they don't require much in the way of equipment.  They don't need to be cooled either, which is helpful.   Plus they're super cheap.

I usually post my recipes as a single batch so you can multiply them to meet your needs.  However, this one is a quadruple batch due to the small amounts of tomato paste and mustard.  You can change the multiple for this recipe in row 4  of column D, run the macro and it will give you a scaled list of ingredients to follow in the 'Current Recipes' tab if you don't want to make 4 batches.

They're not much to look at, but they are very tasty.