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

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

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

Lentil Joes

I realize that just seeing the the word "lentil" is going to turn some people off, and that would be a shame.  Admittedly, this dish is not a hit with everyone I have ever served it to, but I think it is delicious and the majority of people I have made it for have enjoyed it too.

I even featured a sample of this in a class I taught about inexpensive protein sources.  Over a year later I ran into a lady who had attended the class.  She brought up the class and the lentil joes enthusiastically and said she had been making them regularly ever since even though she had been skeptical initially.  So, I heartily recommend giving these a try even if you're not sure about them.  They freeze great and are very inexpensive at about $0.80 a serving.

SW Chicken Patties and Summer Freezer Meals

Summer is fast approaching and we have finally finished eating our hearty, winter meals.  The freezer is almost empty, and I have been cooking for summer this week.  Summer is tough for freezer meals.  Most of my initial ideas for freezer meals were thick soups, stews and heavy casseroles.  All of those things are perfect for the cold days of winter, but I prefer lighter fare in the summer.  I also avoid turning on the oven as much as possible.  I have come up with some summer freezer meals, so stay tuned.  I'll be posting those recipes in the weeks to come.

First up is Southwest Chicken Patties.  I used to make these fairly regularly, but they are a little labor intensive as there is a fair amount of chopping involved and then the forming of the patties.  They fell out of my regular rotation.  I happy to say that these are back in the rotation due to the fact that they freezer very well and can be cooked straight from the freezer, making them very convenient.

This meal was a major freezer meal win today!  Like I said I am doing the bulk of my freezer cooking this week and it is always a large undertaking.  I've also had other stuff going on, so today I didn't cook at all.  My kitchen was a complete disaster, so as dinner approached I really didn't feel like making anything.  I hadn't thawed anything either, and I was on the verge of packing up my kids and heading for a drive-thru.  As I was considering getting ready to leave, I decided that I really need to eat what we have on hand instead of paying for fast food and decided on these since they can be cooked straight from the freezer.  We had some spring mix on hand for a salad.  I am so glad I did.  These were so easy to cook up.  They just required one pan and a few minutes.  They were delicious, and they ended up being so much easier and cheaper than taking my kids out for fast food.  This is why I do the freezer meals.

Chicken Wings Two Ways

I felt a little silly making these as a freezer meal.  Both of these sauces are very easy to make, so tossing them with some wings and baking makes a pretty easy meal.  Why bother to freeze something that is so simple in the first place?  There are two reasons I decided to make this a freezer meal.  The first was to take advantage of sales my grocery store has on chicken wings.  I figured I could buy a bunch when they're on sale, prepare and freeze them and then have chicken wings regularly for less than the normal cost.  The second reason is that I figured no matter how simple these are to throw together it's easier still to simply empty a bag onto a pan and throw it in the oven.

I am so glad I decided to freeze these.  Yes, they are very simple, but that means a large batch is easy to make.  I underestimated how nice it would be to just put these in the oven for dinner with no gathering of ingredients or measuring anything.  I didn't have to wash anything except the pan that I cooked them in.  It turns out that something super simple still makes a great freezer meal.  It's easy to prep, which is nice when I have other more time consuming dishes to make and freeze, and it's easy, breezy for a delicious weeknight meal.  I highly recommend these.