Meatloaf Patties

A while back I wrote about the possibility  of making meatloaf patties instead of the traditional loaf shape.  I finally got around to it, and it's way, way better than the loaf shape.  

Reasons patties are more convenient than a loaf:

1. No thawing - When I made meatloaf in a loaf form the loaf needed to thaw for 48 hours before cooking.  Patties can be taken from the freezer and go directly in the pan.
2. Cook faster - The loaf shape takes at least an hour to cook.  These were done in less than 30 minutes.
3. No oven - These are cooked in frying pan.  The oven doesn't need to be turned on, which is especially nice in the summer.
4. Easy portion control - A full sized meatloaf is enough food for my family for two meals, and we'll still have leftovers.  With individual patties it is easy to make as much as we will eat in one night.  

Nashville Hot Chicken

A couple years ago I visited the Nashville, TN area.  I love to learn about and try the local specialties of places I visit, so in Nashville I discovered hot chicken  It was incredible.  I had to learn how to make it.  This isn't it exactly, but it's close.  I'll keep experimenting with it.  I think the flavor might be improved by making the spicy oil the day before to give the oil time to really absorb the flavors, but for now, this is pretty darn tasty.

This is a part of my series on making and using frozen breaded chicken cutlets.

Korean Fried Chicken

I love this spicy and sweet fried chicken.  It's one of my favorite meals.  It's a part of my series on making and using frozen breaded chicken cutlets.

So Much Fried Chicken

Chicken Milanese is one of the first meals I posted to this blog, and it's one that we have continued to enjoy.  Over the past couple years I've come to realize that I can do much more with a breaded chicken cutlet than just this one delicious meal.

It started when I ran across this recipe for  Korean Fried Chicken.  It looked incredible, and I had to try it.  Looking at the recipe I noticed that it started out very similar to the Chicken Milanese above with breaded chicken, although there were some minor differences in the breading mixtures.  After the chicken is breaded and fried it is dipped in a sweet and spicy sauce.

Then I visited Nashville, TN and tried its amazing hot chicken (spicy fried chicken).  I was sad that this deliciousness was only available in Nashville.  I resolved that I had to learn to make it.  When I looked into recipes for it I learned that chicken was breaded, fried and dipped in a spicy oil afterwards.  I realized I could make a generic, breaded chicken cutlet and use it in a variety of ways.

Cheese Souffle

Cheese souffle is the perfect example of a complicated dish that can be broken down into components that can then be frozen, making the dish easier to make on a weeknight.  I know from long experience that egg whites freeze really well.  They can be thawed and then used as normal without any noticeable change.  One day as I was putting some egg whites in the freezer I thought about cheese souffle.  I love cheese souffle, but it's too much work to make on a regular basis.  However, a souffle is made by folding whipped egg whites and a batter together..  Looking at the egg whites I was about to put in the freezer made me realize I could probably freeze the egg whites and batter separately.  Then to make a souffle all I would have to do was thaw the two components, whip the egg whites, fold everything together and bake. 

It worked!  I took me about an hour to prepare the batter.  This is why we don't eat souffle often, but with the components in the freezer it only took me a few minutes to whip up the souffles.  This means I could make a big batch of souffle and have souffle several times for the same amount of time and work that it would take me to make souffle once.

Thai Chicken Patties

Between the gyro patties, black bean burgers, Southwest chicken patties, falafel and now Thai chicken patties my summer freezer meals are becoming a variety of patties.  I'm okay with that.  As evidenced by the list above, patties come in a variety of flavors and proteins, so even though the shape is the same they can be vastly different meals.  Patties are also easy.  They're easy to make.  More importantly they're easy to cook.  They require no thawing and can go straight from the freezer to the frying pan.  Plus they cook quickly.  I'm even thinking the next time I make meatloaf I will try making meatloaf patties, so they won't require a long thaw and cook time like meatloaf.  I can also cook just a couple patties for dinner instead of having a large meatloaf we eat for a couple days.

Anyway to these specific patties.  They're delicious.  I made a quadruple batch and wished I had made more.

Difficulty: Easy
Category: Freezer to Pan
Recipe Column: DU

Gyros

The last thing I posted was about all the time I spent making freezer meals.  It was a lot of work, and I'm guessing it seemed like too much to some.  I intended to make a list of things I was able to do because I had the freezer meals, but... I didn't.  I forget to document stuff.  So I don't have a comprehensive list, but I will say that I find life a lot easier when I have freezer meals.  It's easier for to find the time and energy for other things when I don't have to worry about dinner, and it's easier for me to keep up on cleaning the kitchen and other housework when I don't have cooking messes all the time.  I didn't keep a written record, but from memory here's some of the things I did now that dinner was taken care of: