Freezer Meals: Part Three, Day Three

You might think I'm crazy for saving the hardest day for last but I was trying to ease myself into this making meals ahead thing. It honestly wasn't that difficult, it just took longer because these meals required cooking the meat and more assembly. But let's get to it!!

The first one I made was Taco Chili. The prep on this one was cooking the ground beef ahead. Like I said, not too difficult, just time consuming. After cooking, I let the meat cool in a bowl while dumping the tomatoes, beans, seasonings, and corn (which I added to the recipe) into the labeled bag. Once the meat was cool, I added it to the bag and was done.

Next came the meatballs. I never really thought of meatballs being a meal. But I made these as a trial and Tommy loved them. He had taken probably two bites when he asked me to make them again. :) That's a sure sign of a winner!! I have added these to spaghetti sauce, we've had them with mashed potatoes and gravy, you could do meatball subs....I followed the recipe from How to Cook Everything: The Basics by Mark Bittman. It's the same as many meatball recipes except it uses 1 lb ground beef, 1 lb ground pork. Tommy helped me roll all the meatballs out and we popped them in the oven. I always turn my meatballs halfway through cooking so they get browned/crispy on all sides. Once they cool, I put the baking sheet in the freezer for several hours. Once frozen, I put them in a gallon freezer bag. This keeps them from freezing into one giant clump and you can take out however many you need for just one meal. You can reheat in the microwave, oven, in a sauce, etc.

I went to another website for the last two recipes. Pretty Providence is a site I found through Pinterest. They offered several freezer meals in this post but I just chose two. First, pineapple chicken. The prep was making the sauce on the stove and allowing it to cool before adding it to the bag with everything else. This recipe made two bags (meals) without doubling anything.

The second meal from this site was the most intense and I didn't take a picture because I was assembling it in the evening and I was just glad to be finished!! I made the creamy beef enchiladas. On the recipe she said to cook the beef roast in the crockpot overnight, which I have never done. Fearful of it not working, I put the roast in first thing in the morning and let it cook all day. Once tender, I cut it up and assembled enchiladas like I usually would but in an aluminum pan. This recipe made 2 pans of enchiladas, six tortillas in each pan.

So those are my three days of freezer meals!! I now have a freezer packed with yummy meals, just waiting to be popped in the crockpot or oven. I'll let you know once we actually try these recipes if they turned out as good as all the reviews said! If you need more recipes or inspiration on freezer meals, check out my Pinterest board, Make and Freeze. Happy freezing!!