My First Freezer Cooking Foray

Hamburger Soup, Chicken Wild Rice Soup, Lasagna

I tried freezer cooking for the first time today.  I have been reading so much about it on the net, about how it saves so much time, so I thought I’d give it a whirl since it was supposed to be a cool weekend and all.  I made quite a lofty list for my first effort.  I really wanted to see if I could do it and accomplish it all before noon.

I started at 7 am and I would have been done well before noon if I hadn’t run up across a few obstacles.  The first thing I did was mix up the ingredients for 2 meatloaves while I started the ground beef for the Taco Bundles.  Assembling the bundles worked out okay after I found the best way to “push together” the perforations in the crescent rolls.  The recipe said to put a half cup of taco meat on each crescent roll rectangle.  After I had assembled about half of them I could tell I wasn’t going to have enough meat left if I continued to use a half cup so I cut it down to a third of a cup for the rest of them.

While those were baking I fried up the other four pounds of beef to be used in the tator tot hotdish and the hamburger soup.  While that was cooking I assembled the Chicken Cordon Bleu Casseroles and started the chicken wild rice soup.  At this point everything was still running along smoothly.  Then I started the lasagna.  I cooked up the ground beef, added my sauce, boiled the noodles and got all the rest of the ingredients out of the fridge to assemble it.  I took off the cover of the cottage cheese and went to stick my spoon in and that’s when I realized I had grabbed a large sour cream instead of a cottage cheese.  Doh! 

Disgusted, I knew I had to put everything else on hold until I ran to town to get some cottage cheese.  I grabbed the 4 cup bag of shredded cheese to put it back in the refrigerator unitl I got back and dumped half of it on the floor.  I forgot I had opened it!  Doh! Doh!

In to town Zach and I went.  As long as we were in town, we stopped at the nursing home to visit Papa.  He said “Hi Angie” and fell asleep.  He was so tired, and he had finally got his comfy chair from the apartment and all he really wanted to do is snuggle in his chair with his quilt and take a nap!  After Zach & I left there we stopped at Hardees for lunch, then got our groceries and went home.  By this time I had decided I had had enough freezer cooking for one day so I assembled the lasagna and quit.  The only two things I didn’t get done were the bluberry pancakes and the Peanut Butter & Jelly waffles.  Maybe I’ll feel ambitious tonight or tomorrow and whip these up or maybe they’ll just wait for next time.  Even with the trip into town, I still finished at a little after noon.  This was definitely quicker then making all these meals seperately and I think I would like to try this again in a 3-4 weeks.

Chicken Cordon Bleu Casseroles, Tator Tot Hotdish, Taco Bundles, Double Chocolate Chunk Cookies