Monday, October 3, 2011

This Week's Menu {Oct 3} + Freezer Meals

About four months ago I mentioned that I wanted to get into freezer cooking. Well, given that I absolutely detest cooking, it should come as no surprise that I absolutely detest doing any research that involves cooking. As a result freezer meals have not become a part of our life. I have found a way to save 10-20 minutes each week though - I precook ground meat.

Many of our regular dinners (spaghetti, quesadillas, tacos, unstuffed cabbage) call for ground meat. And since I add chopped onion to my ground meat, the chopping, browning and draining takes about 10-15 minutes for each dish. So I've started browning my ground beef ahead of time - usually about five or six pounds at a time that I section into ziploc bags and freeze. Then all I have to do for dinner is reheat the already cooked beef (takes about a minute in the skillet) and add it to whatever recipe I'm making that day. The time saved is pretty tiny, but for someone who loathes every minute spent in the kitchen, it's enough!

That said, here's this week's plan:

Monday - Unstuffed Cabbage (we still have leftovers from last week)
Tuesday - Almond Crusted Pork Chops
Wednesday - Chicken Caesar Salad
Thursday - Beef Quesadillas
Friday - Leftovers
Saturday - ???

Do you have any tricks for making meal prep go faster?

3 comments:

marie said...

Neat idea...one I may have to use now that my cook is moving out!

Jo said...

That's a good idea. I have nothing to make prepping faster or easier, except we did this type of thing with chicken last week. Joe cut up and cooked 6 chicken breasts at once then put them in the fridge, so we could use them that week.

I'm always tempted to get the already pre-cut and washed stuff from Wegmans, when we go, to ease the pain of cooking. ;-)

Scrap for Joy said...

For someone who hates cooking...your menu ideas always sound good to me.
I love the roasted chickens from Sam's club or Costco. I think they're a good deal at $4.98. Sometimes I buy 2 of them and take all of the meat off and like you do with the ground meat, freeze it in bags. (Fortunately, my husband likes dark meat...I prefer white) I can then use the cooked chicken in cassaroles or in giant salads, one of our favorite meals, or even on pizza. Of course, now that it's getting cooler...there's nothing like good old grilled cheese and tomato soup!
Enjooy the week!
xoxo
Joyce

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