Pre-Cooked Goodness

Well it seems like its been forever since I had a cooking day! Unfortunately it has been about a month! (Ridiculous) But we finally got around to it. This week was a bit of a challenge though because my family is completely and utterly sick of crock pot meals. We needed to change things up a bit and make "freezer to oven" meals. Going into this cooking day I have to admit I was nervous. What are the logistics of freezer-to-oven meals? Can I just do the same thing and throw them in the bag and then cook when ready? Do things need to be par-cooked? How will the things taste if I cook them first and then freeze them? But most importantly will I have tiiiiime???

Right off the bat I found a couple of great recipes and it made me feel so much better. I had a "meeting of the minds" via email with my cooking buddy and after a couple of days of deciding we were ready to take this different kind of cooking day. The result was 7 recipes, for roughly $45! (This time I saved my receipt to prove it haha)

About 4 of the recipes came from the same webpage which was SOOOO convenient! The website says "Freezer Marinades for Summer Grilling" but you don't NEED to grill this stuff... especially in the winter. Essentially what we did with these is make the marinade and add it to the meat of our choice.

Lemonade Marinade Chicken:
Bag of frozen chicken drumsticks
3 TBSP of Worcestershire Sauce (Why is it so difficult to say that word??)
2/3 cup of Lemonade Concentrate
1 TSP of Celery Seeds
2/4 TSP Salt
2/4 TSP Pepper
2 Clove Garlic- Minced

Mix all the ingredients together in a mixing bowl. Put the chicken in a foil pan and pour the marinade on top!

Mediterranean Rub Pork Tenderloin:
4 lbs Pork Tenderloin (We got 2 2lb Hormel tenderloins)
2 TSP Ground Sage
2 TSP Dry Thyme
2 TSP Pepper
1 TSP Salt
1 TSP Garlic Powder
1 TSP Dried Rosemary
1 TSP Olive Oil (We ended up using more of this to make the rub stretch a bit more)

Combine dry ingredients and olive oil in a mixing bowl. Put pork in a foil pan and spread mixture with a rubber spatula all over the pork.

Garlic Dijon Chicken
Package of Chicken Breasts
4 Cloves Minced Garlic
8 TBSP Dijon Mustard
4 TBSP Lime Juice (we just cut a lime in half and squeezed ;) )

Mix ingredients together in a bowl. Put chicken in foil and pour mixture over it. This was a little bit thicker so I used a marinade brush to make sure that it was even.

Lemon & Garlic Chicken
Bag of Chicken Thighs
4 Cloves Minced Garlic
1/4 cup Olive Oil
4 TBSP Chopped Parsley (we used fresh parsley... yummm!)
6 TBSP Lemon Juice (Cut a lemon in half and squeezed!)
1/4 TSP Pepper

Mixed all the ingredients together, put chicken in foil pan, pour mixture over the chicken. (Are you noticing a trend?)

Balsamic Glazed Chicken
About 20 Chicken Tenders (I used breasts and then cut them in half... for some reason that ends up being cheaper)
1 cup Brown Sugar
1 cup Balsamic Vinegar (we used balsamic vinaigrette dressing... that's all we had lol)
1 cup Honey
2 TBSP Rosemary
7 TSP Minced Garlic

Mix all together... put in foil pan.... pour mixture over it. OR you can put it all in a freezer bag and put them out on a pan when you are ready to cook it.

The picture is only with about half the chicken you need....

 

 

Ranch Burgers (there is no link for this)

Roughly 2 lbs of Ground Beef (you can use ground turkey too)

One Packet Ranch Dressing Mix

One bag of shredded cheddar cheese

 

Mix all together... form patties out of them... makes about 9 or 10. I put them in the foil pan and separated each one with wax paper. (We made these last night and they were seriously AMAZING)

 

Herbed Turkey Meatballs - this is a little bit more involved... I recommend doing this one first

Roughly 1.25 lbs of ground Turkey (we used 93/7)

1/4 cup freshly chopped parsley

1 TBSP dried basil

1 TBSP dried thyme

1-2 minced garlic cloves (I did 2... but I love garlic)

salt and pepper

 

Preheat oven to 375 and line baking sheet with parchment paper (oops just realized I didn't do this! lol). In a large bowl mix together all the ingredients. Then with your hands make walnut sized balls and put them on the baking sheet. Bake for 25 minutes. Then let cool and put them in a freezer bag.

 

I didn't get a picture of them but these are the perfect addition to pasta night!

 

Our grocery list was pretty simple. Some stuff we had at home so if you are going off of this list please make sure that you check the recipes too to make sure you have everything!

 

Meat:

Jenny O Ground Turkey 93/7- $4.30

Chicken Breasts- $10.25

Chicken Drumsticks-$3.99

Chicken Thighs- $3.99

1.5 lb Ground Beef- $7.25

Pork Loin- $7.75

 

Fruits and Veggies:

Parsley- $1.39

Lime- $0.50

Lemon- $0.50

 

Misc:

Dijon Mustard- $0.99

Ranch Dressing packet- $1.45

Shredded Cheese- $1.99 (we had a coupon for $0.40 off!)

Lemonade Concentrate- $0.75 (on sale!)

Celery seeds- $2.39

 

That's a grand total of $47.49!! And the things like the parsley, mustard and celery seeds were split between two of us. The great thing about this is that so many of the items in the recipes are things you probably already have in your pantry.

 

Happy cooking everyone!