Freezer Series: Cooking Day (Hamburger)

Like I said, when making a lot of meals at one time, it’s helpful to plan meals that have similar ingredients. Of course, my hamburger plan did have hamburger, but it also shared onions and green peppers, which I diced up yesterday when making the enchiladas.

Who bakes ground beef? I do, when I’m making an excessive amount. For my Sloppy Joes, seasoned taco meat, and ground beef, I placed about four pounds of ground beef topped with green peppers and onions on a baking sheet and placed it in my oven at 350 to bake.

Tip: When baking large quantities of ground beef, stir often. Baking time depends on how much ground beef you’re baking, so bake until cooked thoroughly. Mine was almost 4 lbs and cooked for 30 minutes.

While my ground beef was baking, I made the mini-meatloaf pizzas and meatballs, so they were ready to bake when the ground beef came out. The meatballs and mini-meatloaf pizzas shared some more ingredients – Italian seasoning and bread crumbs, so they were great to make together. When the ground beef was done, I slipped it out and slipped the meatballs into the oven to bake. Instead of using pizza sauce, I used spaghetti sauce I had on hand to make the mini-meatloaf pizzas. I had some left-over, so I stuck the remainder in a bag and froze it to make a meatball sub kit.

Once my ground beef was done baking, I took it out and separated it into 3 parts. One part I simply tossed into a ziploc bag. It was already seasoned with onions and green peppers, so I threw in some Italian seasonings to use later for spaghetti. (I squished the bag to mix up the ingredients.) A second part I threw also in a ziploc bag with some water and taco seasoning to use later for tacos. The final part, I simmered on the stove with the remaining ingredients to complete the Sloppy Joe recipe, before bagging up. I let all 3 cool, then placed them in the freezer flat for long term storage.

Once I did this, I was simply waiting for the meatballs to get done cooking. When the time beeped, I swapped them out for the mini-meatloaf pizzas and put the meatballs in the freezer to tray freeze (moving them to a different tray, because of the grease.

Next, when the mini-meatloaf pizzas were done, I served a few for dinner and put the remainder in the freezer to tray freeze. When they were ready, I placed them in a baggie for long term storage.

GROUND BEEF/VENISON PLAN (Day 2)
Mini-Meatloaf Pizza Cups (Thanks Sara!)
Baked Meatballs (**recipe coming soon!**)
Meatball Sub Kit
Easy Sloppy Joes
Seasoned Taco Meat
Cooked Italian-Seasoned Ground Beef

Tagged as: Cooking Day, Freezer Cooking

{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }

1 Leah July 12, 2009 at 8:39 AM: thanks for posting this! i'm always saying i'm going to fill up the freezer (umm, if there's any room left!) with homemade meals so i don't run to mcdonald's when i'm too tired to cook…and i just never get a plan going! this is a great basic start out plan to get going! thanks again!

2 Lori August 24, 2009 at 4:33 AM: I'm wanting to try the Mini-Meatloaf Pizza Cups – how do you reheat them? Do you thaw first and bake or microwave? Or do you heat these from frozen? Thanks for the great ideas!

3 IN Good "Cents" August 24, 2009 at 7:14 AM: Lori, it depends on my mood. I do thaw them first, then I usually microwave them. Sometimes I add some extra cheese and bake them. They are delicious!