Cooking Tips & Tricks

With the final post coming out next week, we’re wrapping up our Freezer Series with a fun event to help you have many meals on hand quickly.

While many of us have participated in a cookie exchange around Christmas time, the idea of a meal exchange has never crossed our mind. OAMC may sound appealing to you, but the work involved is an absolute turn off. Instead of doing it all yourself, try it with friends.

There are two options for cooking with your friends to split the load. If you have a large enough kitchen, invite your friends over to cook. Each of you prepare 1 or 2 meals for every family involved in the Cooking Party. Each person brings his/her own ingredients and spend the day cooking together. When you leave, grab one of each meal to take home and freeze.

If, like me, you’d never fit that many people in your kitchen or have the room for a Cooking Party, try a simple Meal Exchange. In this scenario, each family involved prepares 1 or 2 meals beforehand, then you meet and swap. It’s simple!

The greatest part of a Meal Exchange or Cooking Party is that you get to enjoy some meals that you wouldn’t necessarily have cooked yourself. It’s a chance for your family to try new things. Plus, it saves you money to buy items in bulk and prepare one meal for several families.

5 TIPS FOR A COOKING PARTY/ MEAL EXCHANGE
1) Set limits before hand so everyone is on the same page. For example, make sure everyone knows to prepare 2 meals per family participating. Also make sure they know that each meal should cost approximately $5 a meal and include 5 servings. This stops one family from preparing fillet mignon, while another makes sloppy joes, and evens up the costs.

2) Make sure everyone submits their recipe beforehand, so you don’t have two of the same meal. This creates variety.

3) Instead of making 2 different meals, have each family double the servings in a meal to create more food for everyone participating. For larger groups, only make 1 meal per participating family.

4) Make sure each family notifies the others of any allergies beforehand!

5) Keep is simple. If you overdo it or make it too complicated, no one will want to participate.

Check out the entire Freezer Series HERE to see what you missed!

{ 0 comments }

Sometimes, it makes more sense to freeze a meal in parts, instead of freezing an entire meal. For example, pizzas, spaghetti, and tacos freeze better in a kit then after fully prepared.

An example of a taco kit would be:
-Pre-cooked seasoned hamburger or chicken
-Cheese
-Taco Shells

You could put each of these items into a separate freezer baggie, then put all of the individual baggies into one large baggie. When you’re ready to enjoy, pull out the kit and assemble. Don’t forget to have your favorite extras on hand like tomatoes, sour cream, and other ingredients that won’t thaw well for a kit.

In addition to meal kits, sometime it’s great to just freeze a single part of a meal, like meatballs. If you tray freeze meatballs and store in a freezer baggie long term, you can pull out a few to toss in spaghetti sauce or to make a meatball sandwich. Or make a partial spaghetti kit by putting sauce in one baggie and meatballs or seasoned cooked hamburger in another, and leaving your pasta in the pantry uncooked.

Meal Kit Ideas:

Spaghetti & Meatballs (or other pasta meals, keep pasta in pantry)
Tacos
Pizza
Sloppy Joes (or Pulled Pork/Chicken) & Buns
Burritos
Nachos
Stir Fry (keep rice in pantry)

Check out the entire Freezer Series HERE to see what you missed!

{ 0 comments }

Fruits and vegetables are a bit trickier to freeze than meats. Mainly because they won’t thaw out and be beautifully fresh and ready to eat raw. Instead, I recommend, only freezing fruits and vegetables to use in meals you’re going to prepare. By freezing fruits and vegetables, you can significantly increase the shelf life and have ingredients for meals ready to simply pull out.

For example, I love to buy produce like onions and peppers when they are very cheap. When I get home, I dice them up into small pieces and place on a cookie sheet to freeze. When the small pieces are frozen, I dump them into a large freezer baggie, so when I’m cooking a meal that calls for onions or peppers, I can simply grab a few out and toss them in! They don’t even need to thaw before being tossed a in a recipe and cooked. It’s so simple, I’m more likely to use them!

Each vegetable needs to be prepared to freeze differently though. While some can be frozen raw, others need to be blanched or cooked first. Visit HERE for a great detailed chart on each vegetable and how to freeze it to perfection.

Frozen vegetables keep approximately 12-18 months if your freezer temperature is below 0.

BLANCHING
When freezing some raw vegetables, it’s important to blanch first. Enzymes cause vegetables to lose their flavor and color, making them less appealing or even inedible when thawed. Blanching stops these enzymes.

To blanch, boil 1 gallon of water in a large pot. Only blanch 1 pound of vegetables per gallon of water at a time. Submerge vegetables using a cheese cloth, strainer, or basket. Immediate pack vegetables in airtight containers in family size portions.

Check out the entire Freezer Series HERE to see what you missed!

{ 3 comments }