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Recipes:
0:00 Welcome!
1:23 Hawaiian Chicken Sheet Pan: (in the Club) https://mealplan.freezermeals101.com/recipe/hawaiian-chicken-sheet-pan-meal/
3:44 Honey Mustard Chicken Burger: (in the Club) https://mealplan.freezermeals101.com/recipe/honey-mustard-chicken-burgers/
4:50 Blackened Cajun Chicken Bites
6:37 Crock Pot BBQ Chicken Drumsticks: https://freezermeals101.com/bbq-chicken-drumsticks/
12:21 Chicken Tagine
21:23 Street Chicken Tacos
22:35 Chili Glazed Chicken: https://freezermeals101.com/chili-glazed-chicken-dump-recipe/
28:16 BBQ Shredded Chicken: https://freezermeals101.com/droolworthy-bbq-shredded-chicken-freezer-meal-with-garlic-mayo/
29:52 Dynamite Lemon Pepper Drumsticks
41:07 Baked Italian Garlic Chicken Thighs
44:10 Jerk Turkey Burgers: (in the Club) https://mealplan.freezermeals101.com/recipe/jerk-turkey-burgers/
49:33 Curried Ground Beef: (in the Club) https://mealplan.freezermeals101.com/recipe/curried-ground-beef/
50:22 Cajun Shrimp Skewers: https://freezermeals101.com/cajun-shrimp-skewers/
52:00 Garlic Butter Shrimp: https://freezermeals101.com/garlic-butter-shrimp-freezer-meal/
52:57 Southern Style Ground Beef Casserole: https://freezermeals101.com/southern-style-ground-beef-casserole-freezer-meal/
54:31 Firecracker Ground Beef Stir Fry
1:00:18 Corn Chowder: https://freezermeals101.com/freezer-corn-chowder-with-bacon/
1:05:46 Hot Honey Chickpeas
1:06:24 Buffalo Chickpeas
1:11:31 Ham and Pea Casserole
1:21:36 Giggle Pig Pork Chops:
1:22:33 Sheet Pan Sweet and Sour Meatballs: https://freezermeals101.com/sweet-and-sour-meatballs-sheet-pan-recipe/
1:24:00 Sausage and Peppers: https://freezermeals101.com/sausage-peppers-freezer-meal/
1:24:42 One Pot Cajun Chicken Pasta: https://freezermeals101.com/one-pot-cajun-chicken-pasta/
1:35:38 Tater Tot Casserole: (in the Club) https://mealplan.freezermeals101.com/recipe/wprm-tater-tot-casserole/
1:36:59 Egg Roll in a Bowl: https://freezermeals101.com/egg-roll-in-a-bowl-freezer-meal/
1:40:04 BBQ Beef on a Bun
1:40:48 Mississippi Pot Roast: https://freezermeals101.com/mississippi-pot-roast/
1:42:35 One Pot Pasta Puttanesca: https://freezermeals101.com/pasta-puttanesca/
1:44:04 Mongolian Beef: https://freezermeals101.com/mongolian-beef-skillet-freezer-meal/
1:44:56 Philly Cheesesteak
1:46:05 Slow Cooker Pepper Steak
1:48:41 Spicy Gochujang Udon Noodles
1:55:19 Pork Carnitas new version
1:56:48 Pork Carnitas OG
1:59:13 Greek Turkey Rice Bowls
2:04:43 Sausage Skillet Rice Invention
2:08:35 Chorizo/Tuscan Pasta Sauce (based on this recipe: https://freezermeals101.com/chicken-and-sundried-tomato-pasta-sauce/)
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if right now a typical day involves you needing to figure out what you’re going to make for dinner checking to make sure that you have the ingredients possibly running to the store to grab some last minute things then cooking your dinner and cleaning up we are here to tell you about something that can save you time money and so much mental space enter the humble hero of our story freezer meals [Music] today we are going to show you how to make freezer meals so you don’t ever have to worry about what to make for dinner what ingredients you have what sale you’re going to catch and how much money it’s going to cost you for a few weeks maybe a few months and we’re going to walk you through our process from start to finish so that you can see exact ly how you can do this too and stay tuned because we have a big announcement coming up about our freezer meals 101 club that you’re not going to want to miss we’re going to jump right into the first recipe just to give you a little taste of what we’re talking about and then we’re going to pop back and we’re going to backtrack a little bit to show you what happened before we even got to these first recipes for this Hawaiian chicken sheet pan meal it couldn’t be easier to put together we’re going to start out with our chicken in our bags and it has already been cubed up and we leave it raw we’re going to add in a red pepper coarsely chopped an orange pepper coarsely chopped and purple onion also coarsely chopped we are adding in some roughly chopped carrots these are maybe a little rougher than we want but my daughter did the prep on this one so I am not going to complain and I’m going to thank her for these carrots we’re going to add in some minced garlic some thick teriyaki sauce and some pineapple juice now I needed to open up a second jar of teriyaki sauce so when I finished the first jar I had a bit of the teriyaki sauce left so I added the pineapple juice to the jar and shook it up so that I could get the rest of the teriyaki sauce out and still use up my pineapple juice so I might have an extra teaspoon or something in the bags but that’s okay I’m glad that I was able to finish that bottle properly so we’re going to seal that up and get it into our freezer on the day of cooking we’re going to thaw it and we’re going to add a can of pineapple chunks that have been drained it’s super simple we’re going to spread the contents out onto the baking sheet using a bit of foil or parchment paper to save on cleanup we are going to cook at 350 for 20 minutes then we’re going to add that can of pineapple junks and then bake for another 10 to 20 minutes until our chicken is fully cooked and hopefully our carrots are at least Tender Crisp sprinkle the sesame seeds on and serve one of the things that saves you time when you’re doing this is to gather your ingredients for the recipe before you start assembling it that way you’re not running around while you’re trying to put it together so I’m doing the honey mustard chicken burgers so I’ve got my recipe and for this I need my chicken breasts now for these we sliced them lengthwise and we did that in our prep so those are already in the bags and we’re going to need dejon mustard honey Italian seasoning red pepper flakes and salt so I’m just going to Scurry around the kitchen gather up those ingredients and then we’re going to put this one together so you’ve got your chicken breast already in your bag sliced in half lengthwise because that’s going to make your eight burgers then we’re going to add in some Dijon mustard melted honey Italian seasoning red pepper flakes and salt that’s it really simple recipe we’re going to squish all the ingredients together to combine it then we’re going to get as much excess air as we possibly can out of the bag because when your freezer cooking air is going to be the thing that causes your freezer burn so you’re going to want to be careful to get as much air as you can out of all of your bags and then you’re going to seal it and freeze it on the day you go to cook this one you actually are just going to thaw it and cook those Burgers up right on your barbecue if you don’t have access to a barbecue or it’s the wrong season for barbecue then you can pan fry these in a large Skillet just 5 to 7 minutes per side you’re going to of course serve these on buns or in lettuce leaves with all of your burger toppings these blackened chicken bites are a brand new recipe but I already know they’re going to be amazing so we’re going to go ahead and make four of these to free each of our families into our freezer bags we’ve already got our cubed raw chicken now I was going to put these into medium freezer bags but I forgot when I was adding cubed raw chicken into the other large freezer bags when I was doing my prep so you’ll see that these are in large bags but you go ahead and do these in medium quart size freezer bags because that would save some space and they definitely don’t need these huge bags in a bowl we’re going to mix together some salt salt pepper smoked paprika garlic powder onion powder oregano basil Thyme and a bit of cayenne you can add more Cayenne if you like things spicy then once that’s mixed together we’re going to add that to the bag and we’re going to do a little bit of shake and bake here so we’re just going to close the bag shake it to coat that chicken and all that amazing seasoning and then you’re going to open the bag again get as much air as you can out reeal it and get that into the freezer on the day you go to cook this you thought you’re going to heat some oil in a skillet add the chicken to the pan this is going to cook up so quickly because they’re such small pieces what I love about this recipe is you can serve this on like a caesar salad and make it into like a Cajun chicken caesar you can serve this on a pasta with alfredo sauce you could serve this in a wrap I think it would be really good in like a Caesar wrap with some lettuce anyway I’m super excited to try this one I know it’s going to be amazing Crock-Pot barbecue drumsticks are so tender yet they are crisp you will love how easy these are we start out with our drumsticks in our bag we’re going to mix together some paprika cumin and salt in a little bowl and then we will sprinkle it over the chicken in the bag then we are going to add our garlic that’s minced we just use it from a jar and we’re going to add 1 cup of barbecue sauce you can use your all-time favorite barbecue sauce it doesn’t matter which we’re going to squish these ingredients around and then we’re going to remove that excess air and seal we’re going to put another batch of the barbecue sauce into a separate bag the mediumsized freezer bag and we’re going to staple these bags together make sure you staple above the seal and then we’re going to lay it flat to freeze when we go to cook these you’re going to thaw them you’re going to cook the drumsticks in the slow cooker dump that big bag right into the slow cooker cook it on low for 4 to 6 hours and then remove them and put them on a foil lined baking sheet brush the extra barbecue sauce onto the chicken and then we’re going to broil it we’re going to let it get crispy and sticky and we are then going to flip them over broil the other side and these are ready to go we briefly mentioned the freezer meals 101 Club where we can going to take all the hard Parts out of this for you make it super doable because you can go in there you can grab whatever you want from our tried and true freezer meal recipes and it will create your shopping list your prep list and your printable labels so all you need to do is run to the store grab what you need do your prep and assemble your meals there’s also some other helpful things in there like some exclusive videos and all of that kind of stuff but there was something missing from the club there kind of was and people were alluding to it a little bit like I don’t feel like I can get started it’s a little bit overwhelming for me and the people that jumped in and used the club to really start stacking their freezer were loving it and we’re reporting that it was lifechanging for them which was awesome for us to hear it was but and we wanted that for everyone so what we decided to do is make an addition to the Club so everything that you love about it is staying the same but we are adding an awesome feature which is monthly live cooking classes with [Applause] us so what we’re going to do is we are going to send you ahead of time a meal plan with your shopping list your prep list and your printable labels you can go out prep your ingredients and then join us and it’ll be like your in the kitchen with us we’re going to cook together there’s going to be a chat going so that you can ask us questions you can give us comments and if you’re struggling to get started it’s the perfect way you don’t even need to choose the recipes you don’t need to feel overwhelmed because there are over 350 recipes in there and we add more every week so it can be overwhelming when you first get in there and you just see this massive list and yes we have it set up so that you can easily filter through like you know depending on your diet or cooking method or protein if you can find a sale on chicken you can click the chicken button and only the chicken recipes will populate like we have it set up so that it’s easy that way but it still can be overwhelming for some people just getting started so we are really excited about this because this is going to be a way that we can hold your hand through this and for our seasoned members it’s a way for us to connect with you our lives and in the past it’s like you are here and we love it so you are going to love this it feels like getting together with friends we just love so much being able to invite you into my kitchen this feature is going to be included for all of our existing members if you’ve been on the fence about joining the club you need to jump in right now because the price of the club is going up once you’re a member it stays the same price that you joined at forever for as long as you stay a member so you really want to jump in right now join us we can’t wait to see you there we have never done a recipe freezer meal wise that has bone in skin on chicken thighs we have been wanting to try one and so today is the day yay I decided to do chicken tajine which I’ve never tasted before but I’ve read about it and so I tried to create a freezer meal version of this and we’re using our bone in skin on chicken thighs for this which Christy also trimmed I did um it was mostly just pulling misted feathers off there wasn’t a whole lot to trim besides but my my hands got so sore doing it so I went and cleaned up a pair of needle-nose pliers and I did it with the pliers and then to get it off the pliers I rinsed it in a thing of water and I kept going and so it worked really really well I promise I cleaned the pliers first really well before and after because then I’m like now we have chickeny pliers there you go folks chickeny pliers chickeny pliers so we’re going to try this let us know in the comments how you think this one’s going to turn out because it’s a real departure from our Norm yes so we’ve got our chicken thighs in the bag we’re going to mix together some seasonings in a bowl we’re going to add some paprika turmeric we’re trying to cook with more turmeric cuz it’s supposed to be really healthy for you and have anti-inflammatory properties some cumin coriander cinnamon cayenne and salt and pepper then we’re going to add that into the bags with the chicken and we’re going to shake it in there just like good old shake and bake take out the air that we can and seal it then in another large bag we are going to put sliced onion carrots that are in large chunks again Christy’s daughter did these and they’re a little on the large side but you know more carrot then we’re going to have some minced garlic some ginger now when we use our Ginger we get the squeezy tube and just find that it’s still nice and fresh but without the work of having to mince that ourselves then we’re going to add some fresh lemon zest and lemon juice some melted honey chicken broth and pitted olives I chose mixed pitted olives for this just so that everybody you know seems to like different kinds of olives and whatever in my family so everybody will get what they like then you’re going to get the air out of this one and you’re going to staple these ones together above the seal and get those into your freezer when you go to make this you’re going to heat some olive oil in a deep Skillet on your stove after this is thawed and you’re going to add your chicken and sear it on both sides once you have a good sear on there then you’re going to add that bag of vegetables and sauce and you’re going to cover it and simmer it for about a half an hour you want those carrots to be Tender Crisp And of course you want your chicken to reach that safe internal temperature of 165° when we are planning one of these Mega meal marathons there is a little little bit of behind the scenes things that tends to happen Christy moved into the house two doors down over 12 years ago and she noticed that I had freezer meal cookbooks on my shelf and asked me if I did that kind of cooking yes and I did and so we decided to try it together and it seemed to work rather well it really did and kind of the rest is history and so over the years we have really developed a lot of great timesaving ideas things that we do that just works so well and I think we play to our strengths which is important when doing this with a freezer meal partner absolutely so the first thing that we do is we plan the meals so we’ll talk about what are your musthaves is one of the things and in the beginning I would come over and we would have a meeting and we would pour over recipes and what do you want to do and we’ve had this before and what what do you think about trying this and yay or nay or I don’t do coconut so you know those things especially if you’re just starting out that’s really important but yes now Charlotte is The Mastermind of the recipes and so she’s like what are your must haves and then she just builds it out from there so Christy sent me her musthave list for this one and so I’ve included those and then I’ve included some of our other tried and true recipes you can find those on freezer meals 101.com or freezer me101 club.com and then I invented some recipes so you’re going to see some brand new ones today and that’s always fun and it’s fun for me to invent them it’s fun to try them except when they’re bad usually they are hits we’ve had a few misses over the years then from the recipe list we have to build the shopping list which is a chore which is why we created the fridge meals 101 club for you so that you don’t have to do all that work but mine because I’m inventing recipes and they’re new I have to do it by hand and so then I’m like doing tally marks to figure out oh it’s an interesting sheet how many like pounds of ground beef oh and like how many onions need to be diced versus minced versus sliced and how many peppers need to be sliced versus diced versus big chunks like it’s a it’s a thing it’s a thing but once we get that done then Christy makes the labels I do make the labels the first time we did freezer meals I got here and Charlotte was so organized she had stations set up with the recipe and all the ingredients but then she had sat up late that night handwriting with a Sharpie on each of the freezer meal bags the the recipe and the cooking instructions and I have an admin background I am very well acquainted with Microsoft Word and I said oh honey no we’re not doing that again and so now we make labels and now we just use most of them from the club and it’s really handy and if you’re in the club you have labels too and on the labels you also want to include the date because then it’s not like Russian Roulette when you’re going through your freezer how old is this when did we last make Minon soup then we go and do our shopping now usually the shopping is pretty seamless Christy does Costco the bulk store and if there’s any like odd stops like if there’s a liquor store stop or uh like it specialty ingredients yeah and so she does that part and then I do like our local grocery store and I usually plan it around their 15% off day so that we’re able to save even more money and we also do a bit of like looking in the Flyers to see what’s on sale when we’re doing the planning anyway usually the shopping all goes like we’ve got this down pat we do there’s usually flurry of texting of they don’t have enough zucchini oh I’ll grab zucchini at the next one or I’m not buying salmon today because it is outrageously priced and we are just dropping the salmon and I’m not doing it and charlot says okay don’t buy the salmon that’s okay exactly yeah but this time oh there was trouble yes there were some supply issues at the grocery store and so for more than a week they have not had chicken now I don’t mean they didn’t have like the brown of chicken that I prefer or like the type of chicken that we were looking for I don’t mean that they didn’t have boneless skinless but they did have ground chicken or I mean like no chicken so but it was just the one store I was at Costco chicken everywhere totally what kind of shortage is this did you ever find out they saying it’s a supply issue so their supplier is not supplying them with chicken and then their pork offerings were minimal at best and so like in that the pigs are on strike I’m like okay obviously we’re going to be hitting a different store and in the end I got chicken paid way more for it than I normally do and and you know it is what it is I had to adapt some of the recipes because even at that second store we weren’t able to find some of the things I did have to go to a third store but at a different time it was just chaos it was chaos and where I was at Costco I had some chicken math trouble and I ended up buying a little bit more it’s only two like it’s only like two actual meals extra so it’s not like crazy but Charlotte’s like oh already I know her gears are turning what can I make with the extra chicken we’re going to invent some something great so stay tuned to the end because that’s when we invent things with all of the little bits and Bobs that we have left over and then the other thing that we do ahead is we do our prep but I want to show you some more recipes before we get to what we do for the prep these stet chicken tacos are actually a recipe that we did in our Costco copycat video I will poke a link for it up there in the description down below because we were trying to recreate some of Costco’s like convenience kind of meals and most of them worked out super super well like they total H total hits and this is one that Christy actually hasn’t tried yet because we only made one mhm so she’s excited to try it and I’m really excited to have it again because it was that good and it’s perfect for right now because you can cook it on the barbecue so we’re going to use chicken thighs for this and they are already in our bags because Christy trimmed them last night I did all the prep for the chicken I used to do it standing here at the counter and it was part of my feet and it was very timec consuming especially if I had a lot of trimming to do and so last night I just finished them nicely at home in the comfort of my own kitchen and it’s and that way you can have a movie on I listen to my book into our bag we’ve got our chicken thighs that Christy so kindly trimmed then we’re going to add some orange juice cider vinegar lime juice minced garlic again just using it from the jar Chipotle chili powder oregano smoked paprika cinnamon salt and pepper we’re going to toss all of that to combine it and then we’re going to get out as much air as we can seal it and get those in the freezer when you go to make these you’re going to thaw them and then you can just put them on your barbecue you are going to take the chicken out of the marinade before you cook them you’re just going to cook them for like 4 to 5 minutes on each side on medium high heat you want that chicken to reach an internal temperature of 165° and for that you’re going to use a meat thermometer which Christy has taught me and I am finally listening and I’m glad I am then you’re going to chop these just chop them roughly um bite-sized pieces and then serve them in small flour tortillas with cabbage SLO salsa Crema and lime wedges this chili glazed chicken has been a perennial favorite for a long time and I promise it’s not too spicy despite the name start out with our boneless skinless chicken thighs in our bag we’re going to add chili powder cumin some balsamic vinegar some melted honey and chicken broth we’re going to mix it all around in the bag and saving ourselves a bowl we’re going to remove that extra air and seal it up and freeze it on the day of cooking now you have options you can cook this in the oven at 350 for 50 minutes you can put it in the slow cooker on low for 4 to 6 hours you can cook it in your Skillet I like to do medium high for 20 25 minutes um of course every time I’m going to be checking this with the meat thermometer um but you know what where this really shines is on the barbecue it is my favorite way to cook it over medium heat for 15 to 20 minutes when you are prepping for something like this Marathon you are going to be doing things in large quantities and there are things you can do to save time like when I browned my ground beef I put it on cookie sheets that are lined with foil and baked it in the oven we did our ground sausage in the slow cooker it took me two slow cookers full to do all the ground sausage that we had and then for things like the onions we’ve split our prep over the years again playing to our strengths she ships the onions out for processing to my house I chop all the onions so I’m going to do the minc going to use my little Chopper tool I’ll put a link in the description below it comes with a bunch of these little plates that have they’re super sharp and so I I have the two that I use here the most often I have the one for minced and the one for dicing or [Music] chopping to get the most even propop I have learned to put this corner vshape straight down you press it in a little bit and it just kind of sits there and then here’s the loud part bang it’s down in there if I do it this way I get long pieces here because of the way the iion curves so if I do it this way all of these go down it goes down through the grate at the same angle and because of the layers I get a more even [Music] mint next round is 24 diced onions I’ve laid out 24 here [Music] [Music] [Music] oops I didn’t core them I probably should have C see look it o got a funny looking core probably should have CED the other ones too but I didn’t that’s okay [Music] today I am doing five minced 24 diced 11 sliced and then I have need seven of them [Music] sliced we had a lot of sliced onions this time isn’t it funny how certain freezer meal sessions there’s like almost the theme like yes sometimes it’s like so much spinach and this time no spinach and sometimes so much zucchini and this time no zucchini sometimes I have two full containers of cheese I have made 20 or 40 cups of shredded cheese before this time I there was so little I was able to do it by hand I didn’t even get out my cheese my my cheese processor I didn’t get out my food processor to do the cheese so if you have things like the vegetable chopper or the food processor for when you’re doing a lot of red cheese or those kinds of things we will put links down below to some videos that you can actually see the prep and have it broken down like how we do a lot of cooked cubed chicken at once or the cheese in the food processor when you’re doing large quantities of ingredients it’s easier to have these little hacks [Music] totally barbecue shredded chicken is one of our ogs and it’s one of my personal favorites in your bag you can use boneless skinless chicken breasts or thighs this time we’re using thighs then you’re going to add some minced onion minced garlic barbecue sauce and some cider vinegar now you want to put a little bit of that cider vinegar into your barbecue sauce jar because then you can give that a shake and get out all the remnants of your barbecue sauce then you’re going to again squish all these ingredients in the bag to combine them it’s nice when you can mix everything together in the bag because then there’s less dishes you’re not dirting a bowl then you’re going to get your air out seal it freeze it when you go to cook this it just Cooks in your slow cooker so you thought toss that in there and then when it’s done cooking you shred it and you serve this on buns with some cool SLO and some garlic Mayo this chicken drumstick recipe I had recently made because you know we were running low and- freezer meals and I thought okay I’m going to try this chicken drumstick recipe it just turned out so amazingly good that we are going to make it into a freezer meal I said to Charlotte right away we have to do this we had to freezer meize it now you can take a lot of your regular recipes and throw them into the freezer you may have varied results depending on what is in it so when I say we freezer meize it it just means that you know we double check to make sure that things are going in order or sometimes we put things in a separate bag cuz it doesn’t make sense to freeze them all together sometimes there’s certain ingredients that don’t freeze well or we have to do things to them to make them freeze better so this one actually was pretty straightforward I did adapt the recipe a little bit from what I found on the internet too so I added in extra things because it just worked out that way it’s what I had on hand into your bag add your chicken drumsticks we’re going to mix together some olive oil oil melted butter lemon juice lemon zest and minced garlic in a small bowl and we’re going to then pour that into the chicken and massage that all over the drumsticks then in another Bowl we’re going to mix together some spices and breadcrumbs now I had Italian bread crumbs on hand and the recipe called for some salt oregano basil pepper and add that to bread crumbs if you wanted but I also added lemon pepper because it is one of my all-time favorite spices and I had Italian breadcrumbs so it is extra Italian so we have left it that way because it turned out really really delicious we’re going to mix those together we’re going to add it to the bag and then shake it to coat the chicken and we’re going to remove the excess air seal up our bag and freeze it on the day of cooking we are going to thaw it and spread it on your baking sheet with your foil or parchment paper we’re going to bake at 4:25 for 20 minutes we’re going to turn our chicken over and cook for another 5 to 10 minutes again we want our chicken to reach an eternal temperature of 165° so that it is safe to eat when we planned this freezer meal session it was one of those times where like we were in need of freezer meals so we were talking about like should we do it now or do we wait a few weeks or wait a week but honestly like my freezer was down to just the meals that I’m holding for my son who’s moving out soon that I’ve made for him and some breakfast things that we recently made it was slim pickings in there it was so eaten down that I had to make like recipes from scratch now the good news is one of those recipes is in this session today because it turned out to be so good I’m like Chara I don’t know what you stop the presses is what it was but yeah we don’t we feel uncomfortable when our freezer starts to get that bare because we rely on them so much it is such a safety net it just feels it’s like the one area in our lives that we have together uh that’s exactly how I feel about it it’s like everything else is a mess and I don’t know what I’m doing but when it comes to feeding my family I’ve got that down now and it’s extra good because this week the wheels really did fall off the wagon for both of us it has been a trial and we need these meals more than ever but what we wanted to share with you is just that sometimes circumstances are not ideal sometimes things just don’t seem to be falling into place or coming together and maybe it’s tempting to be like well I guess I should just abandon my plan and not do the meals and whatever you know like we always say done is better than perfect I guess what I’m trying to say is if we can do these meals this week you can do meals because when looking at this week um those of you who have watched our videos for a while you know that one of our daughters has been sick since um 20 August of 2020 actually and so she does Hospital treatments and they’re like sometimes every four weeks sometimes every 6 weeks whatever but this was a hospital treatment week and so it was like oh that’s not perfect because we’re going to have to you know get the groceries and prep one day and then be at the hospital with her the whole next day like in between and then do the meals so that’s not like ideal and I’ll be exhausted and she’ll you’ll be behind on prep like there’s a there’s a lot of reasons so that wasn’t great and then then Christy’s uncle died my uncle passed and so we had already agreed when we were going to do freezer meals and then my auntie said the funeral is on this Monday back in my hometown so I said okay we’re going to go home for the funeral which is totally fine I’ll be back the funeral is on Monday we’re driving home after the funeral it’s like 5 hours 4 and a half 5 hours and then Tuesday I’ll get my groceries and I’ll start prepping I’ll be ready to go for Thursday Friday no problem problem but you’re not going to believe this in the meantime a very good friend of ours like a week ago uh passed and he was our age and that one was hard um and so then the funeral is now set for tomorrow and and it’s out of town as well it’s also out of town so I can’t help Charlotte film tomorrow but if I’m not going to be here tomorrow we are putting in a full day today so that we can get ahead as much as we can because poor Charla is going to have to you know carry the torch tomorrow she’s going to do a great job you’ll be fine with her but I’m going to have to be away again and so you know and two funerals in a week forgive me if I’m not in the best headp space right now so that has been a barrier as well so we have really had some heavy stuff going on here but I can tell you something really great I can take my friends some freezer meals absolutely like that it has been a bit of a like this particular thing is a tragedy like it’s truly a tragedy and um it’s been one of those times where it does kind of drive home that you know the things that matter and it is nice to be able to and even yesterday I was getting a head start on some of the meals and getting them over to christe’s house well actually my son was getting them over to christe’s house cuz I was heading out the door because honestly it’s really been that kind of week but when that was happening I knew that some of those meals were going to this other friend and and I felt good about that because I could also be a small part in that so it’s just Yep this freezer meal time has not like it’s just not what it usually is and you know if you’ve watched before you know we’ve done 153 freezer meals we’ve done 156 fre freezer meals um this time even leading up to it I had paired the list down I had I had the list down to 120 christe’s got the the two extra chicken meals so you know maybe it’ll be 122 and then there’ll be other inventions there’s always a few things left over oh and you’re going to have to do them all by yourself tomorrow that is my least favorite I can’t say that some of the the best ones but it used to be I was so tired we’re on day two and I my feet are sore my hips are sore my I’m just dragging and Charla’s like well we have all of this left over what else can we make and I’m like I’m going home what are you doing and she would well we can make this and this and this and I’ll tell you some of our best recipes have come from the leftovers and so I don’t complain anymore I know it’s going to come I’m totally happy about it but I’m not entirely sad that I’m going to miss that part tomorrow it’s true but this time I actually am hoping other than those chicken meals uh that I just found out about this morning that I’m not going to have to invent anything because when I calculated the ground beef normally I’ll calculate it and then I’ll add a little more because I’ll be like let’s prep it and brown it and we have extra turkey you know and now there the extra chicken there is extra turkey okay so it might end up being 124 meals but regardless it’s not going to be 156 do we want to take bets I would predict north of 130 oh my goodness I don’t know I’m I it is nothing for you to whip off 10 extra freezer meals yeah we’ll see we’ll see but she’s so funny anyway we’re going to end up with if we end up with 120 let’s say I mean 122 120 you know let’s say 120 um then that’s 60 meals each which is two months of meals now normally we do 3 months at a time no one is sad about having 2 months of not having to make dinner right also now that we’re going to be doing the live cooking class where we’re going to be making meals with you that means we’re going to be making meals in between as well and so as a result this is going to stretch and it will kind of give us like our base for the next 3 months it does and just because we have them it doesn’t mean that we use them every single night we have leftover nights just like everybody else or on nights like the other night where I’m like I’m going to pick up some drumsticks and I am just going to make something new and it just felt good to do that because I don’t have to do that every day I have found my joy in cooking again because of freezing meals and I love that I don’t dread cooking anymore I look forward to it and I even look forward to the mega sessions now this one I have to say you know we’re not going to get to visit as much as we usually do we’re both a little bit dragging today uh this it’s been a week I can tell you but uh but I also really see the blessing in this like being able to have these meals for us and our families and also for other families there is tremendous blessing in that and I’m grateful so we’re going into it with that attitude but just to let you know this has been a Gong Show and if you are thinking well this isn’t the ideal time I’m going to wait until all the stars align like I’m going to wait until not there is no such thing things will never be perfect just get started and if all you’re going to do is just double your meal tonight put one in the freezer eat one tonight you will be further ahead do that for a week and see how much it changes things for you trust us this really can be life changing so Christy was talking about how she had some extra bone in skin on chicken thighs now sometimes I might spend some time doing a little bit of research Googling you know searching some cookbooks and whatever to find some recipes I would usually do it like tonight before tomorrow and then I would do the invention recipes tomorrow which is going to be in the same video for you but today because as we shed we got a lot going on Christy’s not coming back tomorrow I’m going to be on my own so I’m trying to minimize what I have to do tomorrow so I’m just inventing something on the Fly it’s it’s not going to be fancy it’s going to be super simple what I’m going to do with these is I’m just going to throw in some we had leftover Italian breadcrumbs from what recipe was that from the lemon pepper Dynamite lemon pepper drumsticks the dynamite lemon pepper drumsticks and so I’m going to use some of that I’m going to use lemon juice I don’t know if you guys noticed but we’ve been using lemons like crazy and usually we just use lemon juice from a bottle but we had to get fresh lemons this time because we had two recipes that called for lemon zest so we’re actually like squeezing lemons for some of these so I’ve got lemon juice coming out the wazo and so I’m going to add that and some salt and pepper and some Italian seasoning and it’ll just be really simple like baked Italian chicken with lemon I think it’ll taste good I think it it’ll get a little bit of a crunch on it a sear on it think it’ll be amazing probably do it in the skillet you could do it on the barbecue and yeah then we’ll have two more meals done [Music] one of the things that saves a lot of time when we’re doing freezer meals is to only do one protein at a time so today we started with our raw chicken because a lot of it we had gone ahead and prepped it right into the bags but now that we have finished with all the raw chicken we’re going to do a wipe down of the kitchen so that we you know don’t have any cross contamination nobody wants salmonella no salmonella and then once we get that done then we’re going to move on to some other proteins christe’s going to start on turkey burgers I am making jerk turkey burgers which is a new recipe we’re excited about it I think they sound really interesting they do and I have more turkey than we need so the gears are going in there I’m sure because we’re going to have to figure out what to do with the rest of the turkey kind of thinking that I’ll cook it up today and then do some with cooked ground turkey tomorrow that’ll also give me a better idea of like what we have left when you’re done and it’ll just smooth things long and then we’re going to do shrimp after that and I’m actually going to get started on ground beef once we get all wiped down [Music] here we don’t often bring out the kitchen scale and in this case we’re going to because the turkey that I bought was a huge tube oh my goodness that’s huge it’s a giant tube it’s 3 Kg which is a little over 6 lb almost 7 lb of turkey so we’re going to have some left over but I can’t really eyeball this if I’m going to make turkey burgers so I did bring my scale a scale isn’t something we use all the time it is a nice to have it’s not a must have I am fully expecting this to like squirt oh it is it is it’s growing it’s like that’s funny Prett nice that is funny it’s rising to [Laughter] the look the jerk turkey burgers are a new recipe for us we’re going to start out with our ground turkey in the bowl we’re going to add in Jamaican Jer seasoning quite a bit of it we’ll add in a peeled and grated Granny Smith apple some finely chopped green onions and some panco bread crumbs and a little bit of salt and pepper we’re going to mix that around you can use a spoon you can use your hands whatever you need to do to get it mixed well then we are going to form 1 in thick patties now for this recipe I used a 2/3 cup uh like a measuring cup and it worked really well I had a small dollop left over that I could either make a small burger or incorporate it into some of the other burgers and it worked really well um you want to put a small indentation in the middle of each with your thumb so that when you go to cook these they have a tendency to puff up and by doing that it kind of stops them from that happening to freeze these we like to put them on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper and then freeze them individually then they go into the freezer bag and that way they won’t stick together if you don’t want to do that you could put parchment paper in between them but we find that this works best for us when you go to cook these you’re going to just throw them on the barbecue medium heat medium high maybe for 4 to 5 minutes per side until the patties are browned and cooked through turkey like chicken is safe to eat when it has reached an internal temperature of 165° and you want to serve this in a burger bun this is a good one to serve with you know you could make a Mayo for it to put on your bun with a bit of jerk seasoning in the Mayo and a splash of lime juice you know we kind of get fancy with mayonnaise when it comes to putting meat on a bun so this is just one of the things that we came up with so I’m about to get started on the ground beef but I thought I would come over and just show you a few tricks that we have one of the things we always do is we keep a scoop a one cup scoop in our ground beef so I went and got this from the fridge because first tip is you want your meat to be cooled before it goes in the bag so this was prepped yesterday and then it cooled overnight in the fridge and now I’ve got this handy little scoop here because 2 and 2/3 of a cup equals one PB so if I’ve got a recipe that calls for a pound of ground beef then I know I just need 2 and 2/3 Scoops here and goes straight into the bag and I’ve got that and it’s awesome then we keep a scoop in our onions we’ve got minced onions diced onions and sliced onions this time sometimes we have onions in chunks we only have purple onions inun purple onions in chunks and they’ve already been used yeah so this is like for our minced onion which is going in this next recipe that I’m about to make so this it’s like about one cup is one onion so then you know if it calls for half an onion it’s half a cup and you know one onion is one cup and so this makes it handy and um so in our minced garlic which believe it or not we’re going to go through this whole thing and need to open another one today but in our minced garlic jar we keep a spoon all day so that we can just scoop this out and these little things like just having scoops and spoons and things saves us a lot of time really does so another little tip I’m about to start the curried ground beef so it’s just Gathering ingredients and then I thought I’m going to come over and explain sort of the method to our Madness because over the years we’ve just developed these little things and every time we’ve Incorporated a new one it shaves off a little bit of time and then before we knew it we were way faster it totally the first time we did it took at least two days of assembly like I kind of feel like it was cuz some days we went into or some years we went into the third day so it might have taken into the third day that time but regardless we did 86 meals which is still like super respectable to toal and I’m not dissing 86 meals cuz they were really awesome to have but now for us to be able to do like 150 in 2 days this time 120 in two hopefully 2 days hopefully it doesn’t take me longer than 2 days but right with just like two of us today and one of us tomorrow like we’ve just gotten so much faster the other thing that makes you faster is practice so if you’ve tried this and you’re like I don’t know how Christy and Charlotte can do it so quickly I it’s cuz we’ve made over 6,000 freezer meals exactly like practice makes progress and we have had a lot 10,000 makes you a master 10,000 hours we probably are at 10,000 hours we might we might be at 10,000 hours oh yeah yeah 12 years together and then years before that we did it on our own so we might actually be experts who knew we’ve been saying that for a while but now it’s Quantified so it’s real okay um christe’s going to clean up from Turkey fingers and uh I’m going to make curry ground beef with you so we’ve got our cooled and browned ground beef in our bag we’re going to add minced onion minced garlic madess curry paste cinnamon turmeric ginger again from the squeezy tube a can of diced tomatoes some peeled and diced carrots and some frozen peas along with some salt and pepper PE just going to squish everything in there to combine it get out your air again seal it and freeze it when you go to make this one it’s so fast you just heat it in a skillet and you can just cook this like honestly in less than 10 minutes it’s done you’re just waiting for those carrots to soften so it’s very fast you can serve this with rice or Nan alternately you could do it in the slow cooker if you prefer Cajun shrimp skewers we are going to put our our shrimp in the bag we’re going to put in a splash of canola oil and then you mix it around a little bit to coat all the shrimp because then we are going to dump a whole lot of Cajun seasoning in there yes you see that right it is a/4 cup it’s four tablespoons we’re going to put another splash of lemon juice in and then we’re going to seal those up and just mix those around like the Dickens and then you want to remove the excess air seal it up and freeze on the day you go to cook this you’re going to soak your bamboo skewers if you want to do the skewer business you’re going to let your shrimp thaw and I know for myself I do like to drain my shrimp a little bit but don’t worry there is so much Cajun seasoning happening in here if some of the Cajun seasoning escapes while you are draining your shrimp that is okay you’re going to take your shrimp and skewer and then you’re going to barbecue over medium heat for 5 to 7 minutes and then you can also like I said if you don’t want to skewer them you can pan fry these super fast 5 to 7 minutes you just need your shrimp to curl up and turn pink and man is this nice this is great for salads this goes nicely with steak we have a sesame steak that this goes beautifully with you could just pop these in your mouth and just enjoy them on their own too this garlic butter shrimp has been around for a long time for us and it’s gone through a few iterations to be honest it started out to be specifically with the pasta and we do make it for pasta but again it also goes nicely with steak it goes nice with seafood dish of any kind it goes really really well with we’re going to start out with a mediumsized bag we’re going to add in some butter and minced garlic a splash of olive oil quite a bit of Italian seasoning we’re going to add in some red pepper flakes and some salt and pepper then we are going to seal that bag up and then attach it to another now we just use medium bags for these they get kind of big and bumpy and they don’t fit in your freezer really nice you could totally put it in a large bag if you want but we’re going to put the shrimp in a separate bag and then we’re going to staple these bags together when you go to cook this like I had mentioned it is nice to drain your shrimp which is also why we’re not putting the seasonings in with the shrimp there’s no benefit to marinating these and these are ones you just want a sauté you make the butter sauce you saute your shrimp in it when it’s nice and bubbly and it’ll again 6 or 7 Minutes these are done beautifully served on pasta with the butter sauce and everything or they are nice to have with a steak or with other Seafood chicken whatever you like for the southern style ground beef casserole you’re going to have your ground beef in your bag then you’re going to add some diced onion diced green pepper some corn you can use it from a can and drain it or you can use it frozen then some tomato sauce wierer sauce now to save time I’m not measuring it out exactly I’m just putting some splashes in there and estimating cuz that’s another thing that as we’re doing so many meals at once it just saves a little bit of time there then some chili powder salt and pepper we’re going to squish all of that together to combine it and seal it now for this one you could be done right there or what we like to do is put some shredded cheddar cheese in a medium-sized bag and staple those bags together that way on the day that you go to make this you can just heat this up in your Skillet or your crock pot and towards the end of cooking you can top it with that cheese before you serve it [Music] this firecracker ground beef stir fry is a new recipe for us we are excited about it because anything that has firecracker in the name you know that it’s going to be good we start out with our ground beef it’s been cooked and cooled it’s in the bag we’re going to add in cut green beans we like to use frozen ones super simple we’re going to add in some sliced red pepper sliced onion minced garlic minced ginger from the squeezy tube a bit of Honey quite a bit of Frank’s Red Hot Sauce a little bit of rice vinegar and salt and pepper and red pepper flakes we’re going to mix that all around in the bag we’re going to remove that excess air seal it up and freeze it for the day of cooking you’re going to thaw this you’re going to dump all of the contents right into a large Skillet or you can use a walk and then you’re going to stir fry this over medium high heat for 7 to 10 minutes and then serve it over rice or noodles this looks so delicious I would be tempted to maybe garnish it with some green onion or maybe some sesame seeds but I think this one is going to like blow our tops off I love it you know corn chowder is probably one of the ogs for sure we’ve been making it forever I think maybe our first freezer meal session together cuz I had made it before that right you introduced me to it yeah so corn chowder corn chowder would be hard to make and I know this because we have done this look at all these cans we’ve got away from using a ton of cans in our freezer meals we’re cooking a lot more from scratch meals ingredients and yeah but there is a time and a place corn chowder is one of them when we first started making these we didn’t have trusty Sally here I don’t know what her name is oh cany canny her name’s canny um this is canny three cany three we said good luck cany three cuz I’m telling you we have like killed cany one and two we used them so much ran the motors right out no we did we totally ran the motors out so we have had this one since February 22nd of 2020 and I’ll tell you something else about that date that was right before the world shut down boy were we glad to have some freezers holy man some freezer meals in our freezers February 22nd 2020 we were doing freezer meals so that means that a few days prior we had shopped we had done like our big big shopping we probably bought toilet paper even and who knows but we had stocked up without like we didn’t radar we didn’t know a month later that like our kids would be home from school and the world would be shut down and you couldn’t find toilet paper be like anything on the store shelves remember that that’s like buying chicken right now we’re at like pandemic level chicken shortages store but yes like seriously and so it was actually amazing timing because we just happened to have stocked probably 140 meals so you know divided by two or whatever and um when everybody was complaining that they couldn’t buy food and they were so worried about groceries and you know like and you can’t go to the grocery store and whatever we were like oh we don’t have to go to the grocery store not really a problem for us and it was just serendipitous that we happened to but while we were making those freezer meals those very very fortunate to have freezer meals the open CRA out so so we sent Charlotte’s husband to the store and this is what he came home with it’s a que and art it’s done okay we we miss our West but they don’t make it anymore West Bend if you ever watch this we would like our can opener back so really to open up all these cans and a lot of times as corn chowder we love it so much we used to double it often and so it would be twice as many and so our wrists like literally would get sore from having to twist and twist and twist so when we got the electric can opener it made things faster it made it’s just less hassle and when our kids were little they would love to come and help us like there was a period of time where your daughter was like the queen of can opening and then when she was bored of that cuz she was probably a teenager my son really got into it and so my son he was like could you save corn powder for me so I can open all the cans and I’m like yeah buddy here is a freezer meal tip for you the other thing we learned is to do it on the end of day one we are not totally near the end of day one like it’s getting late and but we like we said before I’m not here tomorrow we are going to push through we have a lot to do but corn chowder like all soups is very wobbly so it doesn’t it takes a while to settle in the freezer and it takes a while to freeze so lots of times we would do it at the very end of day one so that it would freeze overnight because then the next morning when we started again on day two it would be Frozen and we could put stuff on top of it and not have things topple so when people ask questions like how do you how do you make things not topple in your freezer that’s one of them sometimes we would bee with eight of them and you would hear like junk junk like because things were falling in open the door like everything just slides on you and so we discovered you know it’s best to like be able to lay them sort of on their own not have things on top of them and then let them sit overnight and so we’re not quite there yet but the freezer actually has a fair bit of space so we’re we’re okay um we’ll just keep making meals and and make sure put them on top right and we wanted to celebrate Cy 3 we needed to introduce you to our secret best friend our other secret best friend to make corn chowder first you are going to get the biggest bowl that you have ever laid eyes on and if you don’t have that you can use like a caner or a stock pot something giant because this gets full we are going to add into it some diced onion a lot of kernel corn a lot of cream corn a lot of evaporated milk cream of mushroom soup some chicken broth and our favorite part a couple of slices of bacon that we have cooked and crumbled we’re going to mix it all together now when you go to put this into the freezer bags there’s a couple of suggestions like maybe you should do it with a friend so that they can hold the bag for you or you could use a juice jug and you can stick your freezer bag down inside the juice jug and then Ladle or sometimes you use measuring cups because they’re much bigger and fill that bag up and you want to get them relatively even and get that excess air out and into your freezer and then good luck with that on the day of cooking cook this on your stove top or in your slow cooker really you just need to to cook it long enough to get your onions soft and then it is like perfect it is great to serve with biscuits with cornbread with you know just crusty rolls it doesn’t matter you can just about do anything [Music] so a while back I made my husband some protein bowls yeah he’d been fuing me to do it for like the longest time you been hearing him lying about it he does like his protein bowls he goes through these eating phases he’s the guy that will do keto I remember when he did paleo for a while he’s that he’s that guy yeah so he was going through a phase where like someone at his gym told him that they were doing protein bowls and so it became a thing for him so finally I don’t mean to roll my eyes at that but anyway and he was like this would make her really good video I’m sure people would be interested like oh my goodness but I’m a nice wife and and he’s actually a nice husband and does lots for me so I don’t mean to like make it seem like it’s just all one-sided or anything it isn’t and I was away yes so conveniently it worked out for you to make these protein bowls totally so I spent like not very much time it took me like a couple hours including prep to make him I think I made him like 24 or 28 of these protein bowls he has been loving them he’s down to three because one of our sons has also been eating them but anyway one of the ones I did was this hot honey chick one so they’re in these microwave safe containers you can find those in uh the description below there’s a link to our Amazon store you can find those there they’re like microwave safe dishwasher safe freezer safe all the things but in those containers I have the uh roasted sweet potatoes on the one side and then on the other side I did this hot honey chickpea recipe that I sort of threw together invented and mixed it in a bowl and you know I was like and so all the rest of them had protein like well they’re protein bowls obviously they have protein but they all had meat and then there were these chickpea ones and so the first time he get like got to a chickpea one he was like where’s the meat like no no no chickpeas is a protein really really this was you’ll you’ll be okay this was intentional it’s protein um but he was very skeptical and and he ate it and he was like I think this is the best one so the chickpea ones have been flying off the freezer shell and uh so I decided that we can make it today and Christy and I were discussing it and we’re like for her family it might be a side dish my husband also would probably b a little bit at the no meat although that we do have a lot of vegetarian recipes or meatless recipes where you know he’s completely satisfied after eating something that isn’t meat and so I think you know this could be something I could serve as a main I would have to just try it out test it yeah it’s nice actually to have side dishes in the freezer when you’ve got like some garlic mashed potatoes in there or some like Maple Dill carrots or whatever it is like we’ve got some really good side dish recipes and you appreciate it so much you do you totally do cuz the work is already done so this is our hot honey chickpeas and whether you use it as a side or a Mane or maybe you want to make this and mix it in a bowl and then portion it out into some containers so that you can have your own like individual protein bowls for lunch or dinner that’s another way you could go so we’re going to add our drained chickpeas some shredded carrots minced garlic melted honey Sriracha sauce salt pepper and a little splash of cayenne we’re going to just mix that together in a bag or if you’re doing it in a bowl you want to mix it in your bowl first before you pour it into your containers then get this in your freezer on the day you go to make it you just thaw it heat it in a skillet this will be done in like 5 to 10 minutes you can serve this over rice if you want to get super fancy you can sprinkle it with some cilantro and drizzle it with a bit of ranch dressing for these bu chickpeas we’re going to add in two cans of chickpeas that are drained into each bag and then we’re going to add in some minced onion minced garlic Cayenne cumin paprika salt pepper tomato sauce cider vinegar and some Frank’s Red Hot we’re going to mix that all together just in the bag just squish it around and it’ll mix really nicely and then get our air out seal it and freeze it now this one is super simple to make on the day of you just heat it in a skillet until the onion has softened or you could also do this one in the slow cooker if you prefer you’re going to want to serve this over quinoa or rice with a side of broccoli or some steamed vegetables and you have your full complete meal this is another one that would be good for individual portions do you remember the ham ham it up spaghetti ham it up spaghetti I have nightmares about ham it up spaghetti so a few Mega sessions back it might have been like three Mega sessions ago oh yeah at least uh Christy and I attempted a new recipe and it was called ham it up spaghetti I I don’t know if it was called that at first or if we decided to call it that I think that’s what we did well that could just be what you decided to call it after we laughed so hard that we were crying it was so awful to make it was awful to make the flavor actually wasn’t all that bad it was just awkward and it wasn’t the flavor wasn’t good enough to be worth the effort that we had to put into it like it was we couldn’t get it in the bag there was mixing around there was we were like using multiple utensils to try your son had to take the camera so that we could like get it in there together it was so bad it was so bad and then I’m like I we are never making this again Char charlot’s like you’re right you’re right we’ll never make it again it was so bad but here’s the thing we do like to have some extra ham recipes you know when you have like leftover ham from Easter or Thanksgiving or Christmas or whatever like it’s nice to have recipes that you can use that leftover ham with or in this case they they had two for one hams on and I’m like I can’t pass up this sale like that’s half price so I decided that we were going to try to redeem the Hamed up spaghetti now this is not a pasta it’s like just a little bit inspired by the Hamed up spaghetti it has a few similar ingredients but very different because we’re never going near that one again I can’t even like I can’t even say it without like making a a bad face and I’ll be honest I don’t have high hopes for the ham and pea anything because as growing up like pea soup was one of those ones that wasn’t for me and Mom would always put ham in it and so the idea of ham and I mean it’s split peas it’s totally different than Garden Peas I get it but just the idea of ham and pea soup makes me not want to eat ham and pea casserole so I might be very surprised I like ham and I like peas I might be happy and we’re making it with with rice yeah you like rice I like rice should be okay but I also like spaghetti and I like ham and that wasn’t the thing so we’ll see well I have my reservations I hope to be pleasantly surprised I had a lot of frozen peas in my freezer and another yeah like ch’s been laughing at me all day about my peas like peas like multiple bags like this big world peace and so uh I just thought it might be good to invent a recipe that used the half off ham along with some peas so it’s a very simple recipe this is not elevated food here this is like you know serve it to your kids on a Tuesday night food but there’s a time and a place for that too so and it’s usually Tuesday night right before guitar or soccer whatever you’re doing yeah and this is a good one because everything in here is precooked pretty much so this would be a really good one if you live on your own to mix this in a bowl and then divide it out into small containers that you can microwave or into small quart size bags and then you can freeze those take them out and just heat it you know in a little oven or you could actually freeze it in the oven safe container totally and bake it so this would be a really good one for splitting into individual sizes so here is our ham and pea casserole into our bag we’re going to have our rice now it’s already cooked and cooled then we’re going to add some cubed ham frozen peas minced onions minced garlic a can of cream of mushroom soup some sour cream salt pepper hot sauce and some shredded cheddar cheese we are also going to put some of the shredded cheddar cheese in a quart size bag and staple that onto the other bag once we’ve gotten the air out of both and sealed them because for this you can top it with the cheese on the day that you go to make it you’re just going to bake it in your oven for 30 minutes at 350° because everything in here like I said before is already cooked so easy peasy ham and pea Cass we just came to do a little checkin because it is um almost 7:00 p.m uh we started at I walked in the door at 8:30 I kind of mentioned this earlier but I didn’t really go into it so I’ll go into it now I made a lot of meals yesterday just because of you know when we found out it was really only yes was it yesterday or the day before that we found out that the funeral was going to be tomorrow yeah yeah and we had already prepped the ingredients bought the meat Like There’s No Going Back happening you can’t just be like oh I guess we’ll do it next week like especially like we’ve had it where we’ve had Peppers that we prepped too far in advance and then they got slimy and we couldn’t use them them and so we couldn’t let that happen this time and we you know we’re all about not wasting and all of that so it was like well we just have to like take advantage of every single minute we have so I did a bunch of the ironically the beef recipes and I don’t even eat beef oh that is funny I know I know and started like one of my sons was taking it to Christie’s house they’re fast because they’re the roasts but they’re also like but then I did all the beef strips with all the vegetables and all that you know and it makes makes room in our fridges yes so we’re kind of like there there was a reason that I was doing them in that order um but I did those I’ll probably put them in like towards the end of the video though because I still haven’t had time to film The Talking part of like what’s actually going in them so I’ll do that tomorrow so including what I did yesterday and then what we’ve been working on all day today we are at drum roll please 90 wow so really happy about that like we’re still going to do a few more I have giggle Pig pork chops on the docket which I’ll tell you about in a sec and I feel like we’re going to be leaving you in a good place because you did 16 last night yeah we did well I don’t know what the math is 70 90 – 16 74 74 today and I would like to see it get you to over a 100 like I really don’t want you to have to do another 20 or 30 or whatever yeah so like I would like to see us get to 100 today I mean cuz then you have your inventing to do and you don’t have me to tell you no that’s a terrible idea although you do bounce things off me like she does take my opinion into consideration when she’s inventing things of course you do we’re rushing to get some of the filming done also because the baby’s going to come home the baby coming my mom who you might have seen earlier like screwing around the kitchen helping with dishes because my mom is amazing he is the Energizer so amazing she then went picked the baby up from daycare took him to her house so she also has three of my kids eating because one’s at your house one’s at my house and although it’s very possible that my daughter also ate supper at your mom’s house it’s totally possible cuz my mom is amazing we’ve mentioned that before but she really is and then one of one of my kids is is back home and so we’ve kind of avoided like having too many kids underfoot and whatever and your kids are safely stored safely stored uh in fact my son when I was going through my freezer this morning to clear out my you know making room for today one of the meals I had left and I’m so glad that I saved it it was the chicken parmesan from last time it’s amazing and it is so good so today I saw it I’m pulling it out I was just home right now so I don’t know if you know what we do is I have a cooler out on Charlotte’s front step and as we’re making meals we go and we put them in my cooler and then when it gets to the point where it’s like oh if we put any more and I’m not going to be able to lift it we put them in the back of my car I drive my two doors down I go and I put them in my freezer and so I just dump them in and I spread them all out cuz I like a chaos sort of your system is controlled chaos chaos yeah yes so I go and I put them and then I come back here with my empty cooler and we continue but they were getting hungry at my house and the chicken parmesan couldn’t be easier yeah it’s not easy to prep but it’s so easy to cook it’s already breaded did you just throw it on a tray you bake it you put the sauce on and the cheese and you put it back in so easy so easy and he can make fetuccini so my 14-year-old is making supper tonight because I’m here and if you hear sizzling in the background I don’t know if the mics will pick it up we are caramelizing onions Charlotte’s going to make caramelized onion grilled cheese sandwiches for her and I to have supper one of the things that happens when we’re doing freezer meals and it’s kind of hilarious and ironic but it’s like when you’re in the ocean you’re surrounded by water but not a drop to drink because you can’t drink the salt water well when we’re doing all these meals and we’re working all day and making all the meals there’s none to eat because men are actually like fully done and so we have a lot of sliced onions as we established earlier so I was like oh we’ll just take some butter and oil and caramelize some onions and then we’ll make some grilled cheese a little fancier uh cuz you know a little bit of a foodie and if I had some like bacon Jam we’ put but we are going to put some kind of jam on there like I think I have some like pepper jelly we can put on there do you have pepper jelly I nice so we’re going to take a little break for our dinner grilled cheese but fancy up fancy grilled cheese and then there the house will probably erupt in some chaos when the baby comes home and goes to bed then after he’s in bed then we can get back to doing this and we’re hoping to knock out another like Christy said like 10 or so meals that would be amazing uh and then tomorrow it won’t be so overwhelming for me when I’m by myself told her earlier I’m like I’ll come by tomorrow and pick up my meals cuz that that sometimes happens when you pair up with somebody to make freezer meals and it’s not fair so obviously I never do that to this time I am and I well you know the thing is is the circumstances are ones that cannot be controlled no and the honest truth is I would rather be in my position tomorrow than in your position tomorrow that’s true too so it’s you know something I can do to help things and it’s something where again we can’t let these things go to waste the things are prepped the meat is this this is happening no matter what and I would do it for you you totally I said this to my husband yesterday I would do it in your kitchen yes you would and like yeah I was talking to my husband yesterday and I said if if this happened if the reverse were true Christy would absolutely do this for me so I don’t mind and you know it’s just hopefully I never have to but here we are yeah yeah so anyway we’re going to enjoy our sandwiches we’re going to make some pork chops what else what do you have coming up I I’m debating between starting on the sausage which is I think at least three recipes so it’s a little bit of an undertaking cuz that would be like 12 Meals or um starting on the cooked cubed chicken which is only two recipes which is eight meals but it’s taking up a giant part portion of your fridge yeah but the sausages as well it’s just we’ll see with the sausage honestly I’m a little bit worried because sometimes my sausage math is not the very best and so do you think you have too much or too little if I have too much I’m a little worried because then that mean means I have to make more meals and where tomorrow if I need to invent more at the end which I already know I do obviously with the turkey and stuff but if I end up having sausage I’ll be a little fresher and I’ll be like okay well like let’s go whereas tonight I’m kind of on my my last legs and I don’t know that I want to start inventing sausage recipes giggle Pig pork chops were named by one of our YouTube viewers named Anna we had these nameless pork chops and they turned out to be really good so we asked our viewers to name it and by far that’s stood out the best what’s funny is since then I’ve been watching Brooklyn 99 and like season 2 they had this big giggle Pig drug bust it was the name of this specialty drug and I’m like oh maybe she didn’t totally just make up the name maybe we’ve borrowed it unintentionally and now our pork chops are named after drugs in a fictional TV show so that’s pretty fun in our bag we’re going to add in our pork chops you can use bone in with then and have them nice and thick about 1 in thick garlic some soy sauce vegetable oil lemon pepper and some Montreal steak spice mix that around together then squish it around gently be care careful with the bones sometimes the bones will poke the bag especially with the pork chops um sometimes we double bag it because we end up getting little leaks then we are going to remove that excess air seal it up and freeze it on the day of cooking you want to thaw these you want to bake them on a broiler pan in your oven at 350° for 35 to 40 minutes or until the center has reached an internal temperature of 145° because we do love our meat thermometers alternatively you can can barbecue these over medium heat for 20 to 25 minutes and again you want that 145° internal temperature before you eat these injoy sheep pan sweet and sour meatballs have been a massive favorite for both our families since the first time we made it in the bag we’re going to add our meatballs we use the Frozen pre-cooked meatballs from Costco because they are fast and they are done for us but if you wanted to make your own meatballs you totally could do that we’re then going to add in some green beans that have been chopped some pineapple slices from a can that have been drained and then some sliced onion in a separate Bowl you can add some brown sugar some flour vinegar water soy sauce and ketchup you’ll see with the three that I have here I did the first one just by itself and then I thought no I can make all the sauce and just divide it and so then I doubled the second bowl and divided it between the two remaining bags squid all of that around to combine it remove your excess air and seal it and freeze it on the day of cooking you’ll want to thaw it and place all your ingredients on a single layer on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper and then bake at 400° for 20 to 30 minutes this is great served with rice for the sausage and peppers we had in our prep made a little meatballs out of the sausage so we just took it out of the casing shaped it into really rough meatballs put those on a baking she got those in the oven once they were cooled we transferred them into the large freezer bags and now we’re going to add some sliced yellow pepper sliced red pepper sliced onion a bit of minced garlic from a jar some Cajun seasoning and half of a 28 Oz can of diced tomatoes into each bag we’re going to squish all that together to combine it get the air out seal it when you go to make these you just cook these up in a skillet once they’re thawed and they cook up really fast because your sausage is already cooked you’re just cooking that the peppers and onion until they’re Tender Crisp And then you can serve this one over a rice or you could put it in wraps this is Christy for my last recipe in this session which is a little bit sad that I won’t be here to help Charlotte tomorrow but this is one pot Cajun Chicken Pasta and it is also a huge family favorite between both our families you’re going to have your boneless skinless chicken breasts that have been cooked and Cubed we’re going to add in some Cajun seasoning red pepper yellow pepper if you have it and at this point we had run out we’re going to add in sliced Purple Onion minced garlic diced tomatoes with spicy red pepper heavy cream cream cheese and some parsley and a bit of salt and pepper to taste then very carefully if you would like you can add in your 4 cups of chicken broth now we use a Tetra pack here so that is four cups you know be very careful with this I had done one earlier and I spilled it and so you know get a friend to help use your little stand thingies that help stand your bag up or hang on to it better um so I was a lot more careful with this round with these last three and I could add the chicken broth right in a lot of times we don’t add the chicken broth because we want skinnier bags because we then run out of room in our freezer if they too fat but in this case we have a little bit of extra room so we just added the chicken broth right in and we’re glad that these are fully done and ready to go on the day of cooking you’re just going to thaw it and then you’re going to bring it to a boil and you’re going to add in a pound of Panet pasta and you’re going to cook the pasta right in this sauce and it brings on the flavors of everything in the dish you’re going to stir it fairly frequently for 15 to 20 minutes until your pasta is tender and then if you have it you can sprinkle it with Parmesan cheese and red pepper flakes when serving the end of day one it is 9:00 at night it’s been a long time since we’ve gone this late a long time and let’s try not to do that again any ever again ever again it was a really good day a really productive day 104 ah we are at4 including what was done yesterday but like 104 and I’m feeling good about going into tomorrow uh it’s going to be in the same video so just keep watching and you’ll see more meals and and see the final reveal but yeah 104 is looking really good uh the kitchen is looking a little worse for wear but recycling that needs to happen and stuff tonight but actually thanks to my mom’s help it’s not as bad as it could be and uh we’re it’s going well it’s it’s going well you know for having I want to I don’t want to say a slow start cuz we got cracking and we got right at it but you know mood wise it was a little bit tough I think during the afternoon we had we found our groove we did really really well today we totally did it was like the morning was like heavy and I don’t know if you guys picked up on that but we just like there was a lot of emotion and it was just heavy and you know we powered through we pushed through and I think you know that muscle memory kicks in you just do the things you’re like oh yeah I remember how to do this and yeah my body knows how to do this and and we know how to do this well together like we work really well together and so it just started to kind of Click into place and then there was a few funny moments um and you know the mistakes which have happened they actually can provide a bit of like comic relief they really do cuz sometimes you got to laugh or you’ll cry um I think the best thing that happened today there was a couple of things one Charlotte was super super organized Charlotte sometimes can be a very fly by the seat of your pants person and sometimes I am and it’s in different areas and she was super super organized this time you’re always organized but this was like organized I was hyper organized I had a list of like what order we’re going to do each meal in and who’s going to do what meal and even like filming things and like what’s going to happen and having every single ingredient like the pantry stuff out we hardly had to open up your pantry cupboards to look for anything today and it made a huge difference in time like we just beetled through we even had our spices or the majority of our spices sitting out and again it just like you’re not having to root around trying to find things and so I think that’s something that we learned this time it will carry through we’ve been doing freezer meals for pretty much forever and we are still learning way to make it better yeah there’s been a few things and and you know how earlier I was saying like sometimes there’s these weird like themes that kind of come out like this time we have so many sliced onions well the other thing was like the fresh lemons like when do you ever we had like this bulk bag of freshh lemons and we used every s they were all zested and squeezed and you know so it was um and and I don’t know the I don’t know ever having I’m sure we’ve zested lemons for meals before but rarely rar barely so and here like we just went to town on it so yeah it was good my fingers smell like leem mine were this morning so that was a long time ago they don’t don’t smell bad but like parsley maybe that’s all right could be worse and I have to give you an update those caramelized onion grilled cheeses so I decided as I was making them I was like you know I’m a little worried if we put the jelly in here like the pepper jelly it’s going to make it soggy and like you’re going to have to make another one so we can get footage of it we ate them too fast we did so they were on marble rye that was sliced thick that I like got specifically for this purpose but we used a jalapeno cheese on the bottom then the caramelized onions then shredded cheddar cheese that we had for the meals and then I thought H so before that before I replaced the bread I put on some of that cooked crumbled bacon that we had prepped for meals bacon on our girl cheese sandwiches and I tell you caramelized onion and bacon grilled cheese with two kinds of cheese it was a hit it was a hit now I have never had a girl cheese sandwich that took an hour to cook before cuz we caramelized the onions it was so funny but oh it was so good it was so good and to be fair we were doing other things as that that was happening like I was standing at the stove for an hour but anyway it was really fun and like that part was a little bit of a highlight cuz I love food and here I was thinking I was missing out by not having my chicken parmesan but I am pretty sure I got the be maybe the better end of the deal cuz that was a good sandwich good sandwich so and last thing we’re going to leave you on before we click off to tomorrow and I’ll see you you know in the morning but it is your I don’t know whatever whenever you’re watching this night afternoon Day morning whatever you want um anyway did you know that you can freeze grilled cheese now you don’t cook it first oh yes I did I’ve I I used to do these when my kids were young so you remember this back from when my kids were little but you have to like put the butter on the bread and you put the cheese in there and you just freeze it but you don’t St back them in your thing it’s like when we did the turkey burgers you have to do them individually freeze them flat in a single layer on the baking sheet then you transfer them when they’re frozen to the bag and then you take out as many as you need and you just cook them up and you kind of have Brant what you need for grilled cheese so cuz you know when you have hungry kids and everybody wants theirs done at once and like and especially if you are like me and you have seven kids and they’re all hungry at once you I can’t be so Charlotte the robin and all the little baby birds like yes so you can’t be buttering everybody’s bread and flipping cheese and slicing like it’s just it it’s it’s Mayhem so you can also freeze peanut butter sandwiches yes you can and so what what you can do is you have your loaf of bread in the bag you spread them all out you peanut butter and jam them and then you fold them back up and then you put them back in the bread bag mhm and there’s your school lunches for the week or two weeks or whatever depends on how many kids you have the things you learn the things you learn and you could do it with ham too you just can’t put like the tomato and the lettuce on mhm yeah yeah please don’t freeze lettuce but you can freeze cabbage and you’re going to see me do it tomorrow today well you can see her do it tomorrow I will be off doing my own thing I’ll be thinking of you you guys can think of me and um we’ll catch you next time I will be back to give you the grand total and to show you the process of tomorrow and we can cry together about missing Christy and uh but it’ll it’ll still be fun it is day two feels a little bit strange to be doing a mega session without chrisy but I super appreciate that she stayed so late yesterday and helped put me in the best possible position to get things done today and also my mom is here again today helping with dishes and opening cans and just anything that she can and so I think actually we’re going to get get done like I’m hoping by 2:00 and we’re actually starting late because I’m not very good with tech and I needed to wait for my husband to get back from his workout so that he could set up the cameras for me so just full disclosure I’m starting at 10: in the morning not as early as we usually get started but today is going to be a great day because things are prepped and I have a plan for some of those leftover prepped ingredients we’re going to start right now with all of our ground sausage recipes I’m kind of I okay I transferred some of them into bags for the tater tot casserole I’ll show you that in a minute but I’m a little bit concerned because there’s only one other recipe after that which is four meals and I’m thinking this is like a lot of ground sausage for just four meals so I think I might have to invent yet another recipe when we’re done with this but we’ll just have to see how it goes in a little bit I’m going to come back and tell you what my plan is for that leftover ground turkey and I also have a plan to salvage a recipe that we thought was a write off yesterday so let’s get started for our tater tot casserole this one is not the healthiest on the planet but it is some of my kids favorites so it does make it into our Mega sessions fairly often into your medium bags we’ve got our browned and cooled Italian and sausage then in a bowl we’re going to mix together some mushroom soup evaporated milk salt pepper and paprika once that’s whisked together well we’re going to put some frozen tater tots in our large resalable freezer bag and pour that sauce over top then you’re going to seal the bag and throw it together to coat those tater tots then you’re going to open the bag again get out as much air as you can and reeal it then you’re going to staple that bag of Italian sausage to your tater top bag and get this one in the freezer on the day you go to make this you’re going to actually take that sausage and put that at the bottom of a casserole dish then you’re going to put all of that Tater Tot goodness on top of that cooked sausage and you’re going to cook this in the oven for an hour you do want to cook it uncovered because that way your tater tots will crisp up and get the texture that you’re looking for our egg roll in a bowl is always a super popular recipe for this you can use ground pork or ground Italian sausage we’re using Italian sausage in ours and it’s been browned and cooled so we’ve got that in our bags then we’re going to add in some diced onion minced garlic shredded carrots or you can buy Matchstick carrots that are already cut for you which we usually do then some onion powder we’re using a three onion blend here then some minced garlic from that squeezy tube red pepper flakes low sodium soy sauce it’s very important that it’s low sodium otherwise this one gets to be too salty sesame oil olive oil and then you’re going to seal your bag up and just mix those ingredients together then open it back up and you’re going to add in a whole bag of coal slce I was saying yesterday that even though you can’t freeze lettuce you can freeze cabbage and so this is a great example of that so you’re going to get that coil slot in there and then try to seal it and mix it again it is kind of tough to get all of this combined because it’s such a full bag the thing about this one though is that when you’re cooking it up that Kula just wilts right down and so this actually doesn’t end up being near nearly as big as it looks like it’s going to be this is also a really good one if you want to make it in individual portions if you did that you would just want to mix all the ingredients together in a large bowl and transfer it into quarts size freezer bags on the day you go to make it it’s so fast to cook up it just goes in your skillet for 5 to 10 minutes you stir it occasionally if you want you can top it with some sliced green onions you could also serve this on rice if you want to just St stretch it a little further [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] [Music] this barbecue beef on a bun is a brand new one to us into your bag you’re going to put a beef roast some minced onion minced garlic beef broth ketchup brown sugar paprika salt pepper Liquid Smoke dry mustard cider vinegar wish toer and molasses we’re going to squish that all to combine it get out as much air as we can seal it and freeze it on the day you go to make this you’re going to thaw it throw that into your slow cooker or instant pot once it’s done cooking you’re going to shred it and you can serve it on buns we suggest that you serve this with a horseradish Mayo because we think that would be extra good for the Mississippi pot roast we’re going to add our beef roast into the bag and then add some pepper and CH Peppers we’ve taken out the stems and then we’re also going to add the juice from those Peppers some butter you don’t even need to melt it cuz it’ll melt up on the day you cook it then a packet of oou gravy some dry rench seasoning you can use a packet or if you buy it in bulk like we do you can use 3 tablespoons some salt and pepper and then you just get the air out of that bag and seal it and get it your freezer on the day you go to make this you thaw it and you’re going to cook this one in your slow cooker or your instant pot once it’s cooked you shred it and you can serve it on mashed potatoes or on buns or even on rice so I have to show you my mug this is from my husband it’s a gift from just a couple of days ago and it says cup half full attitude and I wasn’t sure if he was trying to like give me a hint that I needed to get back my cup have full attitude but Christy always says that I’m the person that she knows that has like the most Silver Lining attitude that she’s ever met and usually I do have a cup half full attitude but I have to admit that the last couple of months I’ve been a little bit like seriously like one more thing then one more thing anyway so I feel like my attitude could maybe use a little bit of an adjustment and maybe I need to go back to more of my default personality which is more like let’s find the silver lining I really love our one pot pasta panesa it’s different as far as pasta sauces go and it’s super fast to put together into our freezer bag we’re going to add some olive oil anchovy paste minced garlic sand Marzano Tomatoes you’re going to want to break those up either with your fingers or with a mix and chop then some pitted calam olives Capers red pepper flakes salt and pepper now you can add some chicken broth or vegetable broth right in here or you can make a note on your bag to add it on the day of cooking if you’re wanting a thinner bag for in the freezer so that it doesn’t take up as much space once you get that sealed and put away then then the day you decide to make this you thaw it and you’re going to heat this up in a skillet or a Stove Top Pot once it’s boiling you’re going to add some spaghetti noodles right into the sauce which is what makes this so super easy then you’re going to simmer it for like 10 to 15 minutes you want to stir it so that those noodles don’t stick to the bottom but the noodles are going to absorb some of that amazing flavor when you’re done you can top this with some shredded parmesan cheese and of course if you’re me some more red pepper flakes and this one probably going to blow your socks off if you’re a fan of Mediterranean type flavors for the Mongolian beef you’re going to add some beef stir fry strips to your bag some minced ginger from a squeezy tube some minced garlic soy sauce water brown sugar those Matchstick carrots and some green onion into your bag then you’re going to just squish all that together get out your air and seal it now when you go to make this you thaw it it thaws really quickly because it’s a thin bag then you’re going to heat it up in a skillet you want to whisk in a tablespoon of corn starch into the sauce as it cooks or you can make a cornstarch slurry and mix that in when your beef is cooked which is like 3 to 5 minutes super fast then this will be done you want to serve this over rice and you can sprinkle it with with some sliced green onions if you want to get fancy got a really great Philly chicken cheese steak recipe and so we’ve been talking about doing a traditional Philly cheese steak recipe for a long time we decided to give it a try and we hope that it’ll be as big a hit as our chicken one we cut some sirloin steak into strips and added them into bags then we’re going to add some sliced mushrooms sliced green pepper and red pepper and sliced Purple Onion we’re going to add in some seasoning salt mix that all together in the bag get out your air and seal it then in a quart size bag we’re going to add some shredded mozzarella cheese we’re going to get the air out of that seal it and we’re going to staple those bags together above the seal for cooking this once it’s thawed you’re going to cook it in your slow cooker for 4 to 6 hours then you’re going to place that filling onto some hogy rolls and top them with that shredded cheese from The Medium bag if you want you can microwave it or place it in the oven just for a little bit on broil for the cheese to melt this slow cooker pepper steak is a new recipe for us we’re going to add into our freezer bag some beef strips diced onion minced garlic diced green pepper and diced red pepper some diced tomatoes from a can Italian seasoning ing wish diser sauce steak sauce and steak seasoning we’re going to squish that all together once it’s well combined we’re going to get out our air seal it and freeze it when you go to make this once it’s thawed you can cook it in your slow cooker on low for 4 to 6 hours you want to add in a corn starch slurry at the end of cooking you’re not familiar with a cornstarch slurry that’s just when you mix a little bit of corn starch into some cooled water once it’s mixed really well you add it into the sauce of this and that’ll help thicken the sauce up I am really excited a little nervous though to try this next recipe I I’ve been wanting to do something with Shanghai or udon noodles for a long time because one of my daughters and one of my sons just love them so much and I like them too but it’s like do they freeze yes in theory um is it going to work to have the sauce in with the noodles and to have it cook all together I think so this is probably the biggest experiment of the bunch today but I’ve been working on this recipe behind the scenes for a while now and it’s exciting to see that it’s actually coming together we’re only making two bags one for our house and one for Christy’s house because it’s such an experiment but I can tell you that if it works this is going to be one that that we’re going to try like a million iterations of and I’m going to start inventing recipes like crazy it’ll kind of be like when I discovered that noi freezes really well and started making like all the nooi recipes so I’m using these packets they’re like fresh udon noodles and I don’t know we’re just going to try so these are only 200 g each so I’m actually using four packets for each of the bags and like I said no idea if this is going to work but let me know in the comments what you think do you think this is going to freeze do you think it’s going to cook up in the sauce well do you think we’re going to love it or do you think it’s going to be a massive fail for these spicy goju Chang udon noodles we’re going to put some sliced mushrooms and red pepper in our large resalable freezer bag then in a bowl we’re going to mix some minced garlic low sodium soy sauce rice vinegar a splash of maple syrup and some sesame oil we’re going to put all of that into a quart size freezer bag and then we’re going to put the sauce bag and the udon noodles right into the bag with the mushrooms and red pepper I know it’s really weird and very different from how we do our freezer meals normally but again this is a big experiment we’re going to seal this and freeze it on the day we go to make this again this is in theory we’re going to thaw this and we’re going to sauté our mushrooms and red pepper in some oil for a few minutes then you’re going to stir in that bag of sauce and stir in the noodles we’re going to cover it for a few minutes and then Stir It cover it and cook it for a few more minutes wait till your noodles are El Dante top this with fresh sliced green onions and here’s hoping that it tastes as good as I think it’s going to so I have a little bit of a story for the pork carnitas I was really excited to make pork carnas because it’s been a long time since we’ve had them and we super enjoyed them last time we made them which was like years ago we do have a pork carnas recipe that we’ve made before it’s actually in our instant pot freezer meal plan and I came across it when we were updating our meal plans and I was like oh it’s been so long since we made this and now I’m craving it but when I looked back at the recipe it it looked really good and I remember it being pretty fantastic but my culinary skills have come a long way since then and so I I thought maybe I could even improve it and make a a better pork carnos recipe so we’re going to do a little experiment today and we’re going to make two versions of pork carnas one being the one that is in our instant pot meal plan and for those of you who are in our freezer meals 101 Club you can go to the club library and just print off that instant pot meal plan but I also want to do an entirely new pork carnas version that is hopefully better just based on lots of practice and lots of work on my pallet and experimenting and I think I’ve gotten better so I want to do the second version and compare the two and see which one we like better and maybe we’ll end up with two pork carnitas versions uh I was making the pork carnitas so I was filming and I I was I’m not sure if it was the first version or the second version but I was doing like the overhead video of this and I was only doing it with one bag because it’s a little bit easier for you guys to see with one bag so sometimes we’ll do that just to you know make it easier and thankfully I had the other pork roast in another bag so that I could you know film a whole new video for you with that one because one of my sons came walking through the kitchen and he’s really tall and he was a little Stompy I’m not like I’m not blaming him because he was just walking through the kitchen but it shook the floor just enough that the bag went and it was full of all the seasonings I’ll show it to you uh I’ve you know these things happen and I want you to know if they’ve happened to you they’ve happened to us too so don’t worry about it these things happen but yeah things like toppled out of the bag all the seasonings some of the other things that were in there and I honestly a little bit could have cried because this is when I was doing the meals the night before we started the mega session to try to get a head start knowing that Christy was only going to be with me for one day and that I was going to have to you know do the rest of the meals on my own both before and after and I was just trying to get some things you know get things done but the kitchen was full of people like the baby was here and my mom was here and pretty like I don’t know five of our kids were here four of them like it was just a pretty chaotic in here and I probably should have known better because it was also supper time so people were like going into the fridge and going behind me and going to the sink and so there was like a lot of bedum in here and yeah again I should have known better but I was just really focused on like I need to get as much done as possible so that I feel less overwhelmed and then yeah the bag toppled things went on the counter like oh so I kind of started that one again but I had a second one that I could film for you so you’ll see like the beautiful overhead now of these pork carnas but I’m also being honest and telling you that these things happen to us and yes I know that you can get those bag holders we’ve tried them before I own them uh they don’t work well for us because when you’re making meals on this much of a scale it actually does slow you down and we’ve found actually that sometimes our bags have fallen out of the bag holders and so it’s given us like sort of a false sense of security so normally if we’re doing something that we think might tip we will either you know when christe’s here one of us will hold the bag and the other one will add things or um we will put them in a juice jug or in a rubber made tupperware container uh this time I was in such a rush I wasn’t think I and I knew it was a giant pork roast I knew that bag was not that safe but I was taking a risk and I was maybe a little bit like too confident because I’ve been doing this for so long and I haven’t had a lot of accidents over the years but I’ve had enough that I should know better so anyway this is the beautiful pork carnas video that um didn’t have the disaster into our freezer bag we’ve got our pork shoulder some diced onion seated and finely chopped jalapeno minced garlic pepper salt cumin oregano coriander cinnamon a can of beer orange juice Chipotle hot sauce and if you want it extra spicy you can add some cayenne pepper you’re going to squish all those ingredients carefully in the bag you’re going to get that air out now with the beer you might have to wait a little bit for the bubbles to dissipate to be able to get more air out and then you’re going to freeze this on the day you go to cook it this can be cooked in the slow cooker or the instant pot and then you’re going to shred it now here’s the magic and this is the part where I know my cooking a little bit better than I used to and so I’ve added this into both of the recipes including the original one this one is not the original one but you’re going to put that shredded meat on a foil line tray and then spoon some of the juices over top and you’re going to broil that for 5 to 10 minutes until the edges of the meat start to Brown then you’re going to get like that really nice almost caramelization on the meat plus it’s going to be a better texture and so when you put it in your Carnitas it’s just going to be a better experience for you now this is our OG pork carnitas recipe you’ve got your pork shoulder or butt in your bag you’re going to add in some diced onion some jalapeno that’s finely chopped with the seeds removed so that it’s less spicy some tomato paste soy sauce cumin salt chili powder smoked paprika pepper brown sugar olive oil lime juice orange juice and two bay leaves you are going to again just squish everything all together to combine it get out as much air as you can seal it and freeze it on the day you go to cook this again you can cook it in your instant pot or in your slow cooker and we’re going to add this new upgraded instruction which is again to put your meat on a foil line tray spoon some of the juices over top and broil it until that meat starts to Brown you’re going to serve this in flour tortillas with guacamole salsa Tomatoes cilantro avocado or cabbage slly you know those Taco type of toppings and you can add some hot sauce if you want this is going to be amazing it’s probably going to be one of the first of the freezer meals that I try because it’s been so long since I’ve had it plus I’m really excited to see which one will be the winner we’ve reached the invention portion of the freezer meal Marathon which means we’re getting close to the end which is pretty awesome and it’s 1:00 so I’m hoping I’m really hoping to end at 2:00 which is actually pretty awesome because we put in a long day yesterday so today could be shorter and it’s good it’s going well we had that turkey leftover from the turkey burgers so we browned that up and I’ve got it into two bags there’s a little more than a pound in each bag we have leftover rice we had that big Costco thing of lemons that we bought so I’ve got lemons we’ve got lots of minced onion left a little bit of diced onion left too uh of course we always have garlic so I’m going to throw together I like the tiniest little bit of sundried tomatoes left I was hoping that I had Catal laal olives left but I don’t so what we’re going to do in here is we’ve got this we’ve got all that Rice so we’re going to put rice minced onion uh the lemon some Italian seasoning the sundried tomatoes some minced glic and then I rooted through my fridge and I found some spinach it’s kind of on its last legs but it’s still usable so I’m going to add some spinach in here kind of going to make these like Greek turkey rice bowls now I do think they would be better with calam olives in them so I’m going to write a note on the bag just to add some calam olives okay let’s get this one [Music] started now looking at these I’m worried that they’re going to be a little bit dry so I’m going to add some chicken broth which we also have left over which is awesome uh when I go to cook these up I’m just going to fry them in the skillet this would be a really good one to make if you are making meals for one or for your lunches you could mix everything together in a bowl you could even put them in those microwave safe containers and they would microwave up really well other than the minced onion which is you know very small everything in here is cooked already so it would re heat really well in the microwave I think it’s about like a cup in each that I’m putting in of the chicken broth measurements don’t have to be exact that’s one of the great things about freezer cooking is it’s a little like splish of this a splash of that and it works out I’m going to seal it first without getting the air out and then squish everything around then I’ll get the air out out and reseal it and voila our turkey rice Greek Bowl so this is that ground sausage that we had left over and we still have a massive pot of rice we had a rice math problem doing our prep weuse some of this rice in the recipe now what I’m left with I’m actually going to put in quart size bags because say rice freezes just fine and for super super busy days if you need to be able to just take out rice that’s already cooked so that you don’t even have to cook up your rice it’s perfect for that Mongolian beef that we made or the Egg Roll in a bowl any of those kind of things the rice is going to work really well with so I’m just going to take whatever’s left and put it in quart size bags and put those in the freezer for this I thought okay we’ve got some diced green pepper left we’ve got that minced onion left of course we’ve got our you know garlic salt pepper those kinds of things but I trying to make a rice skillet sausy thing and I have one can of fire roasted tomatoes in my pantry I’d like to make them both with that but I only have one can I have one can of the tomatoes with spicy red pepper so I’m going to do one of them with this and one of them with the fire roasted they’ll probably be equally good but that’s my plan it’s going to be super simple but it’ll kind of be a complete meal and it’ll be really nice to have and this way none of our ingredients went to waste we were able to stretch them over another meal and this is another one that would work really well because everything’s pre-cooked if you want to mix it together in a bowl and Portion it out into microwave safe containers or quart size freezer bags so let’s quickly get this done and then I’m going to tell you the total that we’re at and it’s not like I know Christy thought I was going to invent like so many recipes because I usually do but I think without her here I don’t quite have the same amount of energy and also going into this we knew that this was going to be a crazy crazy week and so I purposely planned that we were not going to buy extras of our ground beef or our chicken which normally we buy extra like big huge Costco packs of chicken thighs just so that I can invent some extra chicken recipes and then we always get some extra ground beef or veggie beef so that I can invent recipes with that at the end but this time knowing that it was going to be a crazy week I actually really kept myself in check and so we are ending up at just like the tiniest little bit over what I planned which is kind of nice and also that means that I was right when Christy was saying that it was going to be so many more meals now I was closer than her and uh not that I’m super competitive or anything but it always kind of feels good to be right doesn’t it okay let’s get this one underway [Music] so I added some Italian seasoning along with the salt and pepper and then you know red pepper flakes never hurt any recipe so I’m adding some of those in as well this actually looks really good the next thing we’re going to do is we are going to use this sausage um one of these containers is chorizo sausage and one of them is tuskin sausage these were raw sausage in my freezer I got them in a plenty for 20 sale our local grocery store has these sales once in a while where you can get four packs of the meat you never know what it’s going to be until you get there but you can grab four packs for just $20 if that happens to be on a 15% off day you even get more savings so I was able to grab these and they’ve been in my freezer raw this morning I took them out thawed them quickly and then cooked them up and sliced them so they are ready to go now it’s safe to do that because they were raw before now we’ve cooked them and yes we’ll be refreezing them but we’re not refreezing them in the same state they were in so it’s totally safe to do now my plan for this kind of excited is that we had planned to do this chicken and sundried tomato pasta sauce this is a recipe from our freezer meals 101 Club it’s really good and we haven’t made it in quite a long time I was craving it I bought all the ingredients for it and we prepped everything but I had a little bit of an issue with chicken when I was doing cooked cube chicken in my prep the amount of chicken that I bought when I cooked it up it did not equal the amount that I needed now I think it was because there must have been some you know you hear maybe they inject water in chicken sometimes so I had bought frozen chicken and then cooked it up and it just was half of what I needed half so it’s really disappointing so I thought well maybe I’ll just use half the chicken and we’ll just have less in each of the recipes but yesterday when we went to assemble the Cajun one pot chicken pasta we realized it was just like so measly the amount of chicken that was in there so we decided to take the chicken that was supposed to be used for the chicken and sundried tomato pasta sauce and just you know donate it to the one pot Cajun Chicken Pasta I was a little bit sad about not getting to make this and then this morning when I was thinking about it I don’t want to waste all the mushrooms that we sliced for this recipe and I don’t want to waste the other ingredients that I purchased my brain was like I’ve got those sausages in the freezer so thawed them cooked them and we are going to use this in place of the chicken in this chicken sundried tomato pasta sauce I think it’s going to taste possibly even better than the chicken would have and I think it’s going to be fun to experiment because just write on the bags which ones have the tuskin which one has the chizo and we’ll get to experiment and see which one we like best which is always fun too so we’re going to get making this recipe and we’ll see how it turns out for our sundried tomato pasta sauce with sausage instead of chicken we’ve got our sausage in the bags there and then we’re going to add some cooked and crumbled bacon I mean when I had that prepped there was no way I could waste that then some thinly sliced Ed onion sliced mushrooms sliced sundried tomatoes lemon juice madis curry paste white wine or chicken broth some poppy seed salad dressing and evaporated milk we’re going to squish all that together to combine it seal it after getting the air out freeze it when you go to make this you’re just going to simmer it in a skillet until it’s heated through and you can serve this on on a long pasta noodle like a Linguini or fetuccini you can add some Parmesan and red pepper flakes if you prefer it that way and this is just hopefully going to be even more delicious than the intended chicken and sun dried tomato pasta sauce we will see I’ll show you a picture of the completed chicken one just so that you know kind of what it was intended to be and you can use your imagination and imagine it with the sausage and that’s how this one is going to look before we do the big reveal I just want to remind you that we are starting to do those live cooking classes in the freezer Mills 101 Club so if you want to get in on that before the price goes up then check out the link in the description below that way you can get your freezer stacked like this so that you don’t have to worry about what’s for dinner and you can take one of your big stresses off your plate really happy with our grand total we have 126 freezer meals even though it was a little bit of chaos this time it still turned out so so well I’m going to show you the freezer and I also have some meals in our second freezer this is what Christy calls my show freezer and she always laughs at the meals that aren’t good enough to go in my show freezer and have they might feel sad but it’s just the ones that maybe don’t fit as well like I’ll show you the second freezer so in here we’ve got our things like the pork carnitas and the barbecue beef on a bun and our Mississippi pot roast the things that don’t fit as well I also have my smoothie bags my breakfast things those protein bowls that I made for my husband and I have a collection started for my son who’s going to be moving out soon so I’ve got some like freezer meals for one and two in there as well so that freezer is a little less show worthy but it’s still pretty beautiful because it means less cooking for me thank you so much for joining us on this journey I really hope that we’ve shown you how this is possible for you too we would love to hear about your freezer meal successes and sharing that with you thanks again for being here and happy cooking
15 Comments
Yay! It's a marathon! These are the best. I love being able to settle in for a couple of hours and soak in the inspiration!
Woohoo new marathon!
I am new to the club and I love it!! How do I know which recipes you have added weekly? I would love a "what's new" button!
I look forward to this so much!
ok the live cooking sessions sound amazing and i have been doing freezer meals since the 80's because you all always give me such great ideas. and the club makes it so i don't have to ever think if i don't want to. I swear the premade stacks are the best things ever. because no decisions are needed and the grocery list is already made.
oh one more thing cause i know you will appreciate this i got a vegi chopper for my birthday.
Inflation is real… bone in chicken is VERY affordable… those bone in skin on thighs will work with thst drumstick recipe you just did too!!! My mom makes a thing called "whacky chicken" drumsticks… French dressing, grape jelly, and an envelope of onion soup mix) fill the crock pot wayyyyy up with meat… she makes it for the lake with a crock pot liner when all 6 kids and hubs are there…and alllll 8 grandkids ages 10 to 22… is it gourmet? NOPE… but it's pretty tasty and everyone will eat it…and very affordable for a big crowd too… one of those recipes that sound weird but taste good… I have also made it in a pinch with canned cranberry sauce in place of the grape jelly… very similar to the meatballs!
Thank you so much for breaking this video down into easy segments. So helpful
What book are you listening to Christie?
Caramelized onions freezer meal tip😅 5 pounds of onions… sliced in the crock pot… one stick of butter… low over night perfect caramelized onions in the am… I freeze in dollops on parchment and then put them in a freezer bag… then you have on demand caramelized onions for the one kid who asks 10 min before dinner for some for her burger!
❓ What is melted honey? Is it heated honey or something else?
I can’t wait for the live cooking sessions. You two are great!
I need more of these.
I'm with your husband, a lot healthier than some other recipes you make. I'll take a paleo bowl any day. and beans and chick peas are NOT Paleo.
Loved the Pro Tips at the beginning! I bought my electric can opener when I watched in the video they said "After 10 years of use" Me- Add to cart! So sorry to hear about your struggles. Losing anyone near and dear to you can really take a piece of your heart. Sharla- you did just great taking the wheel, but you've made FM videos of your own. So we already know that you've got what it takes. The meals all look wonderful. You two Ladies never disappoint! I learned a lot today! Peace.