Freezer Food Part #2

If you read my Freezer Food Part #1 post then you know I've really been hoping to stock the freezer full of some simple, healthy, quick foods for after Baby Larochelle comes. Since my almost fully pregnant body isn't exactly up to a huge 12 hour long cooking session I decided to break it down into a few different cooking days and finally got to my first one last week! I am super excited to be building up a stockpile of food, it helps take away some of the stress and anticipation of birth and having a newborn baby in the house. In fact, I'm thinking of making it a more regular part of our lives, pregnant or not!



Since I wanted to keep it simple this time around, I chose 4 easy foods with similar ingredients which meant less stuff to buy, less items to cut up and less chance of cross contamination. The items I made this time were:

Lunch Burritos

Meatballs

Chili 

Ravioli and Tortellini Pasta Packs

The first thing I did was cut up all my vegetables which, in this case, was only peppers and onions. Having a big bowl of each cut up and ready to go made throwing everything together so much easier.

Next I browned all the beef, except for about 2lbs which I set aside for meatballs. I did half the beef in one pan to use for the burritos and pasta and the rest in a huge pot for my chili.With the meat I tossed peppers and onions into both pans, just setting aside enough onions for the meatballs later on.

While that cooked, I set out my awesome freezer containers I picked up at the wholesale store and filled them with Ravioli and Tortellini. I then added a big spoonful of Classico pasta sauce, either Alfredo or Italian to each container. I usually don't buy these but they were on sale and saved me a ton of time over making the sauces myself.

Then I opened cans and added my beans, spices and tomato sauces to the chili pot. Since I let the chili simmer for a long time, I was able to just stir occasionally while I worked on other things.

Now that my ground beef, pepper, onion mix was ready I moved to pasta packs and burritos. The only thing left for the pasta was adding the beef mixture to the top and putting the lids on. I also put the containers into large freezer bags as an extra measure against freezer burn. 

Next, I laid tortillas all over the counter for my burritos. I started by just adding a scoop of canned baked beans, re-fried beans are better but I just had these available. Then I added a scoop of beef mixture, some cheese and rolled them up. So quick and easy. I wrapped the burritos in a layer of aluminum foil before placing them in freezer bags.

Since my chili was basically ready at this point, I just let it to cool before putting into freezer bags and moved to my meatballs. I don't really follow anything for meatballs but any basic meatball recipe should work good. Just make sure you cook the meatballs and then freeze them without adding any sauce. Once they were done I portioned out my meatballs and chili, placed everything into labelled freezer bags and put them in the deep freezer!

I am definitely impressed with the end result. It only took about 3 hours and I now have lots of good food in the freezer and the whole process produced surprisingly less dishes than anticipated, yay!

Here is how I plan to use the foods, just in case you are curious.

- Pasta packs and burritos will most likely be used as quick, microwavable lunches for my husband and I, hopefully we will throw a few fresh vegetable or fruit slices on the side. If we are being completely honest, I've already broken into these when I was too lazy... I mean too busy to make lunch and they are amazing.

- We will have big bowls of chili for dinner a few different nights, probably with buns or salad, and then use leftovers for things like chili cheese dogs or chili fries.

- Meatballs will probably be eaten once as topping to a big pot of spaghetti and then the rest will be cooked using my favourite, super simple glaze recipe from I Heart Naptime.

Next I hope to take an afternoon and work on some of the breakfasts and snack foods I had on my original freezer meal planning list. While I may not get around to everything, I really want to do muffins, waffles and homemade granola bars.I better get moving since there are only 26 days, 2 hours and 3 minutes until the due date.... and I have a feeling he may come early!

Banana Muffins

I absolutely love this fall weather! So many gorgeous colours and the air even smells good. Yesterday I went for a long walk on a beautiful trail about 5 minutes from my house... I can not believe we have lived here for over a year and I haven't been on it before! The scenery was so nice I couldn't help but bring some of it back with me and throw together a quick and easy centerpiece.

Now that the leaves are making the house look nice, I figured I would make it smells nice too and did some baking today. I decided to use up some 'rotten' bananas from the freezer and make banana muffins.

Muffins are one of the easiest foods to grab and eat at anytime, which is why I love having them around the house. Today I thought I would do a cost break down of homemade banana muffins verses those you can buy pre-made at the grocery store or at a coffee shop. The banana muffin recipe that I use is actually a 'banana bread' recipe from My Patchwork Quilt. The only thing I do differently is replace the margarine with an equal amount of apple sauce. I made a loaf and some smaller muffins but this recipe will make 12 or more very large muffins, like the huge ones they sell at Tim Hortons or Starbucks, but cheaper! Once I broke it down, the whole recipe only cost me $2.15.


Price Breakdown (One Muffin)
Coffee Shop: Average $1-$2 each
Grocery Store: $0.50
Homemade: $0.18

By taking an afternoon to make some homemade muffins and eating one twice a week, rather than grabbing it at the grocery store or on your way to work in the morning, you could save between $33.28 to $189.28 a year! These muffins are equally as delicious as any store bought ones (if not better!) and make your whole house smell good. If banana isn't your favourite, don't worry, I hope to share a few of my other favourite muffin recipes over the next few weeks as well.

Cream of Carrot Soup

Since the weather today feels a little bit more like the middle of October than the end of August, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to make soup! Cream of carrot soup has been one of my favorites since I first made it in a cooking class in college. I have been craving carrot soup for the last few weeks and it completely lived up to my expectations. While making it I also decided it was fairly frugal considering it makes a fair amount and it is healthier and tastier than canned soups. I decided to share my version of the recipe and the price breakdown. 

Cream of Carrot Soup

- 2lb Carrots
- 1 Potato
- 1 Onion
- 3 cups Chicken Broth
- 1/4 cup Butter
- 1/2 cup Cream (I use 18%)
- Salt and Pepper

There aren't a ton of directions to follow since this soup is really easy and pretty hard to mess up. First peel and chop the veggies, they can be in chunks about 1/2 inch. Melt the butter in your pot over medium heat. Add vegetables, chicken broth and some salt and pepper. Cover and simmer for about 30 minutes, stir occasionally.

 Once the time is up, make sure the vegetables are soft and then let it cool off. Should look like the photo below. 

Next, blend the soup. If you're lucky, you have an immersion blender, if you're like me you will do it in batches in the single portion blender which is all you own... 

Next add cream, it can be more or less than half a cup depending on your preference, then add more salt and pepper to taste. 

Warm it back up on low and serve. My batch made about 1.5 liters, or four big bowlfuls.  Here was the price breakdown:

Carrots              $1.50
Potato               $0.10
Onion                $0.10
Chicken Broth     $0.75
Butter               $0.40
Cream               $0.50
Recipe Total        $3.35

In this case it may technically be cheaper to buy a few cans of soup at the store for less than $1 each (do they even make cream of carrot in a can??) but this delicious, homemade version is sure to leave you more satisfied, with less preservatives and a lot more vitamins, for a very decent price! Enjoy. 

Homemade Flour Tortillas

I've had some time off lately and finally got a chance to do some organizing! Now that it's done, I've been able to keep on top of the housework, which has left me with a little bit of time to experiment in my kitchen! Since we've been trying to make more food homemade rather than buying processed products, I decided to try making spinach tortillas this afternoon. I've tried them before and the results weren't great but today I found a new recipe and they were a success! Beside for the fact that no matter how hard I try, I can't get them even close to actually being round. Oh well....

Price Breakdown
Store bought (8 Pack): $3.00
Recipe Cost (8 Tortillas): $0.85

Making your own tortillas will save you $2.15 per pack. If you buy tortillas once a month, you could save almost $26 a year and if you buy them weekly, you'd save over $100! Plus, they're really good. I admit to eating one while making the rest and I almost ate a second one.

My spinach tortillas. They may be slightly deformed,

 but they are still completely delicious!

Click here for the recipe I used from Hot Pot Cooking. I made spinach tortillas but the site also gives instructions for making regular ones. 

Frozen Pizzas

Homemade Vs. Storebought

Store-bought freezer pizzas may not make the healthiest, most delicious meals ever but there is no denying how convenient they are. We love homemade pizza in our house but they do take a lot of prep work so I decided that from now on I will make an extra one whenever I do pizzas and freeze it for a super easy, delicious future meal.

Preparing my toppings while the dough rises. 

Homemade dough, yum!

The freezer pizza.

 I made it the same as usual, rolled out my crust and partially cooked it. Then I topped it and added the cheese but instead of throwing it back in the oven, I wrapped it in plastic wrap and then aluminum foil and popped it in the freezer. 

The final product. 

I already knew that my homemade freezer pizzas would be healthier and yummier than store bought but I decided to also do a price breakdown and see if it was cheaper.

Price Breakdown

Storebought: Average $5-$7 

Homemade: $3.05

Obviously prices will vary depending on the toppings used and whether the crust is homemade or not. Our pizza had pepperoni, ham, green pepper, onion, pineapple and pizza cheese mix. I figured it costed about $3.05 and it tasted great, so I am going to fill my freezer with a bunch of them for future use. 

Great Granola Bars

This has been one of my favourite things to make at home, even before I started comparing prices. These granola bars are so good, soft, chewy and I can spice them up with anything I want. Dried fruit, chocolate, candy, nuts, seeds and basically anything else I think might taste good. For the sake of the blog (and my budget) I was glad to see they are also cheaper than store bought.

Here is the recipe I use: http://www.madefrompinterest.net/2013/06/no-bake-granola-bars/

Simple Ingredients

The Final Product

What I really like to do with these (other than walking through the kitchen and stealing little chunks of granola bar all day long) is throw them individually into baggies, toss some in the freezer and then use them in my husbands lunches. I just put it in his lunch bag the night before (or that morning if I'm  being lazy) and it's thawed by lunch. 

Price Breakdown

These were the cheapest, most similar ones that I could find from the store. One box, with 5 granola bars, is $1.57

At the store: $0.31 per bar

Homemade: $0.26 per bar

We eat about 10 bars, or 2 boxes worth, each week. By making them homemade, I will have saved us about $25 in one year. 

Baked Beans

I have always loved baked beans. Anytime of the day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack time. So easy and so delicious. I loved the homemade baked beans people used to bring to potlucks when I was younger but I basically forgot about them until this fall, when we went to a corn roast and someone brought homemade baked beans. So good. I decided to make my own a few days later and I'm so glad I did. Check out the recipe links below and the breakdown on the average price of homemade beans vs. store bought.

Slow Cooker Baked Beans

Cowboy Baked Beans

Boston Baked Beans

Dr. Pepper Baked Beans


Price Breakdown (One Can)

At the store: $1-$2
Homemade (with beef/pork/bacon): $1.01
Homemade (omit ground beef): $0.66