Perfecting the Art of Getting The Freezer Full

Let's face it. I do too much to take an entire day doing true Once A Month Cooking. Besides, it's exhausting. Even when I spend 2 hours at Dinner Zen, I walk out really tired, and in that case they have done most of the work for me!

Still, an empty freezer loomed. I was down to one tilapia filet from my last trip to DZ, and that is just not acceptable.

But as I said, sometimes doing a whole month of food in a day is daunting.

Well, the state of my freezer two weeks ago was as follows: 1 tilapia filet. 2 frozen chicken breasts. And that's it.

Two weeks later, the state of my freezer is as follows: 1 tilapia filet, 2 frozen chicken breasts, 3 packs of "Pork Chops with Good Stuff," 2 packs of Mango Curry Chicken, 1 pack of Bourbon Chicken (we ate 1 already), 2 packs of Lamb Zucchini Goulash, 3 quarts of Ham, Green Bean, & Potato Soup. Many bags of frozen veggies (thanks to BJ's, which will keep us going until the CSA season starts)

Is it a month's worth of cooking? Not in the least. But can I spend the day working and throw something in the oven or crock pot to reheat? Oh yes. And I did not do it all in one day.

First, chicken was on sale. So I bought the chicken and the couple of ingredients that I didn't have on hand for the 2 chicken dishes, and I went home and made 4 meals. Then a few days later my supermarket had beautiful zucchini. I made a huge pot of goulash and froze 2 meals after eating one. Then we had Easter, and much leftover ham, so that became the soup. 3 quarts in the freezer and 1 quart into our bellies. Finally, pork chops were on sale, so they became a meal to eat and 3 for the freezer.

What I like about building up the freezer, rather than doing it all in one day, is that I can get a meal into the freezer in 1/2 hour or less. I'm not worrying about having to clean every pot in my house three times. And, probably most importantly, I can cook based on what is on sale at the time. If I plan to cook all in one day, I still need to find the meat that I want to use on sale, rather than building my meals around what I have already found.

Now, with 11 new meals in the freezer, I can see myself going to Dinner Zen and doing a small order--maybe 8 half-dishes instead of 12 full ones--to give us some variety. But the truth is that with extra frozen veggies in the house, I can make a simple meal on a weeknight when I am not necessarily working all day, so we get variety anyway.

I also think that this is a cool way to introduce someone to freezer cooking, without the crazy-making of thinking you have to do a whole month's worth of food in a day. That said, if I had my chest freezer (it's coming, really!) I would make more of each individual meal, because I would know that six pork chop dishes will still stay happily frozen and not bore my family to tears. Yeah, let me get on that right now.

Chicken Multi-Day Cooking

When I was in the Safeway the other day, they had giant chickens on sale. So, even though I had just done a Multi-Day Beef Cook, it looked like time to do a Multi-Day Chicken Cook. Lady Ozma calls this "A Week of Chicken."

So, first the chicken--very basic roasted chicken but it's huge! Right? Bake your giant chicken with something citrussy inside of it and some gentle herbs and seasonings on the skin. I used sage, thyme, salt, pepper, and garlic. I didn't use extra fat because I am weight watchering. Bake that baby and serve it up to your family. Use the drippings to make some gravy. Since we are a family of three (who eat), this meant that we ate one wing, one drumstick, and one breast, leaving a great deal of meat left for more food.

Now, for making your one chicken into Many Days of eating!

Dismantling your chicken

Cut off any remaining limbs (oh that sounds bad!), cutting off the wings and legs. Pull off the remaining white meat -- you should be able to get the breast off in one or two pieces. The dark meat may be more difficult but do your best to pick the carcass mostly clean. Store the white and dark meat separately, and plan to send your loved one off to work the next day with a chicken leg in his lunch box :)

Making Broth

It's important that you make the broth before you make additional items because you will need it for your other dishes.

Take your very ugly looking chicken carcass and any extra skin that might be hanging around it, and stick it in the biggest pot you own within reason. I use a pasta pot. Add to that a couple of carrots, cut in half, the leaves off of the celery that you have in the fridge (that's what they're for!), an onion cut in quarters, a couple of tablespoons of peppercorns, 5-6 cloves of garlic, some bay leaves, any poultry-like herbs that you have lying around (sage/parsley/thyme are great. Scarborough Fair was actually a song about making a chicken), and cover the whole thing with water. Set that puppy to high and boil it for an hour, then turn it down to medium and simmer it for 3 or more hours.

Strain all of it and toss away everything you strained out. Really. Don't think about the chicken bits that you see that just got boiled for 4 hours. Not worth it.

Now you have Broth! But what to do with it? Well, first. Put it in the fridge. The next day, you'll see a congealed layer of fat on top. Just scoop it off and throw it away. Or not. The fat will make it taste better, because that's what fat does, but if you take it off your broth is zero points/free food on just about any diet.

Chicken Pot Pie

Now you're ready to make Chicken Pot Pie.

This is the Chicken Pot Pie that I have made in the past and you can certainly use that recipe. Of course, the chicken broth that you are going to use for that recipe will be from the batch you just made. Today I had some left over gravy that I made for the initial chicken dish, so I incorporated that as well. Awesome and DONE!

Now, if your chicken was the size mine was, and your family is the size mine is, you still have plenty of white meat left. Use it to make chicken salad!

Now, I happen to like dark meat, and we still have a bunch left, plus all that broth, so let's make soup!

Chicken Soup

Before you make your soup, check how much broth you have. If it's a ton, which it probably is, pour it by 1-cup measures into some ziploc bags, double bag (put multiple single bag portions into a larger bag), and freeze. It will work great for additional recipes and will be available to you one cup at a time.

Here's my chicken soup recipe:

Cook up some diced onions, celery, and carrots, and maybe a little minced garlic in some cooking spray and add salt and pepper to the mix. When the onion gets a little soft, add about a cup of white wine if you have it. Let that cook for a couple of minutes and add your chicken broth. If you have one, cut up a tomato and throw that in as well, and if you like you can put in a small bag of frozen spinach, which will make it healthier and just as tasty. You can also add a box of mushrooms for something different. When it's just about done, throw in your shredded chicken (white or dark meat is fine) and Eat! It's delicious!

Anything else?

If you have ANY chicken left over after all of that, for the love of all that is holy, put it into a quesadilla or enchilada and freeze it because you've had too much chicken this week and need to diversify!

Planning a OAMC day

It occurred to me that I was planning to go back to Dinner Zen in February, but it THEN occurred to me that we have to pay for our CSA Share in February, so we are going to be a bit short on cash.

So I'm planning to do a good old homestyle Once A Month Cooking day. Why? Because with the time I have to prepare, I think I can probably get a lot of the ingredients inexpensively by looking out for sales. For instance, if I see canned tomatoes on sale, they'll go nicely to both Mango Curry Chicken and Pork Chops with Stuff (that's the technical term). If I happen to see meat on sale that would work for a dish, I can re-assess and decide if I want to make up a batch of four of something (as long as there is room in the freezer, which should be the case at this point).

That said, my plan is to keep good records of what I spend, to see if doing it myself or going to DZ is less expensive. I am thinking that certain meals will be less expensive to do through DZ and others will be less expensive to do on my own.

So, all that said, Do YOU have a favorite OAMC recipe that I should include?

Multi-day Cooking: Beef

With the exception of making a chicken and having chicken, then chicken salad, enchiladas, and soup, I am not usually one to make one meal and turn it into many meals. I'm more of a "let's freeze the rest" person, or a "let's eat this for lunch" kind of girl.

Yesterday I made a pot roast in the crock pot, and it was delicious. It was from Dinner Zen and it was marinated in, of all things, cranberry sauce and beef broth. Delicious over noodles with broccoli on the side, but it was a whole order (which should feed 6) and we are 3 people, so it looked like it would be dinner again tonight.

Then I read my friend Maggie's Facebook status that said she was turning leftover pot roast into beef stew, and it sounded completely inspired. Here's mine:

1 onion, chopped coarsely

3 carrots, in nice-sized slices

2 potatoes, cut into bite-sized chunks

4 stalks celery, again sliced into nice sized chunks

1/2 a bag of frozen corn

1 boullion packet

2 cups water

left over pot roast, cut up as best you can, or not, because it will fall apart, together with remaining gravy that got made in the pot when you first made it

salt/pepper

your favorite seasoning (I used Pampered Chef Moroccan Seasoning)

splash of apple juice, or not (mine already had cranberry flavor so the apple went well)

1T corn starch in 1/2 c cold water

Spray your pot with cooking spray and start the onions, carrots, and celery. When the onions start to soften, add the rest of the ingredients with the exception of the seasonings. Bring to a boil, then reduce to low. Cook at least an hour. Taste and then season with your salt/pepper and favorite seasoning that will go with whatever you cooked your beef in. Serve with biscuits (I made Bisquik ones but whatever you'd like).

So now, we have enough STEW for another day's worth of eating. My plan is to get some Pillsbury pie crusts and additional frozen vegetables and make pot pie with it! But my plan is to throw it in the freezer and eat it another time. There's only so much beef you can eat in a week, and I've pretty much hit my limit.

So, to recap: Pot Roast -->Beef Stew --> Beef Pot Pie

I'm fairly certain that the Pot Pie will also leave us with left overs, but I'm also fairly certain that they will just get eaten for lunch and not repurposed. I mean, there's only so much repurposing you can do with a single pot roast, right?

Strawberries in October!

Remember the Strawberry Madness? From back in June when I was on modified bedrest and before I went on total bedrest? If you don't care to click, the short version is that back in June we bought a flat of strawberry seconds and, after making pie, we processed the remainder of the strawberries and a lot of rhubarb and stuck them in the freezer in packs the right size to make into pie.

Well right now, as I am typing this, there is a Strawberry Rhubarb Pie in my oven! In October!

I can't wait for dessert!