Freezer Cooking Wrap Up

Today I did some freezer cooking. In case you didn't notice, when I do a freezer cooking day I don't go crazy. First - I don't have a whole day to devote to cooking and second - the way we eat doesn't dictate that I have a freezer full of meals. What works for me is to have some meals (like my meatloaf) and then pieces of meals that I can grab when I need them. Today I accomplished the following.

5 lbs of shredded pork
A few months ago I found 5 lbs of pork in our grocers clearance meat section for $3. Even though I didn't know for sure what to do with it I bought it. I decided to buy a pork run, cook it in the slow cooker and then shred it. I separated the pork into different bags. Three single serving bags so I could make myself pork carnitas for lunch and two larger serving bags so that my husband could make himself snacks or I could serve it with barbecue sauce for the kids one evening.

8 lbs of shredded chicken
Once again, in our grocers clearance section there were free range organic chickens for a little over a dollar per pound. I typically bake a couple of chickens and then shred them into about one chicken per bag. I then can use these bags for chicken tacos, chicken salads, etc. It's quick and easy to pull them out of the freezer when I need them.

1 serving of mashed potatoes
As I stated in an earlier post I'm cooking a Thanksgiving meal for my family tomorrow. Instead of spending the whole day cooking and then being to exhausted to enjoy our family dinner I decided to get some of the work done today. I made a double batch of mash potatoes using my secret cauliflower recipes (kids don't even know what they are eating) and separated into two bags. One for dinner tomorrow and one for the freezer with one of the meatloafs.

1 serving of stuffing
I pre-made the stuffing for the turkey tomorrow but I'm not quite done. I don't typically stuff my turkey but I use the juice when I bake my stuffing. Tomorrow I'll bake both batches and then freeze the second one for a future meal.

Cookies
Ok - these probably aren't going to make it into the freezer even though I do typically freeze my cookies instead of using a cookie jar. However, as I stated in my earlier post we're going out for dinner tonight and our kids will be staying home. I make killer cookies (thanks to Alton Brown)
so I typically try to have cookies on hand whenever they come over.

All total I've spent about 3-4 hours in prep, cooking and clean-up spread out througout the day. As I stated before, I may not have a month of meals but I have enough to make my life a little easier without completely overwhelming myself.

Now off to beautify myself for my night out :)

As a final note - my turkey turned out magnificently! I typically cook a pretty good turkey but even my husband agreed this was the best. I'll just need to remember next time what I did differently!