Cowboy Casserole

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs. ground beef or turkey
• 1 onion chopped
• 1 tbsp garlic powder
• 1 can of sweet corn
• 1 can cream of chicken soup
• 2 cups 2% shredded cheddar cheese
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1/2 cup fat free sour cream
• 1 large bag frozen tater tots

Step 1: Brown meat in a pan with the onions and garlic powder. 

Step 2: Mix all remaining ingredients besides the tater tots and place them in a freezer bag. 

Step 3: Let the meat mixture cool completely and then place in the freezer bag as well.

Step 4: Freeze the meal and remove to defrost the night before serving.

Step 5: Line the bottom of your crockpot with the tater tots and pour the contents of the freezer bag over them. Cook on high for 4 hours or low for 6. You can add some fresh cheddar cheese to the top the last 30 minutes of cooking if you like. Serve with salad.

Sausage pancake bites.

Ingredients:

• Pancake mix
• Breakfast sausage (I use turkey)

Directions:

• Cook sausage thoroughly on stove top
•  Mix pancake mix as directed
• Add cooked sausage crumbles to pancake mix
•  Spray mini muffin tin with Pam and fill with pancake batter 
• Sprinkle the extra sausage on top 
• Bake at 350 for 13 minutes or until golden brown.

 Serve with butter and syrup. Enjoy these delicious bites! (Yes, you can freeze these.) 

How to freeze muffins.

Freezing muffins is a pretty simple process. There are two ways to freeze muffins. Neither is complicated and personal circumstances and preferences will determine which way works best for you.


The first way to freeze your muffins is to bake them as directed in the recipe. Allow the muffins to cool completely. Place the muffins in a large freezer bag. Be sure to remove as much air as possible before sealing the bag. Place the bag in the freezer. The muffins can stay in the freezer for up to 3 months.

To reheat – just pop them out of the freezer and place them back in the muffin tin. Place them in a 350 degree oven until heated through. You can also allow them to thaw completely and reheat them in the microwave at 20 second intervals until they are as warm as you like.





The second way to freeze muffins is by mixing the batter as directed in the recipe. Place the batter in the muffin tin just like you would if baking them right away. Place the muffin tin in the freezer and allow the batter to freeze solid. If you have a flexible muffin tin you can simply twist the tin and pop the muffins out. If your muffin tin is not flexible, use a butter knife and break the muffin lose from the sides. Slide the knife up under the muffin and work it back and forth until the muffin comes lose. Place the frozen muffin batter into a large freezer bag releasing as much air as possible before sealing. Muffin batter frozen in a tin can be kept for up to 4 months before going bad.

When ready to bake, just remove them from the freezer and place them back in the muffin tin. Allow the batter to thaw completely and bake as directed on the recipe.




Either way you choose, freezing muffins can save tons of time and money. Buy ingredients when they go on sale and make a couple dozen muffins at once. Freeze them and enjoy a yummy muffin for breakfast or as an afternoon snack anytime.

Hope this helps! :)

Banana Muffins

A personal goal of mine for 2013 is to waste less food. I was just about to toss some icky bananas but decided to do this instead!!

Ingredients:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3 large bananas, mashed
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1/3 cup butter, melted

(I had 6 bananas so I doubled this recipe!) 

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). 
• Coat muffin pans with non-stick spray, or use paper liners. 
• Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt; set aside.
• Combine bananas, sugar, egg, and melted butter in a large bowl. 
• Fold in flour mixture, and mix until smooth. 
• Scoop into muffin pans.
• Bake in preheated oven. Bake mini muffins for 10 to 15 minutes, and large muffins for 25 to 30 minutes. Muffins will spring back when lightly tapped.

I froze some of these! Need to know how? See my next post. P.S. Its EASY ;)

Sausage & Peppers

Recipe: Sausage & Peppers

Ingredients:

• 6 Italian Sausage (I use turkey)
• 2 Green Peppers
• 1 Red Pepper (I didn't use this, hubby isn't big on too much veggies)
• 1 large red onion
• 4 cloves garlic, minced
• 2 cans italian diced tomatoes 
• 2 tbs italian seasoning

Split between 2 bags (at least for our family- 2 adults and 1 infant), seal, mix, lay flat and freeze!

Directions:

• Cook on low for 6 hours
• Serve over hot noodles and with a side if you desire

10 Steps to Freezer Cooking.

Due to pinterest (of course) I came across this whole new world of Freezer Cooking a while ago and I thought "Cool! That would be handy" but I never got around to doing it. Well, I started it last week and I have to tell you it has completely changed my life already, hahah. I love it you guys! It takes a little time up front to plan and such but it makes my daily life feel so much easier! So I have compiled the 10 steps I have found to make this really work (and work well)!

I split these ten steps up between 2 separate days..

Day 1: 

1. Browse Sales:

      Get out your sales ads or search the internet. You don't want to do this and just pay full price for everything, now do you? No! Learn to browse sales. Check your favorite stores or stores in your area and see what they have going on. If you notice the grocery store right down the street is having a major sale on chicken then plan on having most of your meals with chicken and so on. 

2. Plan your menu:

      You can plan as far ahead as your heart desires. I have done a weekly plan system, but I am considering doing a monthly one in the future. Just do whatever works best for you. Browse cook books, websites, pinterest, etc and make a plan of which meals you want to cook on which days. Write it down.

3. Print/Write Down Recipes:

      Find a way that works for you and get the recipes right in front of you. Print them out, write them down, save them as PDFs in a folder on your computer.. whatever. Just find something that works for you so that you aren't trying to cook, stuff bags, and have a million websites to search all on the same day. Save yourself the trouble and organize them now. 

4. Compile a shopping list:

     Write down what you need and where you plan to get it from. Sometimes I shop at 5 different stores! It just depends on what's on sale at each store. 

5. Clip Coupons!

      For those of you reading this who know me, you know how crazy I am about coupons. For those of you who don't know me, now you know! Buy papers on Sunday! If you go to Dollar Tree they are only $1! Buy 1 for every person in your household plus 1 extra (minimum) every week. I get a ton every week, but that's another story for another post. ;)

Day 2:

6. Clean your kitchen, if you need to:

      Always always ALWAYSSS start with a completely clean kitchen. Trust me. The worst feeling is coming home with tons of groceries and then trying to do these next few steps in an already dirty kitchen. You'll set yourself up to feeling cranky and overwhelmed if you don't do this, so just clean it!

7. Shop:

      Plan your shopping trip before you leave the house. Chances are you will have more than one store to go to, so shop smart and efficiently. If there are stores on your list with items that do not need to be put away right away go there first and then move on to stores where you will have to run home after. 

8. Prep Work:

      Carry your groceries inside, put the kids down for a nap, tell your husband to leave you alone, and get to work! ;) First you are going to want to label your freezer bags! I put the date, name of recipe, and any cooking directions for day of. For example: 1/13 - Savory Chicken. Cook low 6 hours. Serve with a side veggies (this isn't an actual recipe). Next start doing any cooking that needs to be done according to your recipes. Most things that are cooked need to be cooled before placed into the bags, so as those things cool take that time to chop veggies and begin filling bags with other ingredients.

9. Freeze!:

      Follow your recipe and place everything you need into your bags. Push out as much air as you can, seal, lay flat and freeze! 

10. Clean Up:

      Sorry, but the mess isn't going to take care of itself sweetie. Clean it up! (Or if you're lucky the kids will do it, or your husband?) ;)

Viola! Welcome to freezer cooking!

Welcome!

Welcome! :)

I hope that you find something here that will engage your interest. If not, don't worry, I won't be offended. The plan for this blog is to let people inside of my life a little bit more as far as how I run my household, my business, and raise my child. I am not perfect and I make a million mistakes every single day, but that's the beauty of it!

Now this was requested from many of my family members, close friends, and acquaintances.. So to all of you (and you know who you are) here goes nothing!