Freezer Meals: Take 1

Yes, I have jumped on the freezer meal bandwagon and I am loving it! I made 2 family dinner servings of 5 different freezer meals. That's a total of 10 meals prepared and ready for the freezer or the crockpot in only a couple of hours!! How could you not love that?! Last weekend I had one of those rare nights when both kids were asleep by 7pm (I think it was all the geocaching we did that day). I figured I would seize the opportunity to start meal planning before I was ready for bed. Here is part of the outcome my couple of hours of hard super simple work...

The meals I made were:

Semi-Homemade Meat Sauce (1 dinner worth)
Homemade Meatballs (for either Meatball Parms or Spaghetti) (3 dinners worth)
My famous Sausage & Peppers (2 dinners worth)
Ring Around the Rosies's Teriyaki Chicken (2 dinners worth)
Homemade Sloppy Joes (2 dinners worth)

Unfortunately, when it comes to my own recipes for cooking I don't usual follow the "recipe" the same time twice. I do know though that I love finding new recipes to test out, so I will attempt to make some recipes for the meals I made.

ITEMS NEEDED FOR ALL MEALS:

 -Gallon Size Freezer Bags
 -Sharpie Marker

Note: I like to write the date, what is in the bag, time in the crockpot, and anything else that needs to be added into the crockpot

Semi-homemade Crockpot Meat Sauce (Freezer Version):

Ingredients:

1 lb ground beef browned

2 16oz an of tomato sauce (i use Hunt's Basil and Oregano)

1 tsp Italian seasoning

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp oregano

1/2 tsp black pepper

Freezing Directions: While browning ground beef, Mix all other ingredients in a medium size bowl and divide in half. Put one half in a gallon size freezer bag, and keep the rest to the side for later (italian meatballs). After ground beef has been browned and slightly cooled add that to the freezer bag with other ingredients and gently shake to mix in ground beef.  If you do not want to freeze, skip the freezer bag part and cook on low in Crockpot for approx 4hrs

Italian Meatballs (Freezer Version):

Ingredients:

3lbs of ground beef

2 eggs

1/2 cup of milk

1 cup of breadcrumbs

1 tsp of salt

2 tsp of oregano

2 tsp of basil

1 tsp of garlic powder

1 tsp of ground black pepper

1/2 cup of grated parmesan cheese

1 Tblspn of oil

Crockpot Meat Sauce

Directions: Mix all ingredients in a large bowl by hand. Heat up frying pan with a Tblspn of oil. Roll meatballs into golf size balls (i like to use a cookie scoop to do this) and place in heated frying pan. Continue to turn meatballs in frying pan until cooked on all sides. Remove meatballs from frying pan and place on paper towels. Continue until all meat mixture has been cooked. Divide meatballs evenly (makes about 60) and place in 3 freezer bags. Put a 1/3 of reserved sauce from recipe above in bag with meatballs and gently shake to mix. When ready to use, cook in crockpot and add a jar of your favorite sauce (or create sauce above minus ground beef). Cook on low for approximately 4hrs.

Serve over spaghetti or on italian rolls with parmesan & mozzarella cheese for meatball parms.

As the week goes on I will figure out how I make my sausage and peppers and sloppy joes and will get them posted for you all. For now I hope you enjoy these recipes. You will definitely not be disappointed with them, especially the Italian meatballs, they are DELICIOUS!!

Happy Hump Day!

<3 Kris
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