Freezer Meal Planning For 2

Ugh. After the end of a long day I really, really hate to open the fridge and think "Oh shit, I didn't defrost anything." Even with freezer meals, I still do that every once in awhile (and it's worse when Bimmer Man is home - he just says, what are you thinking for dinner? And what I want to reply is: GO LOOK IN THE FRIDGE AND MAKE DINNER WITH WHATEVER YOU FIND but then I remember that he can't cook, it really can feel like the 50's sometimes in our house... Oy).

But my other problem with freezer meals is that most recipes and items that I've found are really for families of 4+. That's not us at all. I really only cook for 1 1/2 (me and The Monkey). The other problem that I have is the crockpot - we just don't eat too many leftovers from crockpot meals other than beef stew. So when I came across this post and this post, I instantly did a fist pump and ran to Costco for chicken and pork.

Costco sells chicken in bulk (obviously) in packets of 2 boneless, skinless breasts and there are 6 packets stuck together. I bought two of those with making 12 meals total for chicken and then I bought a package of 8 boneless pork chops with plans for 4 pork meals.

So I was going to marinade 2 chicken breasts together in one freezer bag, basically halving whatever recipes I could possibly find that a 2 year old might like.

These are all recipes for defrosting from the freezer and making the meat on the stove or the grill - I make chicken funny as I've learned in the past few weeks - when I saute chicken I put the cover on the pan so it doesn't all splatter all over my kitchen. I hate cleaning. It works for me and I think it turns out juicier that way (maybe I cook it 7-9 minutes on each side). You will not find a crockpot recipe below!

I ended up making two of each from the Dump Chicken post -

Lemon Garlic
Garlic Dijon
Spicy Sweet Glaze (I omitted the "spice" keeping in mind my 2 year old)

From the Freezer Meals Prep post I also made two of each -

Greek Chicken
Sesame Chicken
Margarita Chicken
Oh So Easy Pork Chops
Marinated Pork Chops


The only recipe that my 2 year old didn't like was the Margarita Chicken. Everything else has been delicious and the leftovers were absolutely eaten the next day!

The next time I do freezer meals, I'll make only one margarita chicken and find another recipe - I don't think I'll have to do this again until August. There's enough variety here for us that I can make a meal of something beef and the next day I'll want chicken again!

Pulled Pork Sandwiches

Thank goodness these are so easy to make.

Just put pork in a slow cooker. Add in about 1/2 cup of chicken broth and a few squirts of ketchup.

Then when it's done: shred.

Into the crockpot add 3 tablespoons of honey, 1 bottle of BBQ sauce, a few dashes of ground mustard, some hot sauce if you want, pepper and you are good to go! Enjoy!

Maple Rosemary Glaze Pork Chops

 Searing away in the pan. YUM. I do have to say that I absolutely LOVE my cast iron pan. It's the best gift ever. It's been camping, moved across the country with me and has taught me how to make bacon. YUM.

This recipe is from Joelen at What's Cookin' Chicago. She has so many FABULOUS recipes and has totally inspired me to cook more in the kitchen. I've been wavering between frozen pizzas and plain baked chicken lately, so I've been awful about posting recipes. NO MORE, I say, I WILL BE A BETTER COOK and try more recipes and be more daring... BTW, Bimmer Man loved this so I will add this to a staple in my line up of recipes to make. And it's super easy!!!

Maple Rosemary Glazed Pork Chops
recipe adapted from The New Best Recipes

1/3 cup pure maple syrup (preferably grade B)
1 teaspoon dried rosemary, or 2 teaspoons fresh
4 thick sliced pork chops or pork loin
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoons ground black pepper
2 teaspoons vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees. Season both sides of each pork chop/pork loin slice.

Heat the oil in a heavy bottom skillet over medium high heat and when it just begins to smoke, add the pork. Sear on both sides until well browned, about 3 minutes per side. Transfer the seared pork onto a baking sheet and set aside.

Drain off the fat from the skillet; add the maple syrup and rosemary. Cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds to a minute. Place the pork back into the skillet to coat with the glaze and place the pork back onto the baking sheet.

Place the glazed pork into the preheated oven and bake for 15-20 minutes or until the pork registers about 135-140 degrees. Allow the pork to rest for a few minutes before serving.

Easy Pulled Pork

1 can of diced tomatoes
Pork, any cut, just make sure it can stand up to a slow cooker
3/4 - 1 cup BBQ sauce of any kind

Mix everything in the crockpot. Let sit on high 4 hours. When tender, pull apart and add back into the crockpot to mix with all the juices. Serve on a toasty bun with extra BBQ sauce and pickles.

MMM... Pork Chops.

Oh, yum. I didn't get a pick of them cooked though. We ate them too quickly. This is one of my marinades that I made regularly.

THE ingredient..

And you'll find the recipe HERE (From my archive of November 2009).

Everyone Needs A Pulled Pork Sandwich

Get the whole tomatoes. I swear it makes a difference. And BBQ sauce - you never know how many different types of BBQ sauce there is until you go to the store to look for a specific brand! Generally I'm not too picky, but I do like Sweet Baby Ray's BBQ sauce. And so does my mom (which is coming from someone who's from northern Minnesota who knows no other spices than salt and pepper... seriously!). You'll also need one onion, sliced thinly.
Once the pork is cooked in the crockpot, shred it.
Return it to the crockpot and then make your sauce a little thicker.
And then put together your sandwich. I kinda forgot which was the top and which was the bottom. Oops.

Pulled Pork Sandwich

1 can whole tomatoes
1 half bottle of your favorite BBQ sauce
1 onion, sliced thinly
Salt and pepper to taste
Pork shoulder, loin, butt, whatever large hunk 'o pork you can find at the grocer/butcher

Throw everything into the crockpot and let it sit for 7 - 8 hours. Sometimes longer, whatever. (This is super easy).

Then take out the pork and shred it, but before you start shredding, look into the crockpot. There's lots of good juices in there.

Pour almost all of it into a heavy bottom pot and add in 1/2 cup more BBQ sauce. Let simmer and thicken for 30 - 45 minutes or so (this should be a gentle simmer).

After you're done shredding the meat, put it back into the crockpot with some of the leftover juices, stir to combine.

Put together your sammies with the pork and BBQ sauce. Eh, voila! You have sandwiches for lunch for the next few days too!

Spaghetti With Turkey Meat Sauce

I love spaghetti and pasta and sauce and garlic bread and salad. And so does Bimmer Man. He used to not like spaghetti. At all. Now, if I give him a choice of spaghetti or penne, he'll take the spaghetti hands down (but if gnocchi is thrown into the mix, he'll take gnocchi).

And so, I've memorized an easy way to get rid of your leftovers and single cans of tomato sauce, diced tomatoes or whatever else you have. Seriously. Mostly I just throw stuff in the pan and hope that it turns out. I think that's what a lot of people do, so you'll notice that most what I cook for pasta sauce is similar but I like to change up the seasoning. This is my throwback meal when I need to clean out the pantry and take stock of what I need to buy at the grocery store.

So here it is:

1/2 to 1 lb ground turkey (or pork or beef or chicken, whatever)
1 - 2 cans tomato sauce
1 - 2 cans diced tomatoes or crushed tomatoes or whatever
1 onion, chopped
1 - 2 tbsp olive oil
1 tbsp Italian seasoning
2 cloves garlic, mashed through a garlic press or chopped (do you really want to smell like Rachael Ray tomorrow???)
Couple dashes of hot sauce OR cayenne pepper OR red pepper flakes

And optional:
1 medium eggplant cut into 1 inch pieces
1 summer squash, spaghetti squash or any squash, cut into 1 inch pieces
1 bell pepper, diced fairly finely
Any other vegetable that would hold up to simmer for 15 - 20 minutes without being too mushy

And then spaghetti, cooked 2 minutes AFTER al dente so it swirls around your fork correctly but it still has a bite.

Now:

Brown the meat, add the onions and garlic. Then the spices and the hot sauce or whatever you're using to give it a kick. And then the veggies if you're adding those, let brown a bit, maybe 3 minutes or so. Add all the cans of tomatoes.

Simmer 15 minutes or until the flavors have melted together and it tastes like spaghetti sauce.

And then eat over a plate full of spaghetti noodles.

AND then loosen the top button of your pants and sigh with relief that you'll have leftovers for the next few days so you don't have to cook if you don't want to.

UPCOMING RECIPE:

Challah Bread & something with pumpkin, I haven't decided yet.

Marinated Porkchops

Pork chops are my favorite. I don't eat red meat and pork is um, well, the other white meat so that's fine with me.

I love to marinate anything and everything and then saute it or pan fry it or sear it on the outside and finish it in the oven. There's just so much you can do!

So, here's the marinade:

1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup olive oil
1 tsp black pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced
Kosher salt - just a dash, there's already a lot of sodium in the soy sauce
1 tsp smoked paprika
Red pepper flakes - just enough for some heat
1 lemon - use 1/2 in the marinade, then add the other half to the juices in the pan, let reduce in half and pour over pork chops... YUM!

So, mix everything together, pour over pork chops in a glass dish. Let sit in fridge for a minimum of 15 minutes.

Using a heavy skillet, heat to medium-high heat and sear the first side for 3 - 5 minutes, then flip over, drop heat to medium to finish cooking them through for another 4 - 6 minutes.

After you've taken the pork chops out of the pan, squeeze the rest of the lemon around the pan, scrape up all the good tasty bits, let it reduce for about 2 minutes (this is a quick pan sauce) and pour over your plated pork chops.


I served these with steamed veggies. I'd also make cous cous but as it turns out, we were going out for appetizers at a later time so I didn't make any. Oh, well. Next time!

Enjoy!

Marsala Pasta

I absolutely love pasta. This is a great dish, but to be quite honest, don't actually drink the Marsala wine. It looks like worchestershire sauce. And this isn't really vegetarian because of the ham, but I bet you could leave out the ham or substitute in some veggies. Like summer squash or even zucchini or tomatoes or... Well, any veggie. Chick peas???
My mom bought dry marsala.
And I used leftover ham instead of pancetta.
Crushed red pepper and thyme.
Saute ham in about 2 tablespoons of butter. I generally use olive oil and butter together but I was too lazy the other day. No worries.
Add about 1/3 to 1/2 cup marsala to the ham after it's sauteed for maybe 5 minutes. And also add in the red pepper and thyme. No salt though, the ham is salty and so is the parmesan!
Let simmer for a few minutes while the pasta cooks to al dente.
And then add about 3/4 cup to 1 cup cream. Notice that I'm slacking here. I kinda look at a recipe but didn't really follow it. I just liked the ingredients so I threw stuff together (um, FYI - it's inspired by Loni Anderson's Marsala Pasta. I will type it up one day but my mother is currently READING the cookbook. I can't take that away now, can I?).
And then add 3/4 cup of parmesan to the pan with the marsala sauce, drop in the unrinsed pasta with about 1/2 cup of pasta water (I don't like my fettucine too sticky). and this is what you have. Marsala pasta.

Now, I must say that cooking in someone else's kitchen is way too weird. I mean, I'm a REALLY messy cook and I feel like I can't really cook because I can't be too messy. Plus there's not much counterspace and I'm used to more.

But alas, I'm making excuses and I shouldn't do that.

Trust me, after we make a trip to the Farmer's Market next weekend, I'll have many more vegetarian recipes to share! And I might even post Loni's original recipe for Marsala Pasta. That's on my to-do list.

Boneless Pork Ribs in the Crockpot

Fairly easy. Just gather up ingredients that you need to get rid of. I mean eat.
Chop everything up. Use the garlic press if you have one - I felt like chopping though.
Toss it into a bowl.
Add more stuff: ketchup, red wine viniagrette, honey, a bit of olive oil
And worchestershire sauce, about 1/4 cup of soy sauce, salt, pepper, etc... See? I told you - we're moving so I've just been mixing whatever I can together to make sure that we don't have that much food leftover.
And ground mustard. Maybe a teaspoon.
Whisk it all together and then pour over the ribs in the crockpot. I layered the crockpot with 2 cans of black beans, one onion and then the ribs. I didn't add any other juices, because you don't really need that much water for a slow cooker.

Then the usual - 7 - 8 hours on low, 4 - 5 hours on high.
And they'll fall apart!

Food Policies and the Election

By now you've probably deduced that I'm very liberal. I'm a tree hugging, cooking, photo-taking, Kiss-My-Face soap using (soon to be Sappo Hill soap using with no packaging), true-to-form Democrat.

And I buy grain fed chicken. And Bio Bags for my Bimmer Dog's poo.

But as an environmentalist, even hearing energy policies, I still want to know more. And so I've done some research.

Here's a summary of McCain's and Obama's proposed policies within this lovely American economy today for food. For human energy. Yep, that's right, something that they haven't discussed within the debates yet. And probably won't be.

Direct link to Obama's "Real Leadership for Rural America"

Direct link to McCain's "Prosperity for Rural America"

BTW - I actually poached chicken for the very first time last night. I popped my poaching chicken cherry and it tasted fantastic! That's to come later this week...

PSH

Byerly's Wild Rice Soup

Being from Minnesota, wild rice was a staple in my diet growing. There's nothing like the wild rice you get from the North Woods. And there's nothing else like Byerly's Wild Rice Soup. I made a double batch of this last night - being away from Minnesota for two years has take a toll on our eating habits and I'm starting to miss hot dish, wild rice and finnish pancakes along with lefse.

I didn't make any changes in the recipe - although now I wish I would've added two cloves of mashed garlic and 1 - 2 cups of good white wine. Oh, well! Next time!

You find the original recipe here along with so many more favorites from this "upscale" grocery store and restaurant. I'll definitely list it here too (copy and pasting yes, because I'm totally admitting that I stole it - and for good cause!) - And the next time I defrost some, I swear I'll take a picture!

Byerly's Wild Rice Soup




Ingredients

• 6 tablespoons margarine or butter
• 1 tablespoon minced onion
• 1/2 cup flour
• 3 cups chicken broth
• 2 cups cooked wild rice
• 1/2 cup finely grated carrots
• 1/3 cup minced ham
• 3 tablespoons chopped slivered almonds
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup half and half
• 2 tablespoons dry sherry, (optional)
• snipped fresh parsley or chives

Directions
In large saucepan, melt margarine; saute onion until tender. Blend in flour; gradually add broth. Cook, stirring constantly, until mixture comes to a boil; boil and stir 1 minute. Stir in rice, carrots, ham, almonds and salt; simmer about 5 minutes. Blend in half and half and sherry; heat to serving temperature. Garnish with snipped parsley or chives.

Amount: 6 cups.

Tip: One-half cup uncooked wild rice=1 1/2 to 2 cups, cooked.

PSH

Grilled Mustardy Pork Chops

I totally made this one up myself. The actual cooking times are from one of Rachel Ray's books (as I am totally not the person to be cooking the perfect steak or anything like that. I tend to always over cook everything, so I decided to stick to her cooking times). And I LOVE, LOVE pork chops. My dad used to make these grilled paprika pork chops, but I still can't quite duplicate the recipe, so I'll post that one when I can actually figure it out!

4 pork chops

Marinade:
2 tbsp grainy mustard, such as "Grey Poupon"
1/4 - 1/2 cup olive oil
Pepper & a LITTLE salt to taste
1 tbsp worchestershire sauce
1 tsp garlic powder
1 tsp paprika
1 bay leaf

Combine all ingredients for the marinade in one dish. Combine with a whisk. Put the pork chops in a glass dish or in a ziploc bag. Pour marinade over pork chops. Marinade for 1 hour to overnight in the refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Sear meat for 3 minutes on each side in a grill pan. Then put in oven for 10 - 12 minutes. Let the chops rest for 5 minutes.

Serve with mashed potatoes & gravy (with juices from the grill pan) or wild rice.

Yum!!!

PSH